Good post. It’s obviously not a holocaust or something and the numbers are not as high as 100 gorillion like Zenz claims but cultural genocide is still genocide. Klanada did something similar with the indigenous people by “re-educating” children in vocational schools. Nobody is denying that Canada did a cultural genocide there. I’ll support China critically against imperialism and propaganda but defending their messed up shit won’t get us anywhere. I understand pushing back against China in the west is bad, but I don’t think we should uncritically accept whatever these schools are doing if it makes us sound like holocaust deniers.
Except now you’re conflating whatever China is doing with the part of genocide of the western powers against indigenous people that involved boarding schools and whatnot, which China is also not doing. I mean I don’t have a completely clear understanding of these vocational schools, but I don’t think the government is trying to strip people of their identity or religion or anything. It may be some kind of assimilation potentially but I don’t think it’s “Kill the Indian, save the man.” With this argument, you’re really just trying to find another way to continue to propagandize against China.
But why defend the situation if we don’t know what’s happening? It’s almost impossible to find the truth about what’s actually happening but defending what could be cultural genocide/ assimilation isn’t it. Also, the whole suspected terrorists being sent to boarding schools by the state just doesn’t sit right. There are ways to push back against propaganda that don’t involve defending oppressive policies.
the whole suspected terrorists being sent to boarding schools by the state just doesn’t sit right
This is just you being distrusting of foreign governments and enemies of the US. There is no reason to suspect it’s anything else other than what they’ve stated other than some hunch based on the lies that imperialist governments tell. Your first sentence says “why defend the situation”. Your second sentence then directly goes on the attack. Your third sentence digs in even more with “oppressive policies”. You’re telling me I shouldn’t defend them, and then you’re attacking without evidence again. So what’s it going to be? Defend China from baseless accusations or make baseless accusations. There’s never really a middle ground because not providing a counter just reinforces the dominant narrative.
Hell yes. Anyone defending China wrt the Uighurs should have to defend why they think it’s better than what “Canada” did to their First Nations with their residential school program.
If you can defend that position, fine, but trivializing these massive oppressive state interventions won’t age well. Imagine yourself 50 years down the line and Uighur victims of cultural genocide finally get a voice and describe how the lives of their people were destroyed - do you really want to be the person then who had been cheering for China?
Anyone defending China wrt the Uighurs should have to defend why they think it’s better than what “Canada” did to their First Nations with their residential school program.
For one thing, the Canadian schools forbade the First Nations people from speaking their native language and punished infractions harshly, whereas the Xinjiang schools include the native Uyghur languages in the curriculum.
The most visible sign of protection of Uyghur culture by the government is the government-run bilingual kindergarten schools where children learn Putonghua as well as Uyghur language and culture from a very young age.
A lot of anti-China propaganda is settler colonialist projection. They made similar accusations of cultural genocide against the Soviet Union, because they administrated regions with minority cultures, but they too sought to preserve native cultures in their schools.
