Dragon Fighter: One Woman's Epic Struggle for Peace with China - Hardcover

Kadeer, Rebiya

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0979845610 ISBN 13: 9780979845611

Publisher: Kales Press, 2009

Synopsis

A remarkable autobiographical journey from humble beginnings to a position as a powerful world figure fighting for her nation’s self-determination.

Along the ancient Silk Road where Europe, Asia, and Russia converge stands the four-thousand-year-old homeland of a peaceful people, the Uyghurs. Their culture is filled with music, dance, family, and love of tradition passed down by storytelling through the ages.

For millennia, they have survived clashes in the shadow of China, Russia, and Central Asia. Rebiya Kadeer’s courage, intellect, morality, and sacrifice give hope to the nearly eleven million Uyghurs worldwide on whose behalf she speaks as an indomitable world leader for the freedom of her people and the sovereignty of her nation.

Her life story is one of legends: as a refugee child, as a poor housewife, as a multimillionaire, as a high official in China’s National People’s Congress, as a political prisoner in solitary confinement for two of nearly six years in jail, and now as a political dissident living in Washington, DC, exiled from her own land.

16 pages of photographs

About this title

About the Author

Rebiya Kadeer is the president of the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur American Association. She is devoted to the principles of nonviolence. Recognized as an unofficial head of state, she regularly meets with world leaders.

From Publishers Weekly

When her father is beaten, and her family is forced from their home in Uyghurstan (a swath of Chinese land north of Tibet), Kadeer's idyllic childhood comes crashing to an end. Though still a young woman, she resolves to defend Uyghurs from "tireless Communist indoctrination;" by 1957, she writes, "I wanted to stop seeing posters of Chairman Mao's adipose face, with that forever grinning mouth, plastered over every wall." Kadeer charts the routine public humiliation, banishment, execution, and forced flight of her Ugyhur friends and neighbors. In her late twenties, anxious to provide for her children and take control of the future, Kadeer reinvents herself as a businesswoman, but never turns her attention away from political activism. By the early '90s, the USSR has dissolved and Kadeer has become the wealthiest woman in China, but the oppression of Ugyhurs continues, remaining largely unknown outside the region. Even after Kadeer wins a seat in China's National People's Congress, she is unable to counter the negative effects of Chinese bureaucrats on the Uyghur region. Finally, her efforts land her in prison for six years. Her remarkable resilience in the face of horrendous conditions typifies her tireless lifelong struggle. Her story is a compelling testament to the human spirit's obstinate right to be free.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Kales Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0979845610
• ISBN 13: 9780979845611
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 426