TAHIR IMIN2026年7月3日 Carolyn DrakeFor the past decade, an uncrossable distance has separated me from my daughter.在过去的十年里，一道无法跨越的鸿沟将我和女儿隔开。She is in the Uyghur homeland — what China’s government calls Xinjiang — living under Beijing’s totalitarian drive to erase our culture. I am in exile, having fled nine years ago to avoid arrest. When I last saw her, she was a wide-eyed 6-year-old. She is growing up today without her father in a country that wants her to forget who she is.她身处维吾尔人的故土——中国政府称之为新疆的地方——生活在北京旨在抹杀我们文化而推行的极权运动之中。我则流亡海外——九年前为了躲避逮捕而逃离。我最后一次见到她时，她还是一个眼神清澈的六岁孩子。如今，她在一个试图让她忘记自己身份的国家里，在没有父亲的陪伴下长大。Countless families like mine have been shattered by Beijing’s drive to forcefully assimilate Uyghurs into Chinese society. As many as one million Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic minorities were sent to detention facilities between 2016 and 2019, forced to renounce Islam and subjected to Communist Party indoctrination. China says it closed those facilities, but Uyghurs still face coerced labor, mass surveillance and forced birth control. Many others have simply been imprisoned; I have reason to believe several of my relatives are among them.北京强行将维吾尔人同化入中国社会的运动已经让无数像我这样的家庭支离破碎。在2016年至2019年间，多达100万维吾尔人及其他突厥裔少数民族被送进拘禁设施，被迫放弃伊斯兰教，并接受共产党的政治灌输。中国宣称已关闭了这些设施，但维吾尔人仍面临着强迫劳动、大规模监控和强制节育。还有许多人则直接被投入监狱；我有理由相信我的几位亲属就在其中。When these atrocities first became known nearly a decade ago, Uyghurs assumed the global community would act to end one of the most sweeping campaigns of ethnic and religious repression since the Holocaust. For a time, the world heard us. A 2022 U.N. report said China may have committed crimes against humanity. Several countries declared it a genocide, banned goods made with Uyghur forced labor, and imposed sanctions on China. Yet China, which denies committing such crimes, has shrugged off the pressure and continued to extinguish our culture.近十年前，当这些暴行最初为世人所知时，维吾尔人曾以为国际社会会采取行动，终结这场自纳粹大屠杀以来最广泛的种族和宗教镇压运动之一。有一段时间，世界确实听到了我们的声音。2022年，一份联合国报告指出，中国可能犯下了反人类罪。一些国家宣布这构成了种族灭绝，禁止进口维吾尔人强迫劳动制造的商品，并对中国实施制裁。然而，中国否认犯下这些罪行，无视这些压力，继续抹杀我们的文化。Uyghurs are now coming to a crushing realization: The world has failed us. If we are to survive as a people, Uyghurs in the diaspora must preserve in exile what China is erasing.维吾尔人现在正面临一个令人心碎的现实：世界辜负了我们。如果我们这个民族要生存下去，散居海外的维吾尔人就必须在流亡中保存中国正在抹去的一切。President Trump’s trip to Beijing in May brought this hard truth home. His first administration declared China’s policies a genocide. But there is no indication that this human rights catastrophe even came up during his meetings with President Xi Jinping of China, the man who set these policies in motion.特朗普总统5月的北京之行让这一残酷的真相显得更加清晰。他的第一届政府曾宣布中国的政策是种族灭绝。但没有任何迹象表明，在特朗普与启动这些政策的中国国家主席习近平会面时，这场人权灾难曾被提及。