Xinjiang begins to blossom again with peace and stability
By Makhdoom Babar
President & Editor-in-Chief
(Continuing from yesterday)
At the same time there was immense anger amongst the delegation members about the Western media and Western government officials who had constantly been putting completely wrong picture with comprehensively distorted facts. Finding young Uyghur boys and girls dancing to the tunes of folk songs and enjoying every moment of life was more than enough to start puncturing the bubble of Western Propaganda Balloon.
When the delegation reached the Eidgah Mosque, the most famous, biggest and ancient Mosque of Xinjiang with a very rich historic background, the termination of Western propaganda reached its peak. About this Eidgah Mosque, the media reports, emerging from West and India had been claiming that this Mosque was sealed and declared prohibited for prayers offering with some reports even suggesting that the Mosque was completely erased by Chinese authorities. Some Western Media houses even went on to show some fabricated satellite images of the debris of this mosque and those of ground zero.
Some delegation members, including this author, who had seen this mosque almost a decade ago and were very disturbed after going through the Western media propaganda reports, went extremely jubilant to see that the mosque was very much there, in fact with a rather improved infrastructure and local Muslims coming to offer prayers and non-Muslim tourists visiting the place to see the historic building and its compound. This scribe even found the old shops, adjacent to the mosque from where the shopping was done back in 2006 and also met the same shopkeeper, Mamtay. When asked a few questions about life of Muslims in Kashgar and elsewhere in Xinjiang in the background of Western Media report, Mamtay first bursted a big laughter and then said” You can see with your own eyes, the mosque is still there, I am still doing the same business and my shop, you can see has more stuff to offer which means my business had improved since you met me last in 2006 on the eve of Kashgar International Trade and Commodities Fair. You tell me what do you think after seeing this?” questioned Mamtay. He said that many foreigners including foreign media persons had been visiting his shop and buying musical instruments and other gifts from his shops and saying lot of good things about Kashgar and Muslims and others of this city. “But I am hearing from you that they have been reporting like if we are being treated badly or being put in some concentration camps, Asr prayer with some local Muslims at the Eidgah Mosque.
Since this scribe had been covering Kashgar International Trade and Commodities Fair for almost three consecutive years. Back in decade of 2000, I was very familiar to many places and restaurants of Kashgar city, including the hotel where arrangements were made for the stay of delegation, the Kashi Hotel.
When I last stayed at this hotel, the property was located on the outskirts of the city and was surrounded by agricultural farmlands. But not anymore, now the hotel had become the middle of the city and is surrounded by latest and advanced building and new blocks of the hotel are also constructed with latest technology and keeping the global norms of hospitality industry. It was just one proof that how the Chinese government increased the infrastructural development of the city that was portrayed as a war-hit and devastated destination.
I also found latest shopping malls and plazas full of foreign and local tourists with lot of new hotels offering variety of packages to tourists. There was also a wonderful nightlife to cater the needs of party animals with scores of discos and bistros etc.
