Last December I was invited to deliver opening remarks at the first international conference on the preservation of Uyghur culture. Everyone at the conference was engaged in the struggle to defend the survival of Uyghurs living inside China where they face a systematic campaign by the Chinese regime to destroy their culture, religion, language, and identity. The community of Uyghur exiles is doing everything in its power to inform the world about the genocide that’s underway in China and to mobilize international pressure to stop it. But the focus of the conference was not about that struggle but rather about the role that Uyghurs living in exile can play in preserving Uyghur culture that is now so deeply threatened inside China.
