Uyghurs

"the world's attention" is shorthand for something so complicated that I can't unravel it into any kind of causal narrative. but I know it helps to have dramatic video.

i think it means that tom hanks will narrate a documentary about it in 25 years

tom hanks keanu reeves

the hong kong protests have garnered the world's attention. why not this?

Because Western journalists and reporters won't get anywhere near these camps, whereas they can frolic about in HK with hard hats on filming whatever they like - for the moment.

Also, if western media started caring about the lives of Muslims they might have to reconsider the million we killed in Iraq

Both Islamophobia and the mistreatment of Uyghurs began before the invasion of Iraq.

A large part of the answer is that the West was always focused on Tibet, and wanted Tibet to be a unique instance of Chinese cruelty. A lot of new age mythology behind that one.

think it was meeting Uighurs which showed me the true nature of the CCP. first I knew about them was as street vendors in beijing, all the han chinese I met seemed terrified of them, told me to steer clear, though they could never tell me why. then I had one as a student, was running a little teacher training school, the shit she had to put up with every day was crazy, even going to the allegedly Uighur restaurants she was the only one there (beijing has its own Muslim ethnic group to run these places), they called her "uyghur auntie", she seemed easily more out of place there than I did, still wonder what happened to her. then living in Guangzhou we used to talk to a guy who sold us lamb by the side of the road, he told us about all the trouble they had with chengguan, how they couldn't get an apartment or open a bank account, it was a real eye opener for my wife. this was soon after the couple of terrorist attacks and anti-uyghur feeling was running high. people just didn't know how to respond to terrorism, they knew nothing of Xinjiang and its history, just some scary bin ladens coming to get them and I hope the government sort it out. looking back this shit seems almost inevitable, not that it makes it any less horrific and inexcusable.

we really need some left wing politicians in the west to start being vocal about this, I find it a complete embarrassment when only right wing nutcases are saying anything

sorry for the big chunk of irregularly capitalized text, blame my phone

that seems to put an unhealthy level of responsibility on the people within yr range for the actions of a government half a world away

― deems of internment (darraghmac)

half a world away is still the same world we live in; for me it's not about "responsibility" per se but are there alternatives to throwing up one's hands in despair? yeah, there are.

course there are!

this is quite the makeup tutorial pic.twitter.com/TgO2gEys8X

— Rossalyn Warren (@RossalynWarren) November 26, 2019

I know, I know, it's The Observer, but this is spot on:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/04/why-do-muslim-states-stay-silent-over-chinas-uighur-brutality

Nor does anyone else seem to give a fuck, incidentally.

that article's author is kind of persona non grata

nonetheless, it is a horrifying and important topic. i'd want to know what *is* being said and done about it in the 'muslim world', and preferably receive something of a more complete picture

i.e. an article not written by a known [redacted] with a consistent history of [redacted]

Two from last year:

https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/neaxyw/why-are-some-muslim-countries-standing-in-solidarity-with-china

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/thestream/2019/08/25896-200325181332441.html

ty

truly though idk what this boils down to other than 'money talks', or if you want the more nuanced version, half the world is run by gangsters and the other half by crooks

night falls, and trenchant social commentary seeps out of his fingers

truly though idk what this boils down to other than 'money talks'

See this bit in particular:

https://youtu.be/1S_j7xdYl7w?t=643

(Both M. Usman's comments and especially F. Deif's response.)

that's a good link again ty. absolutely horrifying of course, and it feels like less and less can be done

This whole thing is incredibly heartbreaking.

It is. I've been thinking of listing the 'conflicts'/murdering going on around the world pretty much unnoticed, or not cared for, in these orona times. Erdogan is bombing the Kurds, in modern northern Iraq, and no-one bats an eyelid. No UN/EU/USA comments about it, nothing. Jemen a tragedy of its own. Uyghurs: same. From next week on Israel will probably be annexating more. No-one is doing anything about it. It's maddening.

Necropolitics is necropolitics

Someone just leaked drone footage of CCP authorities loading Uyghurs onto trains, presumably to transport them to reeducation camps.

Look familar? pic.twitter.com/zfmEvpObMX

— Neoliberal 🌐 (@ne0liberal) July 15, 2020

hmm...been looking at this because Sir Keith QC has posted about it, and so it has been bubbling merrily on twitter.

That Nick Cohen piece cites Adrian Zenz, the wiki:

Zenz is a born-again Christian. He stated that he feels "led by God" in his mission.[1]

Who is some kind of Chrstian scholar? The wiki cites him as the author of this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Worthy-Escape-Believers-Raptured-Tribulation/dp/144976908X

I see he is also part of this v weird org:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Communism_Memorial_Foundation

Which was just mentioned earlier on anoher thread today as doing the following, again from the wiki:

In April 2020, the organization announced they will be adding the global victims of the COVID-19 pandemic to their death toll of communism,[14] blaming the Chinese government for the outbreak and every death caused by it.

So yeah I've got questions.

Also wrt the footage posted by LBI above there is something desperate about the framing (and I've seen a couple of other tweets on my TL) of this as a new holocaust. I can believe there is something going on in China, but I can also see the voices pushing on about exactly what as to be questioned about how they get their info and their motivations.

With this and everything else in China it's just impossible to get any news which is untainted by some sort of agenda. This isn't an accident, it's a deliberate policy, and we've seen how effective it is, and not just in China.

