The Marmot’s Hole

Trouble brewing in Inner Mongolia? The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center seems to think so:

According to eye witnesses, October 29, from 8:00am to midnight 12:00am in local time, hundreds of heavy-equipped police and security personnel had imposed curfew on the major campuses of universities in Inner Mongolia including Inner Mongolian Normal University, Inner Mongolia University, and Mongolian Language Professional School in Huhhot, capital city of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. A planned concert by ???Hurd????, a popular band from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, at the Inner Mongolia Normal University theater was suddenly canceled just as 2,000 Mongolian students had gathered to watch the concert. ???No one was allowed to get in and out of the campus,???? says a Mongolian student of the Inner Mongolia Normal University who asked not to be identified, ???and under the school authorities????? collaboration many plain clothes security personnel questioned us if we have any plan to ????make trouble?????????. ???All of our unsold tickets were confiscated, and all ticket holders were forced to return their tickets,???? says another Mongolian student who was one the organizers of this event, ???then they forced us to cancel the concert.????

On October 22, a similar event happened in Mongolian Language Professional School. Several Mongolian students were arrested and detained, and many were questioned for organizing a gathering to watch the concert of ???Hurde????, a popular band created and performed by several ethnic Mongols in Inner Mongolia. Reportedly, this event was also forcibly canceled by the authorities for the band members????? close link with the Darhad Mongols who have been strongly resisting the local government?????s plan of privatizing the Chinggis Khaan Mausoleum. According to several internet forums, since two weeks ago, many Mongolian students have been arrested from Inner Mongolia University, Inner Mongolian Normal University, and Mongolian Language Professional School, and some of them are still being held by the authorities for ???distributing leaflets and planning demonstrations.”

As a symbol of the national identity of the Mongols in Inner Mongolia, Chinggis Khaan Mausoleum located in western Inner Mongolia?????s Ordos region, has been maintained by the Darhad tribe for hundreds of years. It is considered a sacred site by the Mongols. Even after the Chinese Communist Party set up the so-called ???Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region???? in 1947, it was still seen as an important expression of the titular autonomous rights of the Mongols in the region. All of the ritual ceremonies and public events at the mausoleum were conducted and performed by the Darhad Mongols until today even though they were carefully planned and monitored by the authorities. However, according to a leaflet distributed among the Mongols in Huhhot City, recently, in order to pay its heavy debt, the local government has decided to sell the mausoleum to a local Chinese company named ???Dong Lian????. The company plans to demolish the mausoleum to build up a larger one, which will be called ???The Second Chinggis Khaan Mausoleum????, in order to attract more tourists and generate more profits for the owner, named Hou, a Han-Chinese businessman.

???Any disrespect and damage to the mausoleum should be considered damages and disrespect not only to the Darhad,???? the leaflet condemns Dong Lian company?????s outrageous actions, ???but also to the Ordos Mongols and to the world Mongol community.”

(Hat tip to Simon World)

Well, this is certainly interesting, although the take on the history of the mausoleum is an odd one to take by Mongolian nationalists. A look at the history of the mausoleum will reveal why:

After Chinggis died around Gansu, his coffin was carried to central Mongolia. According to his will, he was buried without any markings. The burial place still remains a mystery.

Instead of the real tomb, portable mausoleums called naiman chaghaan odru (eight white palaces) enshrined him. They were originally palaces where Chinggis Khan lived, but were altered to mausoleums by O”gedei Khan. They settled at the base of the Hentiy Mountains. The site, located in Delgerhaan sum, Hentiy aymag, Mongolia, is called the Avraga site.

Those who served to the mausoleums were called the Darkhad. Their leader chosen from the Borjigin clan was called Jinong since first Jinong Kamala was appointed as the King of Jin. They lived on the Keru”len River but later moved to Ordos. The name of Ordos was derived from their mausoleums (the plural of Ordo (palace)).

In the mausoleums, various ceremonies were conducted and pilgrims visited. Coronation ceremonies of Mongol Khans were also held there.

The mausoleums were protected by the Manchu Qing Empire, but the chaos of the Warlords Era, World War II, and the Chinese Civil War that followed the fall of the Qing Dynasty brought disruption to the Ordus. The influx of Han Chinese immigrants and the agarian lifestyle destroyed the pastoral economy of the Ordus. During and after World War II the mausoleum was moved away from the front and came to stay for several years in Gansu and Qinghai.

The mausoleums were protected by the Manchu Qing Empire, but since the Han Chinese seized power at the end of the dynasty, the Ordus had suffered from mass immigration of the Han Chinese that destroyed their economic base, and Chinese warlords and bandits that thrown them into chaos. During and after World War II the mausoleum was moved away from the front and came to stay for several years in Gansu and Qinghai.

The mausoleums were singled out as the symbol of the Mongol nation by some Mongol nationalists. The Buriyat Mongolian scholar Jamtsarano recommended the Darkhad to move to Northern Mongolia around 1910. In 1949 Prince Demchugdongrub, the leader of the Mongol independence movement in Southern Mongolia, met the mausoleums in Bayankhota of Alashan Banner. This symbolic event deeply impressed the prince and his subjects.

The new mausoleum was constructed by the government of Inner Mongolia from 1954 to 1956, despite Ordos opposition. The government abolished the traditional portable mausoleums and moved their historic relics to the new mausoleum. It also dismissed 500 family Darkhad so that only seven or eight Darkhad served the mausoleum. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards destroyed the mausoleum together with countless other cultural sites all across China, and valuable treasures were lost. It was rebuilt later, but replicas had to be made for the treasures that were irretrievably lost.

The mausoleum was contructed and is maintained according to the ideology of Zhonghua minzu, according to which, the Mongols are considered part of the Chinese nation and Chinggis Khan is considered to be a Chinese national hero. In contrast, the PRC represses Pan-Mongolism.

Leaving aside the historical and geopolitical implications of this story for the moment, I should point out that “Hurd,” the group from UB that was supposed to play at Inner Mongolia Normal University, might just be the ugliest collections of musicians ever assembled since the Traveling Wilburys. Perhaps even the Moody Blues. Don’t just take my word for it — my wife would be the first to concede that Hurd is downright ugly. Actually, I’ve listened to some of their stuff, and it ain’t bad — metal with some traditional Mongolian elements thrown in — but pretty boys they ain’t.

Another thing I should mention. My wife has said on a couple of occasions that Inner Mongolians might have Mongolian names and speak Mongolian, but they think like Chinese. While I was at my in-laws home, some Inner Mongolian programming came on TV, at which point someone pointed out once again that they might be Mongols on the outside, but their Chinese in the middle. What does this mean? How the heck should I know. Might mean nothing, and I generally avoid trying to gleam deep anthropological insight from off-hand comments made by my in-laws, but I figure I’d just mention it because, well, this is a blog, not National Geographic.

Oh, and while we’re at it, let me give a shout out to everyone’s favorite Inner Mongolian — the “Mongol in the Middle,” former Denver center Mengke Bateer. Mengke was waived by the Knicks on Oct. 25 and has yet to be signed. But that doesn’t make him any less cool.