Grudgingly, China sniffs opium of the masses

(##include msid=43376741,type=11##) LIN XIA (Central China): At 2.30 pm on Friday,the main city square is buzzing with the faithful - men in skull caps, women inveils and headscarves and little children trailing their parents out of the citymosque. "Salaam Aleikum! Enta Arabia?" Are you Arabic, asks a youngman stopping his bike. He rides off, disappointed at being unable to show offhis prowess with the language. This is not some West Asian city, buta tiny town called Lin Xia in a prefecture by the same name in the southern partof Gansu province. It's one of the few administrative units that arepredominantly Muslim, or Hui in Mandarin, in the Han-majority nation.Regions like this have been a massive ideological and politicalbattlefield in revolutionary China as atheist Communist leaders, who still holddear the Marxist doctrine that religion is the opium of the masses, first shutout the religious minorities and later grudgingly shut their eyes to them,leaving places such as Lin Xia to remain poor and desolate. But asDeng Xiaoping ordered China to globalise, these pockets of obsolescence whichhad to be restored with the world, demanded more religious and politicaltolerance from the emerging superpower. Now, albeit in rare fits oftransparency, Beijing winks at foreign journalists visiting and even talking toMuslim leaders and walking in and out of mosques armed with TV cameras.The government has allowed tourists who want to re-live the SilkRoute to cross through this area also known as China’s Little Mecca.In 2004, it allowed a Nottingham-based NGO called Muslim Hands toset up an office to provide medical help to the locals and an Indonesianfoundation to build a mosque with money from Surabaya. For a generation of Chinese,being Hui was a hurdle to good jobs and even education. But now the CommunistParty has allowed teaching of Arabic to children and spanking new mosques gleamin the undulating pastoral landscape. Muslim women are hard todistinguish from their Han compatriots because few year headscarves and mostride the ubiquitous bicycle with a shopping basket attached to the handlebarsjust the way other Chinese women do. These are the only areas wherethe Chinese system allows for affirmative action, setting quotas for Muslims(and Tibetans in areas dominated by them) in jobs, schools and even the localparty leadership. One person who clawed his way to prominence is MaXue Zhi, the party information chief for the prefecture, a post that was oncelabelled propaganda head. Ma says, somewhat predictably though, thatthere’s no discrimination at all. But the Muslims too have to assimilate.He also seems to have no problem in the official definition ofMuslims as an ethnic group rather than as a religious group, something theCommunists have done to avoid getting into a situation where they have torecognise Christians and Buddhists among the Han Chinese as a distinct entity."Look at me! My name is Mohammed Mane, but I was given a Han Chinesename" he says sipping warm green tea and sucking in cigarette smoke.True, you can hardly tell him to be a Muslim, given his regulationcrew cut hair and the monochromatic terrycot shirt and trousers."No, I am not losing my Muslim identity, but since I socialise somuch with other Chinese and even foreign visitors, it helps to have two names,"he says.