"Minority Peoples in China"
Du Bois, Shirley Graham, “Minority Peoples in China,” Freedomways (Spring 1961)
The first overwhelming impression of the People's Republic of China is of its many people. They are all along the way as one drives in from the airport – on foot carrying loads on their backs, driving carts, pulling carts, driving oil tanks, in pedicarts and motor trucks, on bicycles. They are in the nearby fields, working the ground or constructing buildings beside the road. When one drives through the gap in Peking’s ancient wall, the throng multiplies. And one is struck by the many different kinds of people, different colors of skin, varying sizes and contour of face. The westerner is prone to exclaim, “But they don’t look Chinese!”
Density of population in China was cited in the past as excusing the crimes of the exploiters. Cheap labor was “natural” because laborers were so numerous. Floods and famine were explained as dispensations of a “divine Providence” which thinned out overcrowded cities. Today this land is rapidly coming to contain one-fourth of the total world population, but nobody in China deplores the fact. Nobody is worried about it. Where once was fear and dread is now confidence. Of all the rich resources of the land none is so highly valued, none so carefully tended, none promises so bountiful a return as its many people.
About six percent of the 680 million people in China belong to national minorities which, in the past, were driven or fled into the mountains or most distant border regions. Oppressed and exploited by the ruling majority, despised, excluded from development in the regions, hunted down by Japanese invaders and enslaved by Kuomintang despots, many of these people lived in the most primitive conditions. The new Government now names fifty-one different minority nationalities which were separated from each other and from the dominant majority by location, language, customs and rigid laws forbidding marriage, or indeed, any contact outside the community. This classification, however, will be even larger if dialects, differing religion and tribal affiliations be taken into account. The one common denominator between all these minorities was fear and hatred towards other peoples. No matter how primitive was the social system, whether tribal, slave or feudal, each nation had its own small ruling class at the top, with its mass of degraded toilers at the bottom. And each had its fierce religious taboos, superstitions and priesthood.
In some cases the minority people had been the original inhabitants of the land (as were our own Indians), but had been pushed back, though not destroyed, by the Hans who have been the dominant people for near two thousand years. When the Manchus came to power in China they imposed cruel oppression on all non-Manchu nationalities. Even the proud Hans were forced to till the earth. In time, however, Han landlords shared with Mongol princes and Manchu nobles in holding high position and ruling all other peoples. Gradually the Manchurians were absorbed by the Hans until by the beginning of the 20th Century only the Manchu dynasty could be sure of “pure” Manchurian blood and only in the Imperial Court and in a small northwest province was the language of the Manchus spoken or written. The 94 percent of majority Hans now represent the Han people plus vanished nationalities and individuals of nationalities which through hundreds of years they have absorbed.
Not all minority peoples were concentrated in a particular territory. As example, the Huis, numbering about 3,900,000 are scattered throughout China. These people are descendants of Arabs, Turks, and Persians who migrated to China between the 8th and 9th centuries. The first to come were soldiers sent by the Abbasid Caliph al Mansur in 756 to help the reigning Tang Emperor suppress a rebellion in China’s northwest regions. After victory these men were granted land and settled down, marrying local women. A little later, Arab and Persian merchants began arriving in China. During the Tang and Sung dynasties many of them made their homes permanently in China. These were Muslims who brought their faith with them. Records show that in the year 878 there were 200,000 foreigners (mainly Muslims, but also Christians and Jews) in Canton alone. But the Huis have suffered long and continued persecution. Right through Kuomintang rule they were mocked as “people with queer ways”. As late as 1948 two mosques – one in Peking and one in Tientsin -were destroyed by Chiang Kai-shek’s troops. To escape discrimination in education and employment, many Huis, like other minority people, concealed their origin.
Such was the situation with regard to minority peoples when Peoples Republic of China was established in 1949. The years of wars and constant struggle from 1911, when the Manchu dynasty was forced to abdicate, to the victory of the People’s Liberation Army in 1949, had brought little change in the regions occupied by national minorities. They had been forced to fight by warlords; boys had been dragged off to the Army and left dying on the road. War had only made their lot harder and brought famine into every home. But now it was the task of the new Government to convince these peoples that the triumph of the Liberation Army was their triumph, that they too had been liberated from the old life of hardships, to show them the path to a better way of life. This was a most difficult task.
