[Warning: grim outlook, no happy cat pictures. Chinese Tilders may be offended by the apparent insult to their government, but feel free to offer any criticisms. The Western nations are not free...
[Warning: grim outlook, no happy cat pictures. Chinese Tilders may be offended by the apparent insult to their government, but feel free to offer any criticisms. The Western nations are not free of blame or approaching history with clean hands here; we pioneered the institutional, industrialized practices of forced assimilation, genocide, and ethnic obliteration.]
This article focuses on what has apparently been a Chinese state project to eliminate Uighurs as a culture.
Using a "war on terrorism" excuse, the effort has extended beyond repression of the practice of Muslim faith, to erasure of Uighur language, culture, and even the placement of "orphaned" Uighur children in reeducation camps.
The term "cultural genocide" is apt - do Uighurs still exist when they're no longer behaviorally distinct from Han Chinese?
The Chinese state is clearly interested in eliminating any potential sources of internal strife, particularly ethnic separatism; non-approved ideologies (including original Marxism); and the use of uncommon languages which serve to perpetuate a sense of ethnic identity independent from the majority Han people, and make surveillance more difficult.
[Personal analysis: I'm not a China scholar, just an amateur interested in macroeconomics and history. Looking at the broader picture of the Xi government's strategy and tactics, I don't think there's any way to avoid perceiving that the Uighur suppression is not simply an internal human rights atrocity, but part of a long-term consolidation of power in a monolithic Chinese totalitarian state.
It may be difficult to think about the utility of universal human rights and diversity in a nation which has experienced so much instability and suffering in recent history. Unfortunately, the longer-term pattern for monocultural societies is as bad as for any other monoculture in nature: eventual stagnation and extinction due to loss of capacity for adaptation.
The patterns of history are discouraging for the world as a whole. The Chinese state consolidation is likely preparation for an increasingly aggressive foreign policy of reconquest of disputed territories, forced economic hegemony, and war.
The passivity and chaos in international institutions, internal strife, weakening of the U.S. hegemony and alliances, and rising authoritarianism elsewhere are signaling the Xi government that there will again be little or no effective organized resistance until the territories of other hegemonic powers are affected.]
[Warning: grim outlook, no happy cat pictures. Chinese Tilders may be offended by the apparent insult to their government, but feel free to offer any criticisms. The Western nations are not free of blame or approaching history with clean hands here; we pioneered the institutional, industrialized practices of forced assimilation, genocide, and ethnic obliteration.]
This article focuses on what has apparently been a Chinese state project to eliminate Uighurs as a culture.
Using a "war on terrorism" excuse, the effort has extended beyond repression of the practice of Muslim faith, to erasure of Uighur language, culture, and even the placement of "orphaned" Uighur children in reeducation camps.
The term "cultural genocide" is apt - do Uighurs still exist when they're no longer behaviorally distinct from Han Chinese?
The Chinese state is clearly interested in eliminating any potential sources of internal strife, particularly ethnic separatism; non-approved ideologies (including original Marxism); and the use of uncommon languages which serve to perpetuate a sense of ethnic identity independent from the majority Han people, and make surveillance more difficult.
[Personal analysis: I'm not a China scholar, just an amateur interested in macroeconomics and history. Looking at the broader picture of the Xi government's strategy and tactics, I don't think there's any way to avoid perceiving that the Uighur suppression is not simply an internal human rights atrocity, but part of a long-term consolidation of power in a monolithic Chinese totalitarian state.
It may be difficult to think about the utility of universal human rights and diversity in a nation which has experienced so much instability and suffering in recent history. Unfortunately, the longer-term pattern for monocultural societies is as bad as for any other monoculture in nature: eventual stagnation and extinction due to loss of capacity for adaptation.
The patterns of history are discouraging for the world as a whole. The Chinese state consolidation is likely preparation for an increasingly aggressive foreign policy of reconquest of disputed territories, forced economic hegemony, and war.
The passivity and chaos in international institutions, internal strife, weakening of the U.S. hegemony and alliances, and rising authoritarianism elsewhere are signaling the Xi government that there will again be little or no effective organized resistance until the territories of other hegemonic powers are affected.]