Our Desk: Psychology 101

Vanessa Moore

Last week one of the news stories coming out of China that caught my attention was a rather shocking report that officials in Karamay City in Xinjiang have banned people with headscarves, veils and long beards from boarding public buses. In July, authorities in the capital Urumqi likewise banned bus passengers from carrying items ranging from cigarette lighters to yogurt and water in an effort to prevent violent attacks, the Reuters news agency reported.
Nobody denies that China is facing a rise in domestic terrorism. Over the last year and a half a series of violent incidents have shaken Xinjiang. About 100 people were killed when attackers brandishing knives targeted two towns in the region’s south in July, according to state media, including 59 terrorists shot dead by police, and a suicide bombing killed 39 people at a market in Urumqi in May. Similarly, around the rest of the country, nearly 300 people have been killed in violence blamed on Uighur militants. One of the most appalling was the March attack on passengers in Kunming train station by a gang who indiscriminately began hacking at people with knives, leaving 29 dead and more than 140 injured.
Although terrorism is a legitimate concern, human rights activists and Uighur groups claim that the central government’s repressive policies, including controls on Islam, are actually backfiring and are instead provoking the current unrest in retaliation. Likewise, too, for what has been termed ‘religious consciousness’, parts of Xinjiang have become noticeably more Islamic over the past few years despite government efforts to reverse the trend. For example, some Uighur women who never previously did so have now begun to wear the full veil as an act of defiance, symptomatic of a more conservative shift in values. The stricter rules also add to longstanding fears among the Uighur minority that their centuries-old traditions could disappear, much in the same way that ethnic Tibetans fear dilution of their way of life and religious practices by the Han majority.
Recent incidents in Europe over the banning of headscarves, have already gone to show that restrictions seldom work and instead only add fuel to the fire. By maintaining that such measures are necessary to counter extremism, the French government’s insistence on secular values has now made Islam more of a political issue than ever before. After a March 2013 ruling that a private kindergarten unfairly fired a woman who wore a headscarf to work, a backlash erupted resulting in multiple riots across the country. Obviously as the French case shows, prohibitions are an incendiary move for any government to consider.
Anyone with even the most basic knowledge of psychology can tell you that banning people from doing something will only make them want to do it even more. Just like religious freedom, political restrictions are much the same kettle of fish. Moving a bit closer to home to Hong Kong, a debate over political freedom and the right to elect the Chief Executive is currently raging. Had the central government not made such a furor about the fact that the HK CE electoral committee must be made up of patriots who love the country as well as pointing out that any freedoms Hong Kong enjoys are the result of Beijing’s goodwill, those in government would not be facing the prospect of hundreds of Occupy Central activists and lawmakers threatening to blockade downtown Hong Kong in a mass sit-in. Hong Kong society – which once used to be so apolitical – has now become galvanized as a result of being told no.
Returning to events in Xinjiang, and Hong Kong too, one conclusion is self-evident: Before formulating their next big move, the bigwigs in Beijing might want to get their psychology books out first.