In letter to advertising agencies, the main state television CCTV warned that “since China is a multi-cultural country, out of respect for the religious convictions of Muslims, images of pigs must be avoided in 2007.” TV sources said: “This was indicated to us from top government quarters... to protect harmony between different religions and ethnic groups”.
It seems that the order has come from the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party that wants the Year of the Pig (starting on 18 February) to be celebrated without offending the country’s 21 million Muslims.
The order has created problems for big firms: they had already designed their publicity spots, focused on the presence of pigs, but now they must create new ones within a few days. Nestlé had prepared a cartoon of a beaming little pig celebrating a “Happy Year of the Pig”. Coca Cola had two cartoons, one with a panda and the other with a pig, but they will not broadcast the one with the pig in areas with big Muslim communities.
The media have given the news importance and reported the enthusiastic response from Muslim communities. For example, Huo Engjie, director in Shanghai of the Association of Minorities, said: “Even if we [Muslims] are less than 2% of the Chinese population, this ban shows how much the government respects us. It’s really moving.”
The Muslim population in China is divided into Hui – Chinese who have converted to Islam – and Uighurs.
The Hui, around 15 million, are present especially in Ningxia (Central China), Shaanxi, Qinghai and Beijing.
Beijing has always displayed considerable tact towards them. For decades, while Catholics were forbidden from going to Rome, the government subsidized Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca.
However, China implements a repressive and colonizing policy towards the Uighurs (of Turkish origin, around eight million), aimed at putting a stop to autonomist aspirations and fundamentalist infiltrations from Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to a Xinjiang daily, in 2005 China arrested 18,227 Uighurs on charges of “threatening national security”. Hundreds have been condemned to death. In January, police attacked a training camp and killed 18 Muslim Uighurs, claiming without proof that that they were terrorists.
For some years, tension has also been growing with the Hui, above all for social reasons. The Han – the Chinese race par excellence – are preferred in employment and trade and this has created resentment among the Hui and consequent clashes. There has also been a growth of Muslim integralism among the Hui, owing to the influence of pilgrimages and the meeting of the “Chinesized” Islam of the Hui with more fundamentalist Pakistani and Saudi doctors of the Koran.
The decision to ban images of the pig is an attempt to show, at home and abroad,
RSS