• @MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
    hexbear
    3
    11 months ago

    Is it just one grainy satellite footage? I was under the impression it was a series of images documenting the construction and expansion of detention centers located suspiciously near the population that has been complaining about being disappeared to detention centers. I also thought there are very clear ground-level pictures, showing thousands Uyghur in blue jumpsuits.

    Is the testimony random? I thought it was testimony was mostly from Uyghurs from the affected area, with credible stories that line up with other witnesses and victims that were also questioned.

    You will deny this is true because it is crucial for your reality that it is false. Nothing the US is currently doing is a fucked up as what China is doing in terms of racism and ethnic suppression.

    • emizeko [they/them]
      hexbear
      42
      11 months ago

      You will deny this is true because it is crucial for your reality that it is false.

      wonder-who-thats-for

    • emizeko [they/them]
      hexbear
      37
      11 months ago

      Let us look at a specific example. A claim like “There’s cultural genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang” is simply unreal to most Westerners, close to pure gibberish. The words really refer to existing entities and geographies, but Westerners aren’t familiar with them. The actual content of the utterance as it spills out is no more complex or nuanced than “China Bad,” and the elementary mistakes people make when they write out statements of “solidarity” make that much clear. This is not a complaint that these people have not studied China enough — there’s no reason to expect them to study China, and retrospectively I think to some extent it was a mistake to personally have spent so much time trying to teach them. It’s instead an acknowledgment that they are eagerly wielding the accusation like a club, that they are in reality unconcerned with its truth-content, because it serves a social purpose.

      What is this social purpose? Westerners want to believe that other places are worse off, exactly how Americans and Canadians perennially flatter themselves by attacking each others’ decaying health-care systems, or how a divorcee might fantasize that their ex-lover’s blooming love-life is secretly miserable. This kind of “crab mentality” is actually a sophisticated coping mechanism suitable for an environment in which no other course of action seems viable. Cognitive dissonance, the kind that eventually spurs one into becoming intolerant of the status quo and into action, is initially unpleasant and scary for everybody. In this way, we can begin to understand the benefit that “victims” of propaganda derive from carelessly “spreading awareness.” Their efforts feed an ambient propaganda haze of controversy and scandal and wariness that suffocates any painful optimism (or jealousy) and ensuing sense of duty one might otherwise feel from a casual glance at the amazing things happening elsewhere. People aren’t “falling” for atrocity propaganda; they’re eagerly seeking it out, like a soothing balm.

      from https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

    • Awoo [she/her]
      hexbear
      36
      11 months ago

      Many grainy satellite photos vs 1 grainy satellite photo is really not much of a different.

      I also thought there are very clear ground-level pictures, showing thousands Uyghur in blue jumpsuits.

      No the photo you are referring to is of a prisoner movement between two prisons. You're being showed photos and people are telling you they're X when they're actually Y.

      Is the testimony random? I thought it was testimony was mostly from Uyghurs from the affected area, with credible stories that line up with other witnesses and victims that were also questioned.

      There's about 30, and almost always extremely sus circumstances surrounding them. Meanwhile we have literally thousands of videos of tourists readily available, right now, of people visiting the area and having conversations. Who do you believe here? People IN XINJIANG or people outside it?

      Look. Let me give you some food for thought on this from another angle. Let's look at another country where know REAL oppression is taking place, Israel, which has more money and a far smaller country mileage area to spend that money. Israel is an apartheid state actively murdering and oppressing the Palestinians with the intent of stealing their land and eliminating them. https://reddit.com/r/israelexposed is what this looks like.

      The evidence against Israel is insurmountable. Mountains of it. Hundreds of thousands of actual video of actual shit. Real evidence.

      In a country where literally everyone owns a smartphone it is impossible to prevent the creation of this evidence. Even with more resources and a smaller surface area to stop this shit from getting out - Israel can't stop it getting out. But you're trying to say that China can? With fewer resources and a much MUCH larger surface area? They can stop 100% of all evidence from coming out? Just some misrepresented photos that don't actually depict what people claim they depict? Some critical thinking is needed here. Why is there so much evidence in Israel and absolutely zero evidence in China? Don't just turn to the idea that they have an all-powerful state that can somehow be in all places at all times magically preventing even a single video from getting out, that idea is a fantasy and comes from the realm of the delusional. Really THINK about this. Be critical.

      The reason the evidence does not exist is because what has been claimed is not accurate.

      Now, does that mean that China didn't implement a re-education program? No it doesn't. Does that mean that this wasn't quite a heavy handed measure aimed at stopping terrorism? No it doesn't. It was a really serious undertaking that was certainly a heavy handed use of authority that probably had individual instances of dickwads in that authority acting as dickwads. But, what I am asking you to do is to see through this bullshit genocide crap. It's nonsense. There is no evidence for it and it's not what actually happened. They had a serious string of terrorism, and to stop it they implemented a very large re-education program that people had to attend Monday-Friday (they could go home on weekends). That's what actually happened. No genocide. No mass sterilisation nonsense. No massive repression of religion (other than the extremist one that was committing the terrorism, imported from over the border in Afghanistan).

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        hexbear
        8
        11 months ago

        A good historical parallel is all the brave people who escaped from an in many cases returned to and escaped again from the Nazi death camps to carry intelligence and information to the allies and partisan groups. All the Allied leadership knew about the death camps because photos, maps, and detailed information was being smuggled out regularly. They were visible on aerial surveillance.

        Now there are billions of cell phones, the great firewall is as porous as a seive, and there's no evidence of genocide in Xinjiang. Arbitrary arrest and detention? Yeah. A lot of ham-handed cultural programs? Yeah. But genocide? Nothing. And the counter-terrorism progra was wrapped up a few years ago because apparently it was very successful and the threat of Wahhabi insurgents is effectively nil now.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      hexbear
      9
      11 months ago

      Yeah, bro. There were detention centers. The government was arresting people on pretty sketchy evidence and holding them for 2-3 months without telling their families. And making them sing patriotic songs for some reason. It's in the UN report. It's a violation of the basic right to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention. And it's not genocide. Christ almighty does anyone even know the un report exists?