To All Zoom Prayer Meeting Participants
Nakazawa-san suggested that we add the "Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region" of the People's Republic of China to our prayers, as well as "Uyghur" and "Tibet."
Here is how it happened.
Recently, a trainee from Inner Mongolia in China came to the nursing home run by Nakazawa-san's daughter and her husband, and Nakazawa-san had a chance to talk with him. When he asked her about language, she told him that she could hardly understand Chinese and that the language she usually used was Mongolian. (Incidentally, he said that his writing script is Cyrillic.)
Nakazawa-san made the following comment to me.
"Inner Mongolia is a part of China, but it has a different language and culture from the Han Chinese. Recently, the Chinese government has been reducing the number of Mongolian language classes and increasing the number of Chinese language classes. The Inner Mongolian people are increasingly resisting this policy. Although the oppression is not as severe, I think the situation in Inner Mongolia is similar to that of the Uyghurs and Tibetans."
Although no severe repression has surfaced from my research, it is clear that the Mongolian people living in Inner Mongolia and other parts of China are being educated and subjugated to the ideology of the Beijing government, as is the case with the Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong, and others. I am sure this is a critical issue for the Chinese government to consider.
As Nakazawa-san mentioned, in addition to the protests in Inner Mongolia, there are also protests in the neighboring country of Mongolia.
In 1997, an organization called "Inner Mongolia People's Party" was founded in Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A., and has expanded its activities to other parts of the world. This organization is based in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and seeks independence from China.
The Inner Mongolian People's Party is based on the purge of the Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party during the Cultural Revolution. Its goal seems to be creating an independent Mongolian state in Inner Mongolia. Although Inner Mongolia does not have a flag worthy of a national flag like Tibet or Uyghur, it appears that supporters use the Inner Mongolia People's Party flag as the de facto national flag of Inner Mongolia or as a flag to pray for the independence of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.
As the situation surrounding Inner Mongolia is similar to that of Uyghur, Tibet, and Hong Kong, we will add the prayer for "Inner Mongolia" (order: 205th) to our prayer from the following order and ask Mr. Uchio in Hong Kong to be in charge of that prayer for the time being. (There will be the first prayer for "Inner Mongolia" on the evening of Wednesday, November 2nd.
May peace prevail on Earth.
Masaharu SAITO