Hugh Pope, SONS OF THE CONQUERORS: The Rise of the Turkic World, pp. 13-19, 41-171 (New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2005)
10. THE ANT AND THE ELEPHANT
THE UYGUR STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE CHINA
An elephant can crush an ant with one footstep. But an
ant inside an elephant’s trunk can madden it to death.
—Uygur proverb
ASLAN’S DAGGER BLADE GLINTED IN THE LATE AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT
streaming through the pointed archways of a bare room on the roof of
the Emin mosque. The young Uygur lovingly watched the knife turn in
his hand, and conversation came to a halt. Distant donkeys brayed as
they pulled carts back from the vineyards that carpeted the ancient oasis
town of Turfan with a luxuriant green…
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Hugh Pope, SONS OF THE CONQUERORS: The Rise of the Turkic World, pp. 13-19, 41-171 (New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2005)
9. THE GHOST OF ISA BEG
KNIGHT-ERRANT OF TURKESTAN
I was never carried away by the valuable Chinese gifts of gold,
silver, silk and sweet words. I did not forget how many Turks
who had been deceived by such things had died, how many
had been forced under the Chinese yoke.
—Stone inscription by Bilge Kagan, an 8th century AD
Turkic ruler in what is now Mongolia
FROM HIS SPARSELY FURNISHED APARTMENT IN AN OUTER SUBURB OF
Istanbul, Isa Alptekin, the late leader of the Uygur Turks of China, never
imagined that he could free his people by force. The grand old man of
this large but little-known Turkic minority always spoke the language of
passive resistance, as did his much better-known comrade in…
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Hugh Pope, SONS OF THE CONQUERORS: The Rise of the Turkic World, pp. 13-19
PROLOGUE
God Most High caused the Sun of Fortune to rise in the
Zodiac of the Turks; he called them ‘Turk’ and made them
Kings of the Age. Every man of reason must attach himself to
them, or else expose himself to their falling arrows.
—MAHMUT OF KASHGAR, author of the
first Turkish encyclopedia, 11th century
ONE SPRING DAY TOWARDS THE END OF THE COLD WAR, A TIME OF
surprises, my teleprinter shuddered into action at the Istanbul bureau of
Reuters news agency. A colleague in Beijing was sending a message:
members of an ethnic group called the Uygurs, of whom I had never
heard, were demonstrating in the streets of Urumqi, capital of the
northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang…
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