Article III of the Peoples Constitution declared:
The People’s Republic of China is a single multi-national state. All nationalities are equal. Discrimination against, or oppression of any nationality, and acts which undermine the unity of nationalities are prohibited.
All nationalities have freedom to use and foster the growth of their spoken and written languages, and to preserve or reform their own customs and ways.
Regional autonomy applies in areas where people of national minorities live in compact communities. National autonomous areas are inalienable parts of the People’s Republic of China.
Stating a policy is one thing. Carrying it out in face of century old customs, patterns of thought, backwardness, prejudices and ignorance is something else. With the minimum of delay and the maximum of good will, the Chinese approached this task in the simplest and most direct manner. The areas where minority peoples lived were the poorest in all China. And so the first representatives of the new Government brought food and clothing. They brought salt. Doctors, most of them women, without lectures or criticism, began helping mothers with their children, began tending the sick and old people. The first reaction to these newcomers was suspicion, hatred and distrust. Sometimes the head of a village or clan flew into a rage and ordered them away or isolated them. But then came others with seed for planting, in some cases they brought in the first plows ever seen in the area and here and there were bands of strong, young workers who began opening roads and building bridges. Even the most ferocious animal in time recognizes a friend. And these minority peoples were not animals. Silently they watched the newcomers hastily build a bigger house – bigger than any house they had ever seen. Timidly, they asked questions. “This is a school for your children,” They were told. But they did not know the meaning of the word “school.”
In 1951, on the outskirts of Peking, the College of Nationalities was opened. “College” was a rather ambitious designation, reflecting the plan for the school rather that what, at the time, it actually was. In the beginning, the College of Nationalities was simply an institution offering schooling to anyone who because he or she was a member of a minority nationality, had been denied education. The schooling was given on whatever level was required. From the outlying minority regions were sent the brightest and most alert of the young people who, in addition to being taught fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic, were taught how to analyze and renew worn out soil, improved planting and harvesting methods, land drainage and land irrigation. Each student was also given some understanding of his own nation’s history and a realization of why his people were as they were. Backwardness was shown as the result of oppression and superstition. No attempt was made to change the students cultural patterns or religion. Because there are eating taboos for adherents of certain faiths, special kitchens were set up in the College of Nationalities where cooks prepared different foods in carefully separated spots.
Within an amazingly short time these students were returning home to become teachers in the newly built schools. Westerners might look with disdain upon these young teachers, many of them still in their teens, who only the year before could neither read nor write. But they knew their job. Where a schoolhouse had been built, they assembled the children. If there was no schoolhouse they set about building one. They went to the fields and talked quietly to the workers gave them handfuls of fresh seed and suggested how it might be handled. Old methods are not easily uprooted, especially in a land where what ones ancestors did was regarded as sacred, but when the new ways were shown to be easier and to produce more crops, the elders began taking notice. The young teachers were patient and steadfast. Slowly, at first, and then more rapidly, changes became apparent.
Among the most backward peoples of the world were the Yis who lived along the northeastern border of Yunnan. An unsatisfactory census taken in 1950 estimated 70,000 people of Yi nationality. Some five percent were slave-owners, holding more than two thirds of all land. Fourteen per cent were outright slaves, living about the households of their masters, who could sell, give away or kill them. Thirty-three per cent were serfs who had the use of small patches of land on which to grow, but who had to work in the master’s fields. Their children were not regarded as freeborn, but as slaves. The Yis were divided into two castes – Black Yis (Nosu) and White Yis (Punosu). The minority of Black Yis was the ruling caste, while White Yis were the slaves who worked under the whip and ate the leavings from their masters meals. Some masters fettered the feet of the slaves after work at night. And the distinction of Black and White Yis did not come from skin coloring. But because, down through the ages, it was said and believed that Black Yis had black bones!
