Mission and Revolution in Central Asia - Svenska Missionskyrkan

ejected by the Muslim community. As they were known to associate with foreigners and with
the Chinese, they could not even be buried in the Muslim burial-grounds. 67
“The gambling frenzy” - a wild passion - had seized many, from Mandarins to beggars. It
sometimes happened that people coming to the Mission hospital for help, when asked about
their occupation, declared “gambler”. The pawnbrokers often put up their tents next to the
gambling-dens. “The gamblers pass one article of clothing after the other to the pawnbroker,
in exchange for money which disappears just as quickly” 68 . “Gambling is rampant here in an
incredible way”, says Mannerheim. There were gamblers at every street corner, in every backyard
and by-lane. High Mandarins, ordinary people, prisoners in chains fastened to heavy iron
bars or wooden beams, beggars in rags, all of them shared the passion of gambling, continues
Mannerheim. 69
There were a number of explanations for the things the missionaries found unacceptable.
And way the bad everyday habits among the people tended to affect the missionaries was
partly due to the fact that they were foreigners. There was a innate distrust of foreigners.
Högberg writes, “A person coming from another town or place is forever looked upon as a
stranger. How difficult must it not be for the Europeans?” 70 However, the Muslims’ aversion
towards the missionaries had its cause primarily in their faith. The missionaries were
proselytizing intruders and could hardly expect any other reaction. Moreover there had to be a
huge difference as to moral and legal issues between theses people from the East and the
Swedish missionaries. Westerners with hundreds of years of Christian traditions to fall back
on, and with a very special upbringing in the Swedish Free Church pietism on top of that met
with people who knew nothing about Christian faith and ethics but had been strictly brought
up in a totally different tradition. And yet, these people with their faults and sins were they
not the very people the missionaries wanted to reach out to? When confronted with people’s
ignorance, and dishonesty, Högberg was on the point of being discouraged, he used to say to
himself, “Were everyone here good, noble and true, then I would not be needed here.” 71
People’s everyday habits were in many cases not at all anti-missionary but they sprang
from their living conditions. The British explorer F. E. Younghusband, who came to Kashgar
towards the end of the l9th century, was of the opinion that this indolence and lack of
initiative had to do with the society itself. People did not have to make special efforts in order
to survive. They led quiet, even happy lives, which nothing could upset. 72 Aurel Stein is of the
same opinion. He says that people of Eastern Turkestan were often seen as indifferent, lacking
initiative, but the main reason for these traits of character was perhaps the fact that the country
was under-populated. There was no competition pushing people to try harder. And Högberg
points out that “the strivings and worrying how to make ends meet and to make progress, so
obvious in other places, are totally absent here.” 73
The habit of smoking opium was deplorable and basically destructive. Eleanor Lattimore
says, “Smoking opium may very well seem like an elegant addiction among civil servants, but
it is totally unfortunate when the smoker is someone in transport, someone one relies upon to
get somewhere, be he a coachman, a man who loads ones baggage onto the horses, or a
guide.” 74 Next door neighbour to the Mission station in Kashgar, a caravan seraglio, was an
67
Högberg-Ahlbert, 1925, p. 223.
68
The MCCS Annual report of 1905, p. 141 ff. The Ungdomsvännen, 1907, p. 125 f.
69
Mannerheim, 1940, p. 82.
70
MCCS Annual report of 1897, p. 96 f
71
Högberg, 1915, p. 39.
72
Younghusband, 1896, p. 171. Etherton, 1923, p. 98.
73
Macartney, 1909, p. 21. Grenljuset. Volume 11, 1898, p. 76.
74
Lattimore, 1935, p. 175.
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