- The state film “The Wings of Songs”, released in China on March 28.
- It shows Uighur Muslims living peacefully alongside Han Chinese.
- In reality, Uighurs are heavily monitored and detained in their homeland, Xinjiang.
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China has launched a propaganda musical that purportedly portrays the lives of Uighur Muslims, which does not mention mass surveillance and systematic human rights abuses.
“The Wings of Songs”, which premiered in China on March 28, tells the story of a Uighur, a Kazakh and a Han Chinese who form a musical group in the Xinjiang region.
In the film, the relationship between Uighurs and Han Chinese is described as the “seeds of a pomegranate”, according to The New York Times.
In fact, Beijing has sought, since at least 2017, to erase Uighur culture, detaining more than a million Uighurs in hundreds of Xinjiang prison camps.
Earlier this year, the US State Department said the crackdown was tantamount to genocide. Canada and the Netherlands have already said the same.
Chinese authorities in recent years have forced Uighurs to adopt the dominant Han Chinese culture, trying to reduce the birth rates of Uighurs with
birth control
plans and monitored all their movements.
But “The Wings of Songs” ignores all of these issues, according to analyzes by Agence France-Presse and the Times.
Prominent examples of cultural laundering in the film include the fact that there are no references to Islam, AFP said, adding that more than half of Xinjiang’s population is Muslim.
Likewise, Uighur men in the film are depicted shaving and drinking alcohol, while Uighur women are seen without their traditional headscarves, the Times said.
“The notion that Uighurs can sing and dance, so there is no genocide – it just isn’t going to work,” Nury Turkel, an American Uighur lawyer, told the Times.
“Genocide can take place anywhere beautiful.”
A protest against China’s treatment of Uighurs in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2020.
Murad Sezer / Reuters
Although it makes headlines abroad, the film appears to have been a wet abortion at the Chinese box office.
On Monday, he had generated only $ 109,000, according to data from the ticket sales company for Maoyan films, quoted by the Times.
The state tabloid Global Times reported that the film was inspired by the success of the 2016 Oscar-winning musical, “La La Land”.
Last month, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada announced sanctions against two Chinese officials for “serious human rights abuses” against Uighurs.
Last week, António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said he had started negotiations with Beijing to secure a visit to Xinjiang so that the genocide charges could be examined.
China has denied the existence of the camps, and state media have criticized the United States in recent weeks for meddling in its internal affairs.