This was one of the more difficult minority regions and the new Peoples Government approached the problem on a level which took into account the powerful ruling class. It encouraged the settling of ancient feuds and attempted to bring together contending nobles who lived in constant fear of each other. They too were ignorant, backward and lived without comfort. Masters were helped to understand that change would benefit their entire nation and thus provide them with the opportunity to advance themselves. Some were soon willing to try out the plans offered by the People’s Government. This called for the freeing of all slaves and more time was necessary persuasion and arguments. When the slaves were freed and the land redivided, the owners were allowed to keep a reasonable number of fields, all their cattle, houses, farm implements and stores of grain. Most nobles were not too unhappy about this. But it would be unreasonable to suppose that all were willing to be separated from any part of their lands or to give up one slave. Some resisted to the bitter end. The last resort of the new People’s Government was to invoke the law. The new Constitution abolished slavery within the borders of the People’s Republic of China. The slaves had to have land. The Government redivided the land, provided the liberated slaves with building material for homes, draught animals, seed grain and farm tools. By the summer of 1957, agriculture among the Yis was proceeding through mutual cooperation. Former masters and former slaves today point to the marvelous improvements in their mode of living.
The minority nationalities concentrated on the border areas of Yunnan Province had no written language. China’s linguists are now compiling outlines of their four-fifths of the minority languages throughout the country, with phonetics, grammar, vocabulary and development. The seven nationality languages whose outlines have been completed are those of the Hani, Tai, Kawa, Nahsi, Lahu, Lisu and Chingpo peoples. This includes altogether about 1,800,000 people. Since liberation linguists have designed scripts for the language and created written languages where they did not exist. Editors are now compiling simple books and dictionaries to facilitate study by minority peoples.
One of the smallest national groups in China are the Olunchuns. They were formerly wandering tribes of hunters whose hunting grounds were on the northern spurs of the small Khingan Mountains, in northeast China. Cone-like birch bark tents were their only homes. They migrated from place to place according to their hunting activities. Primitive life in this cold, mountainous region were extremely hard even without Japanese invaders and cruel oppression from war-lords. As it was, the Olunchuns almost dwindled away. In 1949 the People’s Government have their figure as 910.
The new government provided the Olunchuns with grain, guns, cartridges and clothing. They paid them for serving as forest fire protection squads. In time houses were built for them to settle down in. They were also taught farming which had heretofore been unknown among them. Seed and farm implements were provided. As the peoples’ interest developed hunting and farming “parties” were organized. Gradually they learned to eat cereal and cloth took the place of animal skins as their clothing.
The new Olunchun Autonomous Hsiang is a settlement located in Hsunke County, Heilungkiang Province. It consists of sixty-seven households with Olunchuns comprising eighty per cent of the population. Early in 1958 the settlement formed four brigades for hunting, agriculture, deer breeding and subsidiary occupations. By the end of the year, the settlement’s earnings rose 159 per cent. The area under crops has been expanded, giving an output of nearly 600 kilogrammes for each person. These people are now not only self-sufficient in cereals, but are even able to sell some grain. It is a notable fact that during the recent months when so much of China’s cultivated land was washed away and famine threatened certain regions, the Olunchuns of the northeast were able to rush grain to stricken areas.
The Olunchuns have now developed fur and leather tanning. They have a maternity home, nursery, school and library. All school-age children have free education. Some are in Middle Schools, others have been sent to the College of the Nationalities in Peking.
Though there are now Nationality Institutes in nearly every province in China where students may receive Normal School or Technical Training, in February of 1959 there were 2,498 students from forty-six national minorities registered at the College of Nationalities in Peking. This institution is now a college in every sense of the word and only students who have completed Secondary and Middle Schools are admitted. Instruction here is given in the Han language which these advanced students must now thoroughly master. A number also attend the Foreign Language Institute which is close by where they broaden their education by learning Russian, French, English or German. These young people of differing national backgrounds are now being trained for leadership in the entire Peoples Republic of China. They may go into advanced scientific study, engineering – the whole world is theirs! Wherever they are and whatever they do, they will be integrating their people into the cultural and scientific advancement of the whole country. And wherever they go or whatever they become they will carry with them the rich, cultural background of their national heritage, which in the days now forever gone, it was wisest and safest to hide.
They are the favored ones, today, these young people of once despised national minorities. And other Chinese smile indulgently, and say softly, “We are all Chinese! China has endured and is itself because of its many people.”