• Starshader@lemmy.mlOP
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        1 year ago

        And calling the uhygur genocide bad is spreading nazi disinformation ? Hahahaha

        • StellarTabi [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          I’m not going to look up the context, but if you’re randomly shouting “uhygur genocide” in a thread about UN voting to end US embargo on Cuba, US and Israel oppose, that specific type of whataboutism does sound suspicious like parroting nazi disinformation.

          • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            I used to think people talking about “horseshoe theory” were all bullshitters. Because I had never seen people on the left unironically doing anything close to what the right does.

            Then I saw the tankies on Lemmy. I’m still a proud leftist, but geez nothing has made me question that stance more than seeing how fervently the tankies deny genocides and defend aggressive warmongering—as long as the country perpetrating it is one that calls itself “communist”, or is a successor to one that used to call itself communist. Exactly the same way the right and centre-left do regarding Israel’s genocides. Lemmy’s tankies are way more similar to the nazis of other social media than any other group around.

            Which scares me a little as someone who basically completely agrees with them on economic issues.

            • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              I’m still a proud leftist, but geez nothing has made me question that stance more than seeing how fervently the tankies deny genocides and defend aggressive warmongering—as long as the country perpetrating it is one that calls itself “communist”, or is a successor to one that used to call itself communist.

              If that were true then we’d all be falling over ourselves to defend Pol Pot instead of calling him a shit and a CIA puppet and not wanting anything to do with him.

            • raven [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              You see that’s kind of where the problem is. You can say there’s a genocide and I can say “where” and that gives me the vibe of a genocide denier. I’ve looked for evidence, I’ve asked for evidence, but the best I’ve ever gotten is a satellite image of some prison in China, some (AI padded) mugshots with no context, and some thorough browbeating by very serious liberals.

              Let me put this another way. I’m of Jewish descent. My great aunt was in a camp. I’m not trying to “deny” any genocides, but what should my standard of evidence be? Particularly when there is a clear incentive for western media to create false narratives about their enemies, and have done so before?

              If you have something to present that I haven’t seen, I and the other “tankies” are wide open to engage with it.

              • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                You can pretend all you want that you’re “just asking questions”, but that doesn’t change facts. The Uyghur genocide has been very well-established for a long time now.

                The Chinese propaganda trying to deny their genocide has the same vibes as that time a Chinese official went on a western political current affairs show and said “you have a voting democracy, we have a working democracy”. The fact that Chinese state censorship is so strong (while western media is not censored) means there is very good reason to distrust the reports from Chinese media when they are in disagreement with the majority of reporting from everywhere else. So yeah, I’m going to trust reports from high quality journalistic organisations like the ABC, rather than anything that’s allowed to be reported on publicly within China.

                The irony here, of course, is that even if you take the Chinese party line at its word. That its actions are nothing more than heavily policing an area where there are dangerous terrorists and separatist. That’s pretty much exactly the same as the Israeli line. It boggles my mind that people can call out one but not the other. It’s not surprising for me that the right does it. There’s an element of racism there, and chauvinism for defending their political allies. And I’ll be honest, I’ve always associated the right with a denial of facts. But the fact that people who have the gall to call themselves leftists will pretend there’s nothing wrong is

                • raven [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Pretend all you want that you’re “just asking questions”
                  That’s pretty much exactly the same as the Israeli line

                  vibes of a genocide denier

                  doesn’t change facts.

                  What facts! I’m still waiting for one. We can go round and round all day but until you show me something to center this on it’ll be a waste of time. In 30 years even your ABC will quietly walk back their claims of genocide and I hope when that happens you will tell the people around you not to trust the same sources that lied to you.

              • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                1 year ago

                Tankies on Lemmy like to pretend China isn’t committing genocide against Uyghurs.

                • Brak [they/them, e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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                  bud im going to sincerely tell you to re-evaluate this take. i don’t have the time to deconstruct it for ya, but the “uyghur genocide” claims are basically an astroturfed campaign by an evangelical christo-fascist named Adrian Zenz.

                  his offensive bullshit got amplified by the US because they’re ramping up for a second cold war with China. there’s a lot you can be critical about with China if you want, but you should base it in reality.

                  i believe you’re leftist, you just have a bit more deprogramming to do when it comes to imperialism. that’s the hardest part for a lot of Americans since you’re trapped in the belly of the war beast.

                  you already got a lot of the way there by supporting Palestinian liberation. You don’t have to take my word for it either, just dig into some other sources about this topic.

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                    i don’t have the time to deconstruct it for ya,

                    Then you should take that time. Because

                    the “uyghur genocide” claims are basically an astroturfed campaign by an evangelical christo-fascist named Adrian Zenz.

                    needs damn citation. Especially in the face of these:

                    Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression: China’s Changing Strategy in Xinjiang

                    In 2017–18, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) changed its domestic security strategy in Xinjiang, escalating the uurlse of mass detention, ideological re-education, and pressure on Uyghur diaspora networks.

