Iran and China are celebrating their agreement this weekend of a 25-year strategic partnership. Both governments say its is a moral framework for mutual prosperity and security.
At least on Iran’s part, this is all rather odd.
Led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic of Iran claims to be a nation founded on the pure service of God. Under the state-enshrined religion, a variation of Shia Twelver theology, its leaders claim to be pious, morally resolute, and determined to uphold God’s honor and vision. Fine intentions.
The credibility of these claims would appear, however, to be slightly undermined by the question of their compatibility with the Chinese Communist Party’s conduct toward its Muslim citizens. Consider how Iran proselytizes the Quran’s requirement for Muslims to “enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah.” This explicit association between belief and moral action is critical. It underpins the notion of moral action being necessarily intertwined with faith.
Yet, it is rather difficult to describe what China is doing to its Uyghur citizens as actions to “enjoin what is right.” In fact, it would appear to be quite simple to make the case that what China is doing to these citizens, the vast majority of whom are Muslim, as actions that are morally “wrong.”
After all, what China is doing to these citizens blends a Nazi fetish for eugenics with the Soviet fetish for forced labor.
Thanks to landmark reporting from scholars such as Adrian Zenz and BBC investigative reporters, we now know that approximately 2 million Uyghurs have been removed from their homes and families and imprisoned in a vast network of concentration camps. Once there, they have been sterilized, sold for rape, stripped of their faith and values, and then deployed as slavelike labor. Put another way, they have had their Islamic identity and individuality smashed at the altar of a communist empire.
It tells you something about Ayatollah Khamenei and his regime that they aren’t at all bothered by this abuse of their fellow Muslims. It tells you that they might just be Islamic charlatans who value power more than they do honest faith.
