Submitted by celebratedrecluse in Anti_Imperialism

The issue of timekeeping is one battlefield for the exercise of power and counterhegemony among the broader cultural rift between the settlers and the indigenous population.

Currently, the time zone used within Xinjiang is roughly split along the ethnic divide, with most ethnic Han population in the area following Beijing Time, and most ethnic Uyghur population as well as population of some other ethnics in the area following Xinjiang Time.[6] Some local authorities are now using both time standards side by side.[7][8] The coexistence of two time zones within same region has caused some confusion among local population especially when interracial communications occur, and whenever a time is mentioned, it is necessary to either explicitly make clear whether the time is Xinjiang Time or Beijing Time, or convert the time according to ethnicity of the target you are speaking to, in order to avoid confusion between the two time standards. The double time standard is particularly observable in Xinjiang Television, which schedules its Chinese channel according to Beijing Time and its Uyghur and Kazakh channels according to Xinjiang Time. Some ethnic Han population in Xinjiang might not be aware of the existence of the UTC+06:00 Xinjiang Time because of the language barrier.

For Xinjiang population who are using Beijing Time instead of Xinjiang Time, they would schedule their activities two hours after ordinary time those daily activities are done in Eastern China to match the sunrise/sunset time, this is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang, which is also referred to as Xinjiang Time or time difference between Xinjiang and mainland China.[14]

In 2014, Apple Inc. released an update to its iOS mobile operating system, which silently changed the default time for users in Xinjiang into Xinjiang Time. As some users in the area were using Beijing Time in their iOS before the update and set the alarm of their phones and tablets according to Beijing Time, the silent change caused some alarms to ring at a time later than expected, causing disruption in daily activity on the day after the changes.[15]

In 2018, according to Human Rights Watch, a Uyghur man was arrested and sent to a detention center because he set his watch to Xinjiang Time.[16]

Xinjiang Time has been abolished and re-established multiple times, especially during the period of the 1970s and 1980s. In February 1986, the Chinese government had approved the use of Xinjiang Time (UTC+06:00) in Xinjiang for civil purposes, while railroad, aviation and telecommunication sectors were supposed to continue their operation on Beijing Time.[4][3] However, the decision had been rejected by the local ethnic Han population and some Han-dominated regional governments.[5]

So, the military and transporation and utilities use the official time, but Xinjiang has been "permitted" occasionally to use the other timezone for local govt purposes, and other voluntary uses in the private sector. But it's become a huge culture war issue. To be honest this reminds me of what happens in english speaking countries right now, with the giant controversy of conservatives getting mad about some progressive/liberal change that is basically common sense within the parameters of the system, but which culturally signifies something that feels threatening to people who identify with the establishment.

This made me think. What if a similar conflict, happens in some other area? In the future, will crony-corporate states and authoritarian capitalists try to standardize time across entire countries, and be met with resistance? I could see this happening, as more and more work is done remotely & digitally, and the significance of the material & biological world recedes further away from the mechanisms driving capital accumulation.

The connection to anti-work and anticapitalist struggle is striking. While CPC is ostensibly communist, they are incarcerating and disciplining workers for shifting the time they work 2 hours later into the day.

The calls to prayer, I imagine, are another terrain that this conflict impacts. I wonder if indigenous people are using these public announcements to declare their own independent counter-hegemonic time at regular intervals, creating a social reality of their experience of time; or if calls to prayer have been banned already, to prevent this type of subversive speech, or perhaps other reasons.

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celebratedrecluse OP wrote

Does anyone else have further thoughts on other examples of settler-colonial time? Or any texts/resources that educate one about this topic? Let me know, I am interested to read about it.

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