On Writing About Syria’s Uyghur Community As a Chinese-American
All photos by Emily Feng The story began like this: I was moving back to the United States, after having lived abroad for the last ten years, working as a foreign correspondent, and while all my belongings were being shipped.
The author, Emily Feng, is a Chinese-American journalist who spent nearly eight years living in Beijing and worked as a foreign correspondent abroad for ten years. She speaks fluent Mandarin and has a deep understanding of Chinese culture. After moving back to the United States, she temporarily assisted NPR in covering developments in Lebanon. While there, the fall of the Assad regime in neighboring Syria made it the primary focus of her reporting. Feng’s background and identity played a significant role in how she approached reporting on the Uyghur community in Syria, a task she found both professionally and personally complex.
During her reporting in Syria, Feng noticed the presence of foreign fighters, including Central Asian and Uyghur individuals. The Uyghurs are an ethnic minority group from China’s Xinjiang region, where they have faced mass detentions and human rights abuses since 2017. After months of negotiations, Feng and her team secured the first-ever on-the-record media interviews with Uyghur fighters in Syria. Approximately 20,000 Uyghur men, women, and children live in northern Syria, primarily in the city of Idlib. Many of them did not initially intend to join militant groups but described traumatic experiences in China, such as physical violence, discrimination, and the threat of detention, which pushed them toward armed resistance.
Reporting on the Uyghur community in Syria was highly sensitive due to political and historical complexities. The Chinese government views Uyghur militants as extremists and terrorists, citing their involvement in fatal attacks against civilians. In Syria, the presence of foreign fighters, including Uyghurs, is a contentious issue, as it raises concerns among minority communities and local Syrians. To address these sensitivities, Feng ensured she interviewed not only the Uyghurs but also the Syrians they lived and fought alongside. This approach aimed to provide a balanced and nuanced perspective on the community’s role in the conflict.
Feng’s Chinese-American identity and appearance posed unique challenges while reporting on the Uyghurs. She was cautious about speaking Mandarin, as the language could trigger trauma for Uyghurs who associated it with oppression in China. Initially, she even removed a jade bangle, a symbol of protection in Chinese culture, to avoid making Uyghurs uncomfortable. However, she found that the Uyghurs were warmly welcoming and did not hold personal animosity toward Chinese people. Instead, their hostility was directed at the Chinese government. Some Uyghurs were eager to speak Mandarin with Feng, as it was a language they had used in Xinjiang but no longer had the opportunity to practice in Syria.
The Uyghurs in Syria live in Idlib, a city in northern Syria that has been devastated by over 13 years of war. The infrastructure is severely damaged, with no functioning hotels available. Feng rented a furnished apartment with a diesel-fueled water heater that produced black smoke but lacked a showerhead, forcing her to take bucket baths for a month. Despite these harsh conditions, Feng considered the discomfort worthwhile, as it allowed her to spend extended time with the Uyghurs and local Syrians, gaining deeper insights into their experiences and perspectives.
Many Uyghurs in Syria are putting down roots by buying land, building houses, and enrolling their children in local schools. However, their stated dream remains returning to China to fight, a prospect that is highly implausible. Permanent settlement in Syria is a taboo topic among the community. The author also observed the impact of trauma on Uyghur families. A father noted that his Syrian-born Uyghur children were calmer and more extroverted than his children born in China, likely due to the lack of state control and discrimination in Syria. However, the Syrian-born children had little connection to the cause of Uyghur independence, as they had never seen Xinjiang.
Feng’s experiences in Syria became the foundation for her book, *Our Hearts Burned for Home*. The book aims to highlight the complex and often difficult paths taken by the Uyghurs she interviewed. It does not present a simple narrative of heroes and villains but instead focuses on the agency and voices of individuals caught in conflicts beyond their control. Feng hopes readers will empathize with the Uyghurs and Syrians, recognizing that trauma and war often force people to make choices between difficult options. The book is published by Columbia Global Reports and is available for purchase.
