It is 9 p.m. in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, North West China. It is the first of July 2003. Tuning into CCTV 9’s regular Travelogue program, part of the English language, government-run TV channel broadcast around the world, the camera zooms in on a Chinese presenter. Behind her is an ancient city “suspended in time”. Travel clichés tripping off her tongue, she tells the world “Kashgar is isolated from the rest of the world.” Extolling its calm amid the “hustle and bustle of 21st century life,” Kashgar is an “island of solitude,” most of whose houses are “more than centuries old.”

Here she proclaims, “Islam is central to life.” “2-3,000 male Muslims visit the Id Kah Mosque every day and 10,000 every Friday.” “In this haven of peace and quietude, life continues much as it has for centuries, much as it has for centuries, unhurried and disturbed by the rush and chaos of 21st century life.”

Some of her claims to isolation might well have been true 15 years ago when it took 3 days and nights to reach the remote oasis before the railway, completed two years ago brought 5,000 Chinese migrants into the area each week. They might have been partly true before the centre of the city became a Chinese enclave of faceless, white-tiled cubicles, and the country lanes were widened and city walls felled to accommodate six lanes of traffic. The boast about Islam might also once have been true before the 1949 ‘peaceful liberation’ of Xinjiang by an atheist revolution and current laws which forbid participation in religion by government workers, students and those under 18. But all claims to historical and cultural longevity were soundly trounced barely a month after the flowery rhetoric.

It is 5 p.m. on July 26th. A week ago today, four bulldozers as massive and unwieldy as prehistoric dinosaurs advanced on Nur Beshe Road, a picturesque alley bordering the mosque. A week later, with each movement of the caterpillar tracks, clouds of centuries-old talcum-powder dust are thrown into the ancient air where once mud-walled antiquity stood.

Government posters and plans deck remaining street walls promising at least two more months of destruction before Id Kah, will stand as the lone remnant of that veritable “island of culture.” Shocked and frightened victims of the destruction, their hair greying by the minute from the dust, stand in a silent row, their past and their future collapsing decisively and irreparably with each blow of the bulldozer’s shovel. Most too terrified to comment hurried away when questioned. “There are spies everywhere paid to keep us quiet,” said an elderly man under his breath as he made a hasty departure. Some wanting to talk in back alleys described their “despair” and “heartbreak” at seeing generations of family history crushed. Others scrabbling in the rubble to salvage building materials for the homes they are forced to build on government land 5 kilometres away, had had livelihoods in the town and compensation had been meager and non-negotiable.

Most Uyghurs understood the wanton destruction ordered by the government as a way to rid the city centre of their presence. “Once we are moved to the edge of town, the Chinese can claim our city completely,” said an old man who felt he had nothing to lose by speaking out. “They want to break us completely, our communities and our spirit,” he said. “They steal our land, make us pay rent and then take it from us completely,” he said referring to the Chinese law that renders all land state property and enables its reclamation at any time. Several people spoke of those who had died recently in connection with the demolition. Some had been simply defending their homes, some died of heart-related stress.

Already a wall is going up around a small enclave of old city to be sanitized for posterity. Already tour groups pay to enter and already residents have been ordered to sit on their doorsteps looking “ethnic” and look busy doing local crafts.

By winter another chapter in China’s “reconstruction” will be over. Another chapter in her proudly trumpeted 5,000 year history would have been ground into the dust. Another ethnic group would have been assigned to the vagaries of quaint ethnic status. Future generations may live to regret the decision, but by then it will be too late.