(Sorry in advance for the long post, I'm just frustrated)

My friend leans anarchist, but doesn't really read theory or history, he kinda just like punk music and reads/watches easily digestible leftist stuff online (twitter, tiktok, etc), and recently he's been on a kick of complaining about "tankies who apologize for and idolize authoritarian governments" as well as harping about how "tankies" don't believe the genocide in china is real. I tried to push back and say most people you'd label as tankies, including myself, probably just want to give a more fair and balanced view to leftist governments that exist/have existed, and credit their successes, rather than totally write them off, primarily based on capitalist propaganda. I also mentioned how the state department found no evidence of genocide in china, as well as the fact that most sources on it come from skewed studies and propaganda by right wing nuts like Adrian Zenz.

He referred me to this twitter thread that is supposedly proof of the Uyghur genocide by "non-western" and anti-capitalist sources. I'm bad at debunking stuff, so what do you all make of these articles? I'm just curious and skeptical of them, given that one, although an ML publication, is from India, who generally dislike China and look to discredit them, and others seem to base their arguments on dubious/non-specific Chinese government reports. Can anyone help? Also, how do I talk to my friend about learning to embrace the communist countries of the past and present that he thinks were/are failures, and show him that being an ML doesn't mean I'm like pro-genocide or anything.

  • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1375566405542817793

    Here's a thread just pointing at all the ways the links are in fact western propaganda.

    Personally I am extremely tired of seeing the CPI(ML) link passed around cause none of the people who actually link it think MLs are anything but rabid tyrants in the making but once theres a tiny hint of being able to use one ML group against another they are suddenly the most credible people on earth.

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
        ·
        4 years ago

        It's like they truly believe the "They trust anything with a red flag" and therefore we must agree with the CPI cause red flag.

        • invalidusernamelol [he/him]M
          ·
          4 years ago

          Anarchists (that don't read) projecting their illiteracy onto all MLs when one of the most important aspects of being an ML is that you never stop fucking reading.