Chinese thoughts on Islam and Muslims

[MultaniGuy]

You do make very good points. However, you can't compare western society(especially western European countries and the U.S/Canada) who have been interacting and living with the outside world and people from different religions /cultures for over a century now with a homogenous country like China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong-Kong etc.
Moreover, these countries don't necessarily have the type of political correctness we have here in the west, hence they tend to be more straightforward in their views and remarks about certain sensitive issues which might raise controversies here in the west, contrary to east Asia who has a different culture, history, traditions and way of doing things. So I don't think you should compare both societies, it's like comparing apples and oranges.


How does he think these opportunities in Canada came about?
Plus he can't say if he 'had a choice ', we all have choices in live, especially when it comes to immigrating to a country thousands of miles away from your continent leaving the dozens of peaceful countries in the region to go a far way foreign land. That's definitely by choice I'm afraid. I'm sure there are also opportunities in KSA, Iran, Qatar, Turkey etc etc.
As I said it depends on your priorities and what what you want in life.


Lol You do make a good point, at least you acknowledge you were not getting what you wanted in Pakistan which happens to be a Muslim country?
It's for this reason I said it depends on your priorities in life. Is it wealth, security and stability and a better life for your family (children) you are after?
Or is it more about focusing more on your religion, culture, values and way of life?
There are a few pious Muslims who will never leave their country for a country who doesn't have anything Islamic at all and whose values /way of life is totally different from what they know their holy book prescribes. To such people their religion /values /virtue is more important than wealth and other material things they can get from emigrating to a western country for a better life.
So it still depends on what everyone's priorities are and what they think is more important.

You do make excellent points there.

 

[Cybernetics]

We can talk about history openly without a bad taste in our mouth. Indeed China has dealt with a lot of terrible things in its history but we don't have the feeling of vengeance or anger, only redemption through empowering oneself and understanding the world. This is caused by the simple reason because we are guided by Chinese philosophy and not religion as one knows it in the West.

In religion there is this battle between good and evil, one always puts oneself on the side of good and everything that is going against you in the world is evil. Thus one feels compelled to rid the world of evil and might act upon it when empowered (coerced by political gain). The view of good and evil is very useful if one's society is weak and scattered, it makes the enemy clear and empowers its individuals but what happens when your society becomes strong and win that battle of good and evil? Religious entities from the middle east and europe have never dealt with the reality/history of ruling their civilisation under a single religion.

Chinese views things very differently, one is not necessarily good or bad, your opponents are not necessarily good or bad, we don't judge people or societies like that. There is only what is or isn't. We see imperialism and religious wars in Chinese history as just another force of nature that we should overcome within China, just like how we build dams and infrastructure, we think reality is something man can try to overcome. We don't have an evangelical compulsion to spread our world view globally. This causes us to view the west, Islam, Christianity as entities neutrally but they have their defining characteristics. Whether those characteristics are helpful for certain contexts are up for debate but we think there is reasons that they existed in the first place in the context of human history.

Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, etc. formed in an environment when the natural state is constant wars with the nearest tribe, due to geography. Thus one can be binary, to empower one's tribe in the hopes of unifying this bloody mess of politics, and bring the peace of your view. China's natural state is peace due to long history of unification (occasional wars), when the civilisation is unified with a binary philosophy of good and evil the leader in charge becomes a tyrant/霸 (ba) that doesn't allow for room for development. If you think China today is very constricting, if religion in its traditional form rules China it will become even more tyrannical, the west or middle east have yet to see a unified civilisation that have lasted multiple cycles. Having to deal with the reality of a unified realm, Chinese scholars developed extensive philosophy in coping with this reality, trying to overcome the problem of the tyrant. Confucian philosophy tries to compel the ruler to be actively empathetic/understanding to its members of society, avoid being a tyrant and compels him to not view the world so black and white, to understand that there are things he doesn't understand and must seek to understand.

Chinese has multiple works of philosophy in governance. It comes down to the struggle in making our dictating body more suitable for our development because whatever the case is, a unified and stable China will only have one source of ultimate power.

Rujia or Confucian philosophy
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Confucianism#ref1008344

 

[帅的一匹]

Not exactly. China media has the tendency of anti-US .Most of Chinese people has sympathy on Middle east muslim people who suffered a lot.
As for Islam, most of non-muslim Chinese got their impression from the experience dealing with Ugyhur and Hui muslims.
Not very good, to be honest.


Actually, Chinese muslims did commit something similar with what Yellow Turbans had done in ancient China more than one time. But most of Chinese people have little knowledge about the long history of China.
Only in some special areas like Shanxi and Gansu province where a large scale of rebellion occurred one and half century ago, there are horrible stories about the rebellion of Chinese muslim passed on from generation to next generation.

In 1860's, Hui Sufistic ideology and Muslim rebellion slaughtered 12 millions Hans in order to set up an independent Islamic country in Qinghai and Gansu province from the Central Qing Regime.

It failed in the end.

You don't get your eyes wrong, it's 12 millions People life taken.

Religious difference will lead to conflict and confrontation if the goverment is not strong and assertive enough.

 

[帅的一匹]

Today I would more likely to take Hui as a Chinese minority group rather than emphasizing Their Muslim identity.

The difference between Hui Muslim and Uygher Muslim is that Hui Muslim had Chinese Han's blood and Uyghers don't. And Hui is more open and willing to practice Chinese traditional culture than Uyghers.

 

[Adam WANG SHANGHAI MEGA]

What if it is part and parcel of religion to consider it superior to others ?

What if religion teaches you that its gods are supreme and praying to others (Buddha, Jesus etc.), or performing rituals of others makes you lesser ?

Lol

I agree that Muslims people are hot tempered, especially toward non-Muslims.

I wonder if this kind of discussion need to be discussed?

Btw, Chinese people are not perfect too. Chinese are aggressive.

May be this is already near the end of the world. I read Koran and many indicators already exist.

Changing other person is the hardest thing in the world, forget about changing the whole world. As long as I keep myself being positive, it's good enough.

I have a feeling that the Armageddon war is near.

If chinese is so aggressive you must speak chinese instead of your mother language,even when china had the most powerful navy during the early Ming dynasty,they have never invaded anyone and taken any lands belong to others,of course they had some wars but self defense only,answer me for thousands of years,why China continues to build and repare the Great wall,because they want to protect their family and lands!
It was obvious,the emperors finally realized the great wall can not hold mongolians forever and ancient chinese were tired to deal with mongolians year afte year ,year after year and year after year...............that is why finally they incorporated their lands and their people ino China one for all.
it is like you have a bad neighbour,he pissed you off again and again,again and again,and then again and again ,what you gonna do???
China is a Passive defense empire!!!