{"id":1053,"date":"2015-03-25T19:58:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T19:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2015-03-25T22:40:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T22:40:35","slug":"imams-dancing-to-little-apple-in-uch-turpan-xinjiang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/?p=1053","title":{"rendered":"Imams dancing to &#8220;Little Apple&#8221; in Uch Turpan, Xinjiang"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">Imams in Uch Turpan dancing to the internet hit \u2018Little Apple\u2019 (Spring 2015)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">Song and dance has long been harnessed in the service of China\u2019s state policy, but this latest campaign in Xinjiang seems set to make music and dance into an ideological battleground.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">Throughout Spring 2015, the people of Xinjiang have been involved in one of China\u2019s more bizarre social campaigns: organised public dancing sessions to the internet hit \u2018Little Apple\u2019 (\u5c0f\u82f9\u679c), in order to promote social harmony and combat religious extremism.<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-1053-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/av\/Little_Apple_Uchturpan.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/av\/Little_Apple_Uchturpan.mp4\">http:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/av\/Little_Apple_Uchturpan.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">The Xinjiang military police have produced their own video, with new lyrics highlighting their mission to serve, and footage alternating between police officers conducting armed raids and dancing to Little Apple:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VKdntmvyvRE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">Uyghur peasants around the region have also been mobilised to take part in these public dancing displays, as Chinanews reports from Mangshin village in Yengisar county:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.chinanews.com\/shipin\/2015\/01-24\/news542897.shtml\">http:\/\/www.chinanews.com\/shipin\/2015\/01-24\/news542897.shtml<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">Perhaps most controversially, several towns have drafted in the imams of official mosques to give special staged performances of their disco moves. David Brophy (University of Sydney) has highlighted the scandalised response in some Turkish newspapers:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thechinastory.org\/2015\/02\/little-apples-in-xinjiang\/\">http:\/\/www.thechinastory.org\/2015\/02\/little-apples-in-xinjiang\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Little_apple_dance1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1054 size-full\" style=\"border: 0px solid white; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Little_apple_dance1.jpg\" alt=\"Little_apple_dance1\" width=\"530\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Little_apple_dance1.jpg 530w, https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Little_apple_dance1-150x108.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Little_apple_dance2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-1055 size-full alignleft\" style=\"border: 0px solid white; margin-bottom: 20px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Little_apple_dance2.jpg\" alt=\"Little_apple_dance2\" width=\"622\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Little_apple_dance2.jpg 622w, https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Little_apple_dance2-150x88.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 622px) 100vw, 622px\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">The aim of this campaign appears to be to counter the rise of Islamist views amongst Uyghurs concerning the permissibility of music and dancing in religious life. But by requiring imams to dance in public to Chinese pop music, the Xinjiang authorities are in danger of further discrediting these embattled individuals in the eyes of their congregations, stripping away the remaining spiritual authority from a group of people who ought to be empowered to counter extremist tendencies by promoting a moderate and tolerant model of Islam.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imams in Uch Turpan dancing to the internet hit \u2018Little Apple\u2019 (Spring 2015) Song and dance has long been harnessed in the service of China\u2019s state policy, but this latest campaign in Xinjiang seems set to make music and dance&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/?p=1053\" class=\"read-more\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,138],"tags":[167,170,166,165,164,169,168,16,14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1059,"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soundislamchina.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}