Understanding Uighur Terrorism: The Human Needs Theory

This paper applies the Human Needs Theory to Uighur terrorism. The theory posits that people become violent when their basic human needs are unfulfilled, denied, or taken away from them. Also referred to as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Uighur terrorists are a minority group of Muslim extremists in the western Chinese Autonomous Region of Xinjiang. Until the mid-1700s, they were considered a peaceful group, but when they lost their autonomy during the Qing dynasty rule (until 1910), and faced oppression by their new government, they resorted to violence. In this case, the Uighurs’ human need “stolen” by the Chinese was their identity. Not only is the Uighur issue underrepresented in the media; it has also received such negligible attention that most governments and scholars believe that the Autonomous Region of Xinjiang is mostly occupied by terrorists.