For centuries, Uyghurs maintained a distinct Eurasian identity. When I was young, my grandmother told me how our ancestors transformed our hometown, Poskam, from a desert into a living oasis: planting mulberry trees, digging irrigation canals and building our homes — a civilization conjured from sand. Our way of life blends influences from east and west yet remains unmistakably Uyghur, with our own literary, musical, architectural, philosophical and culinary traditions, some recognized by UNESCO as part of humanity’s shared heritage. Song has been especially important. My grandmother used to say our souls live in our songs. She sang while kneading dough to make noodles, braiding my aunt’s hair and watching the sun set over our mountains and deserts.几个世纪以来，维吾尔人一直保持着独特的欧亚大陆身份认同。我小的时候，祖母告诉我，我们的祖先是如何将我们的家乡泽普从沙漠变成生机勃勃的绿洲：我们种植桑树，挖掘灌溉渠，建造我们的家园——这是一个从沙中变幻而出的文明。我们的生活方式融合了东西方的影响，但依然拥有鲜明地道的维吾尔特色，拥有我们自己的文学、音乐、建筑、哲学和烹饪传统，其中一些已被联合国教科文组织认定为人类共同遗产。歌曲尤为重要。祖母常说，我们的灵魂就活在在我们的歌声里。她在揉面做面条时唱歌，在给我姑姑编辫子时唱歌，在眺望夕阳落入群山和沙漠时也唱歌。But our strong sense of self has complicated Beijing’s efforts to integrate us into the Chinese nation. Its answer is to extinguish what it means to be Uyghur. A Financial Times investigation published in May documented Beijing’s systematic dismantlement of the mechanisms through which Uyghur identity is passed down. This includes taking Uyghur children from their families and sending them to boarding schools where they are forbidden from speaking their mother tongue, and eradicating Uyghur-language publishing and literature.但我们强烈的自我认同使得北京将我们融入中华民族的努力变得棘手。他们的对策就是抹杀维吾尔人的特质。《金融时报》5月发表的一项调查记录了北京如何系统性地瓦解维吾尔身份传承的机制，包括将维吾尔儿童从家中带走，送往寄宿学校并禁止他们使用母语，以及根除维吾尔语的出版物和文学。Uyghurs in the diaspora, scattered mostly across the United States, Europe and Central Asia, have responded. Families have launched volunteer-run Uyghur-language schools for our children. Cultural associations keep alive traditions like the meshrep — our vibrant communal gatherings featuring food, song, dance and moral education. Others are assembling online repositories of Uyghur literature, historical documents, photographs and recordings before they disappear.流散在世界各地、主要分布在欧美和中亚的维吾尔人做出了回应。一些家庭为我们的孩子开办了由志愿者运营的维吾尔语学校。文化协会努力维持着“麦西热甫”(meshrep)等传统——这是我们充满活力的社区聚会，包含美食、歌曲、舞蹈和道德教育。还有一些人正在建立维吾尔文学、历史文献、照片和录音的在线资源库，以防它们消失。We are not the first people to stand on this precipice. Diaspora Jews helped preserve Jewish identity for centuries; exiled Tibetans are struggling to do the same, as have many other peoples throughout history.我们并不是第一个站在这种悬崖边缘的民族。流散海外的犹太人数百年来一直致力于维护犹太人的身份认同；流亡的藏人也在为此而奋斗，纵观历史，许多其他民族也是如此。But there is no road map, and the challenge is immense.但我们没有现成的路线图，挑战更是巨大的。Much depends on sustaining our language, the irreplaceable medium of a culture. Yet I’ve seen a worrying pattern emerge across the diaspora: The first generation speaks the mother tongue. The second understands it, but increasingly responds in the local language. By the third generation, comprehension tends to fade. By the fourth, the language is often functionally dead, taking with it the bonds that connect people and communities. As a result, young Uyghurs are gradually disengaging from our gatherings and identity, which weakens our collective voice and, ultimately, our capacity to keep fighting.