I think the balance of evidence which we can see is that there are truly appalling things going on in Xinjiang - "a new holocaust" is obviously a stretch for what we have to go on, but I am just clad that some attention is being paid to it, and it winds me up something rotten when I see people trying to reach out a hand to this cynically brutal, authoritarian regime.

I don't think this is an excuse to say stuff that might not be true (such as the sterilisation program) or hasn't been checked out by multiple sources that in the end just end up making nasty sorts like Nick Cohen look superior. Most of the press give the goings on in Xinjiang attention but it could come without the hysterics.

there's no genocide, because i don't like the messenger

You were downplaying Starmer's, calling him a 'dork' last week. I'd stay out of this.

*racism.

Why is a left-wing platform bringing out someone from Spiked to talk about this.

The only guest Novara had discuss (i.e. crudely demonise) China whines about “tankies”, writes for Spiked, shares articles on how “wokeness is the new racism” & retweets the horrible racist Matthew Goodwin. With an alternative media like this, an establishment one is unnecessary. pic.twitter.com/DD6IYLV3Kk

— Louis (@Louis_Allday) July 21, 2020

The account I link from is pro-PRC however it doesn't change what it is pointing out in this instance.

This is what I am talking about with everything being (deliberately) tainted by an agenda. It's a massive disappointment that (a) left wing commentators seem to have nothing to say about Xinjiang or HK and (b) Chinese overseas dissidents are now overwhelmingly firmly pro-Trump / virulently anti-EU.

Being pro-PRC-government is like being pro-Nazi, it should not be fucking acceptable.

Like what is wrong about this quote? Everything in it is right!

This is staggeringly bad. According to Sarkar, ‘the left’ hasn’t been sufficiently critical of China because it understands imperialism as a “uniquely European phenomenon” & it is excessively sceptical of mainstream sources of information because of the war on Iraq. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/34kX2Im2HC

— Louis (@Louis_Allday) July 20, 2020

Being pro-PRC-government is like being pro-Nazi, it should not be fucking acceptable.

― Anti-Cop Ponceortium (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 21 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

brb going to call Saddam 'H!tler' to make a point.

Mainstream liberal sources are often terrible and follow imperialist agendas. Look at the discourse on Morales and how it was used to support the coup last year. It's not just Iraq.

You can't just read Washington Post/NYTimes or The Guardian with a straight face on this at all.

Who is this person we're discussing here? He appears to be deeply suss to say the least.

Despite what the US wants you to believe, China is NOT akin to Nazi Germany, it’s NOT aggressive, it’s NOT imperialist & it’s NOT running “concentration camps”. It is going to eclipse the US economy over the next decade however, so expect the propaganda against it to intensify.

— Louis (@Louis_Allday) January 2, 2020

Imperialist propaganda successfully weaponizes well-intentioned people's instincts. A combo of naivety & western chauvinism leads them to easily believe the worst about the US' enemies & call for "us to do something" thus giving humanitarian credibility to imperialist aggression.

— Louis (@Louis_Allday) July 19, 2020

The reason calling Saddam "Hitler" was stupid was because he was really a much more minor figure, not because he was actually a nice guy and very misunderstood.

Not debating that mainstream liberal sources are often bad, however that doesn't mean we just go "oof, who knows what's really the truth" - that's exactly what they want, apathy. The PRC government are doing really fucking awful things and people are taking their side (which is very much not the side of the Chinese people) due to what seems to come down to "enemy of my enemy is my friend."

All of this is also true of Anti-PRC Trump-supporting Chinese dissidents btw.

Very much pro-PRC, Cuba, 'tankie' etc. I am not here to defend everything that he posts, but to make a point on the discourse using that one tweet I linked xp

I remember some fucking idiots selling communist newspaper outside SOAS ten years ago with the headline "CHINA IS NOT A CAPITALIST COUNTRY" and I wanted to give them a shake and ask them "have you ever been to China? It's capitalist in ways you've never considered possible!"

Idk, it doesn’t seem contradictory to utterly condemn what is happening in Xinjiang without giving succour to the various anti-communism without communism dangers, none of whom care about persecution of Muslims at home. The left needs a strong stance on this because otherwise it’s going to be the fascists happily joining in.

FWIW I think comparing China to the Nazis is stupid and counterproductive as well, in any case the right-wing press barely needs an excuse to demonise China right now and that's going to intensify, but if anything this story is going under-reported there. I know you're not defending it, but the desire to fly into a protective huddle when faced with stories of a large-scale human atrocity taking place is deeply dubious, we've seen that enough times before. By contrast what he's saying about our media is shooting fish in a barrel, everyone already knows this stuff.

(xpost)

I also find phrases like "demonise China" very odd - does this mean the government of China or the people? Distinguishing the two is key to everything here, blurring the distinction between the two is bad whoever is doing it, and tbh I do not understand why everyone doesn't just get this.

(Duplicate message deleted, nothing to see here)

There are a lot of people who aren't interested in making those distinctions or who will enthusiastically blur the lines. Chinese people over here are experiencing the sharp end of a climate of rapidly rising sinohobia this year and there are enough people in this country who don't care about that any more than they care about the treatment of Muslims in this country.

Matt you're talking to someone with a Chinese wife + child, I'm sure he knows all that!