It's just hard, because I know the people I'm referring to are generally good, empathetic people who care about social justice. They just have unfortunately had their consent manufactured in favor of these pro-imperial/US talking points. They genuinely think there's a humanitarian crisis and that China is killing a minority. They simply just don't realize everywhere they're being informed by is steeping in anti-communist, right wing sources vying to create propaganda.
It's honestly so much easier dealing with a shitty reactionary than a liberal who simply doesn't recognize their own biases. And you trying to reveal said propaganda to them comes off as you being a heartless freak trying to justify some terrible act, no matter how legitimate your proof against said narrative is.
Like, what if I am wrong? Idk, sometimes it just feels like I must be, because I'm so outside the narrative. For instance, people trying to justify Israel's treatment of Palestine is complete BS to me, so isn't that how my defense of China sounds to said liberal? I just get worried sometimes that I'm the one brainwashed and on the wrong side of history. I don't want to be the bad guy, I'm just trying to do what I beleive to be right. But isn't that how every shitty side in history feels?
I'd like to remind people who get distressed over allies/comrades who fall for stuff like "Uyghur Genocide" or "CCP Bad" posts as not ideological combatants but victims of propaganda, because the very nature of anti-chinese sentiment is rooted in shit like Radio free Asia and CIA fuckery, those veiws aren't ones forged by poverty, racism or alienation we experience in our communities, those are taught to us by grifters with soapboxes, pearls to clutch, and an adgenda to push.
It also helps that theirs a dehumanizing aspect to it all, China is waaay the fuck over there and I live in America, the DemocracyLand!1! So you can talk about Uyghur genocide or le epic china cringe moments at the dinner table and no one will get mad at you on it because it doesn't challenge/piss off the different flavors of liberal democracy enthusiests we have in America, IE democrats and republicans. We can all agree that those dog eaters yearn for freedom and the CCP uses it communism to oppress the masses, good think we haz freeze peach here!
-7DeadlyFetishes
It is sad (and a good point) that the only thing people on both sides of the Liberal spectrum can agree on is "China bad, NK bad, etc."
I'd say the anti-AES propaganda is the strongest and most ingrained of all. In my formative years of learning about Marxism and socialism, I still held those beliefs that those countries were scary authoritarian places that turned their back on socialism. Why were they that way? I hadn't given it that much thought, just figured it was money, corruption, the usual things.
The book "Killing Hope" opened my eyes to it all, and Boy Boy's "The Haircut" was another thing that honesty made me feel like I was waking up from the Matrix or some shit. Just a totally different view that I had never been exposed to.
I'd say that's the biggest reason it's so well ingrained. Even the most well-meaning people are often never exposed to any sort of counter to the mainstream narratives. It's a given that these AES states are abusive just the same as the sky is blue. It's hard to fight that.
Boy Boy’s “The Haircut”
I searched for this and couldbn't find it, could you maybe link or explain?
https://youtu.be/2BO83Ig-E8E
Could have sworn it used to be titled just "The Haircut." But here it is.
Met my new lab partner yesterday, we were discussing our upcoming trip to do fieldwork in China and he said he's been before and didn't like it because "the communism thing was just all made so apparent" and that he "felt constantly watched". He's a 6 foot 3 white dude. OF COURSE PEOPLE LOOKED AT HIM. Nice guy other than that, so I'm hopeful.
White guy experiences a tiny insignificant dose of what minorities experience in America for a fraction of the time and it literally shook him to his core lmao. Maybe he'll be more empathetic from now on.
My university is holding an entire seminar about the “Chinese concentration camps”. It felt like the narrative never really caught on up here, but unfortunately it seems the narrative was just delayed
My university has like a group dedicated to liberating NK or some shit? I guess if you're tryna get an in with the CIA, it's a good place to start
IMO, it's worth making a big distinction between when someone is well-meaning but believes propaganda like that, and when someone is being blatantly shitty and classist or imperialist. It's not always an obvious, clear line, of course, but sometimes it is.
Even then the distinction isn't clear. Believing the lie so clearly that you think you are well intentioned. Growing up in the west most people internalize classism to some degree. It's deep-rooted brain poison that is fueled by humanity's biggest flaws.
I don't know how old most people are, and dont wana go all "Back in my day." But back when I was in HS in the early oughts I remember articles being published about how China was ethnically cleansing Tibet then. The dastardly Chinese COMMUNISTS were either literally genociding Tibetans, flooding Tibet with Han Chinese to displace Tibetans or, eliminating Tibetan culture, or some combination thereof. These articles were worded EXACTLY like they are now writing about Xinjiang, and strangely now Tibet is still like 95% Tibetan, there are more Tibetan people today than 20 years ago, and Tibetan culture is propagated in public schools there. So is a genocide happening to the Uyghurs? Maybe? I am not an expert or anything but I have learned to be super distrustful of any narrative that paints US 'Enemies(tm)' as bad.
EDIT: I also remember when I first saw articles published discussing a "Havana Syndrome" like condition back in 2010. The articles were basically the same as now, only no one seemed to bite then so they went away; they were patently stupid bullshit back then too. I guess they figured the political environment has changed so they dusted off those old articles and updated the new dates and names.
I remember in college in around 2014 being told by my geography professor something along the lines of "The one child policy doesn't apply specifically to han chinese who move to tibet because they're trying to replace their culture" or something like that. I imagine this is based on something true that was misinterpreted either intentionally or unintentionally rather than being a complete fabrication, which I wouldn't necessarily be surprised by either. Does anyone happen to have any idea what he was talking about?
I don’t remember the specifics, but the one-child policy was never one-child for every couple in the country. You got a bonus kid allowance for falling into certain groups, up to three (maybe four?) children.
You got a bonus kid if you lived in a rural area, you got a bonus kid if you were an ethnic minority, at certain times you could get a bonus kid if your first child was a girl. Apparently over half of Chinese were allowed two kids during most of the one-child policy.
So it’s very possible that Han Chinese in Tibet were allowed two children, and Tibetans were allowed three.
A glimmer of hope on the topic is how the "Iraq has WMDs" propaganda completely disintegrated. Of course there are counterexamples (people still believe all sorts of wild shit about the USSR), of course we aren't going to occupy western China and have a highly-publicized search for evidence, but it is possible for a manufactured narrative to come undone, and to come undone in a way that the lie becomes common knowledge.
Say 10-15 years from now there are undeniably still Uyghurs in China, and their population has even grown. That would take a lot of wind out of the story's sails.
Not to be a doomer, but living in a neoliberal hellscape I still hear people say things like "All the signs said they had WMDs we made an honest mistake!" or "They deliberately tricked us into thinking they had WMDs!" or even "They just moved them somewhere else/still have them"
The :cope: can be powerful
Sorry kid, can't give you a dime for healthcare/college/living wage.
War with China over the Uyghurs? Blank checks for all military contractors!
[10 years later] whoops my bad lol, sorry proles
You definitely still get some of that, but it's a small minority position, especially among people who aren't full-blown chuds anyway.
Most of my friends know better now, but yes it's incredibly frustrating.
these two articles address what you're talking about in different ways, I think they're both well worth reading:
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https://redsails.org/brainwashing/
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https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/
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Yes, and to be very honest it has become increasingly difficult for me to interact and socialize with people.
This perfectly describes my experience talking to my radlib friends about politics
