Emily Feng: How China’s Repression Fueled a Militant Movement—In Syria

Feng unearths the story of Uyghur exiles who fled China’s expanding police state—only to become a pivotal force behind the fall of Assad.
About this Event

What drove a few thousand men and women from the deserts and cities of western China to the front lines of Syria’s war? In her new book, Our Hearts Burned for Home, journalist Emily Feng unearths the untold story of Uyghur exiles who fled China’s expanding police state—only to become a pivotal force behind the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. At the heart of this narrative is a startling paradox: Beijing’s repression, meant to crush dissent, instead scattered and radicalized a generation.

Tracing their journey from the crushed protests of 1990s Xinjiang to the Islamist battlegrounds of Idlib, Feng reveals how a campaign of surveillance and cultural erasure, as well as turmoil in the Middle East, gave rise to a Uyghur militant movement far from home. Through vivid reporting and rare access to fighters and families, Feng, along with Uyghur writer Abduweli Ayup, has explored how these Uyghurs, controversially, embraced armed resistance—and how their stateless revolution now shapes Syria’s fragile future.

Join us for a conversation with Feng, now a White House correspondent for NPR, about the book and her award-winning coverage of the Asia-Pacific region.

Notes

Feng photo by An Rong Xu; courtesy of the speaker.

Speakers

Emily Feng, White House Correspondent, NPR; Author, Our Hearts Burned for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria’s Civil War.

Moderator: TBA

5 p.m. doors open & check-in
5:30–6:30 p.m program
6:30 book signing
(all times Pacific Time)