Autonomy in Movement Informal Islamic Pedagogical Activities among Hui Muslims in China

Abstract

This paper examines how a Hui Muslim minority can assure religious autonomy from the contemporary Chinese state, which strictly controls religions. Specifically, it focuses on processes whereby Hui Muslims carry out informal and highly mobile Islamic pedagogical activities in Kunming, Yunnan Province. Recent studies of religious revival in China have tended to interpret it with the assumption that it is possible for religious groups to expand their autonomy through political action either against the state or with it, such as resistance and institutionalization. However, such studies overlook the fact that people paradoxically lose autonomy by engaging in politics against the state. According to Foucault's work regarding modern forms of power, resistance and power are inseparable, and there can be no autonomous space beyond the reach of power. Therefore, when people attempt to challenge the state through means legitimized by it, they effectively often become agents of the state. They are empowered in the name of the state and officially enrolled as actants in government. That is to say, they do not necessarily expand or obtain autonomy through political action against or with the state. Conversely, James C. Scott has proposed an alternative, suggestive way to address this issue without walking into a paradox, terming it "the art of not being governed." According to Scott, hill peoples in upland Southeast Asia before World War II maintained autonomy from the lowland states by taking flight, both culturally and geographically, from central state power. However, city dwellers like the Hui Muslims that this paper focuses on do not have such an anarchic space within the modern nation-state. Moreover, Scott also regards "the art of not being governed" as a merely pre-modern subject. Based on that, this paper examines how the autonomy of the Hui Muslims is possible without taking political action against the state or directly negotiating with the government while taking into consideration power relations that people cannot take flight from. Moreover, in order to examine this problem, this paper focuses on the processes and practices that Hui Muslims have carried out by engaging in informal religious activities to deal with governmental regulations in contemporary China. A rapid revival of religion has occurred in China because of the abatement of religious policies by the post-Mao Chinese state. Moreover, the Chinese government supports religious groups financially and politically, such as rebuilding mosques. However, religious policies have still been strict. For example, places utilized for religious activities are placed under governmental control. Although officially-authorized mosques are legally enabled by the government to carry out religious activities, official mosques must follow instructions regarding religious practice that are determined by the Chinese Communist Party. Consequently, most mosques have become places where Muslims cannot conduct religious activities freely. Such religious policies have made ordinary Muslims progressively distrust the clergy as well as the mosque system. Because in such a situation, some of the clergy behave as government agents who work to influence the opinions of ordinary Muslims to promote and apply state policies more efficiently. Therefore, ordinary Muslims tend to consider the clergy and mosques as a de facto part of the Chinese government. That has brought about a relative decline in the religious authority of the clergy among ordinary Muslims. Furthermore, in general, most Hui consider fellow members of their ethnic group who go on to receive Islamic education to become clergy members as failures in public school. Thus, most Hui people see the clergy as being "cultureless." Their criticism rests on the notion that "culture" is necessary to interpret and preach Islam. Although the word

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