这在很大程度上取决于能否延续我们的语言，它是文化不可替代的载体。然而，我观察到，流散海外的群体中出现了一种令人担忧的模式：第一代人说母语。第二代人听得懂，但越来越倾向于用当地语言回应。到了第三代，对母语的理解能力往往开始衰退。到了第四代，这门语言通常在功能上已经消亡，随之带走的是连接人与社区的纽带。结果，年轻的维吾尔人逐渐脱离了我们的聚会和身份认同，这削弱了我们的集体声音，并最终削弱了我们继续抗争的能力。We lack some of the basic tools needed to turn this around. Many of the top Uyghur scholars, writers, artists, historians and linguists — people critical for cultural preservation — are silenced or imprisoned in China. The homegrown Uyghur schools and community organizations in the diaspora that are trying to fill that void operate mostly in isolation, under severe funding and manpower constraints.我们缺乏扭转这种局面所需的一些基本工具。许多顶尖的维吾尔学者、作家、艺术家、历史学家和语言学家——这些对文化保护至关重要的人士——在中国遭到封口或监禁。侨居海外的维吾尔族人自发创办的学校和社区组织试图填补这一空白，但它们大多处于孤立状态，且面临严重的资金和人力短缺。I founded the digital literary magazine Tupraq in 2024 and the news and commentary site Uyghur Post last year to help keep our written word alive. Both survive on small donations and volunteers. I have had to work multiple jobs to keep them afloat, and have repeatedly come close to shutting down.我在2024年创办了数字文学杂志《Tupraq》（故土），并于去年创办了新闻和评论网站《维吾尔邮报》，以助维持我们书面文字的生命力。二者都靠微薄的捐款和志愿者维持生存。我必须兼职做多份工作才能维持它们的运转，它们还曾多次濒临停运边缘。Meanwhile, Beijing is working to undermine efforts like ours. Human rights groups have documented a broad campaign of intimidation by China aimed at silencing Uyghurs abroad, and digital security watchdogs say China-linked actors are likely behind cyberattacks against Uyghur websites. Uyghur Post has faced relentless attacks, forcing prolonged shutdowns. Fake sites have sprung up, apparently to confuse readers and erode our credibility. Similar challenges are reported by Uyghurs engaged in cultural preservation around the world.与此同时，北京正在设法破坏我们这样的努力。人权组织记录了中国发起的一场旨在压制海外维吾尔人发声的大规模恐吓运动，网络安全监督机构表示，针对维吾尔网站的网络攻击背后很可能是与中国有关联的行为者。《维吾尔邮报》面临着无休止的攻击，被迫长时间关停。虚假网站如雨后春笋般涌现，显然是为了混淆读者视听，并削弱我们的信誉。世界各地致力于文化保护的维吾尔人也报告了类似的挑战。Pressure on China to end its atrocities against Uyghurs must never relent. But what the Uyghurs need from the global community is changing. If the world can’t stop what’s happening in China, governments and private organizations must recognize that a unique slice of human culture faces extinction — and provide funding and institutional support for the Uyghur communities within their borders who are fighting to prevent that.要求中国结束针对维吾尔人暴行的压力绝不能有丝毫松懈。但维吾尔人对国际社会的需求正在发生改变。如果世界无法阻止中国正在发生的事情，各国政府和私营机构就必须认识到，人类文化中一个独特的组成部分正面临灭绝——并为他们国内那些努力阻止这一局面的维吾尔社区提供资金和制度支持。I do this work for my daughter. I wake up every morning wondering who she has become, whether she remembers the songs I sang to her. I realize I may never see her again. But what we build in exile may keep fragments of the Uyghur soul intact so that young ones like her can reclaim them someday.我做这项工作是为了我的女儿。每天早上醒来，我都在想，她现在变成了什么样子，她是否还记得我曾经唱给她的歌。我意识到，我可能再也见不到她了。但我们在流亡中所建立的一切，或许能让维吾尔灵魂的碎片保持完整，以便有朝一日，像她这样的年轻人能够重新找回它们。Tahir Imin是一位维吾尔学者和作家，曾被中国政府监禁。他现居华盛顿，是维吾尔邮报新闻网站和维吾尔自由研究所的创始人。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。