                    Cultural erasure: Tracing the destruction of Uyghur and Islamic spaces in Xinjiang

                    The Chinese Government has embarked on a systematic and intentional campaign to rewrite the cultural heritage of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). It’s seeking to erode and redefine the culture of the Uyghurs and other Turkic-speaking communities—stripping away any Islamic, transnational or autonomous elements—in order to render those indigenous cultural traditions subservient to the ‘Chinese nation’.

                    The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention

                    This report concludes that the People’s Republic of China (China) bears State responsibility for committing genocide against the Uyghurs in breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) based on an extensive review of the available evidence and application of international law to the evidence of the facts on the ground.

                    If you’re claiming these are false, invented or otherwise untrue, you need damn good evidence.

                    if you’re really leftist […]

                    Really? A No True Scotsman is really bad style.

                  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                    claims are basically an astroturfed campaign by an evangelical christo-fascist named Adrian Zenz.

                    Yes, because Zenz is definitely the only reason anyone knows about the genocide. There totally aren’t actual Uyghurs who have told their own stories or anything like that.

                    that’s the hardest part for a lot of Americans since you’re

                    Nice try, but nope. I haven’t exactly been subtle either. Actually wait, not even nice try, because the correct answer is literally my instance.

                    Yeah, US imperialism, and western imperialism more broadly, is bad. That isn’t relevant here though, because we’re talking about a genocide China is committing against a minority population within their own borders.

                    (You could maybe have made something at least appearing to be a valid argument about imperialism if we were instead talking about Russia’s unprovoked aggression against another country, which I know tankies also like to defend. But that’s not where we’re at right now.)

                    If you call yourself a leftist, try reflecting a bit on what that actually means to you. Because to me, it means desiring equality and opposing social hierarchy. And restricting people’s ability to express their culture; stealing children away from their parents, preventing people from leaving your country to reconnect with their relatives. These are all very much not in line with leftist ideals. Defending a country that calls itself communist just because that’s in its name, without reflecting on how well they actually live up to those values, is pretty poor leftism in my view.

                • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                  Where is the violent rebellion? If a genocide is happening, the people being genocided always fight back violently. Where is it?

                  Oh, the narrative relies on Uyhgurs all being sheep who line up to be killed, huh. Strange how overtly racist that part is given how many “leftists” believe the narrative.

            • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              Ok, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia committed genocide when they were nominally communist at the time. Is that good enough for you? It’s the most noteworthy example I can think of. Actually maybe the Shining Path too, in Peru. I never liked them or their methods.

              The supposed genocide in Xinjiang is not at all the same thing. There’s no open warfare, rebellion, nothing to suggest what western nations are claiming is happening. The only evidence I’ve seen is that prisons exist in Xinjiang, and their prisons are much like prisons anywhere else on the world. All other evidence I’ve seen comes from one specific person, the deluded mind of Adrian Zenz. A man who cannot speak Chinese, has never lived in China, and he’s one guy.

            • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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              Horseshoe theory only makes sense if you don’t think about it for even one second.

              So, not surprised it makes total sense to you

              • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                Horseshoe theory doesn’t make sense. That’s the thing.

                Until suddenly you start seeing people who call themselves leftists denying genocide. Which is something we usually think of as being a quality of the far-right.

                (The obvious solution here, of course, is that these people who call themselves leftists…aren’t. Because if leftism is about equality, there’s nothing equal about subjecting a people and preventing the continuance of their culture.)

                • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  99% of the time, calling someone a genocide denier is just burden shifting. Genocide is a crime; you have to prove it happened, you can’t simply assert it did and then smear anyone who asks for evidence.

                  We have spy satellites that can read a license plates and genocides, by their very nature, leave a lot of evidence. If there were a genocide in Xinjiang we’d have what we see in Palestine: tons of documentation in a wide variety of news outlets about crimes against civilians and actions like UN officials resigning in protest.

                • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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                  Where are leftists denying genocide? I’ve never heard a leftist deny a genocide, ever.

                  The reason horseshoe theory only makes sense if you don’t think about it is because it is entirely and completely surface level. A good recent example is that both the far left and the far right want to end the country of Isreal. So if you hear someone on the far left say “I don’t think Isreal should exist” and someone on the far right say “I don’t think Isreal should exist”, if you don’t think about it, you would conclude “wow they want the same thing! HORSESHOOOOEEE!!!”

                  When the reality is that the right doesn’t want Isreal to exist because they hate Jews and don’t want Jews to exist, and the left doesn’t want Isreal to exist because Isreal is a genocidal apartheid settler colonial state. The left’s viewpoints have nothing to do with the ethnicity of the people who live in Isreal, and the right’s viewpoints have nothing to do with the actions of the country of Isreal. Therefore any actions taken by the right or the left towards their statement of “I don’t think Isreal should exist” would be entirely and completely different. Although they’re saying the same thing on the surface, literally 1 second of thought is all it takes to realize “oh those are actually entirely different things.”

                  So if you think a leftist is denying a genocide somewhere and you start crying “MUH HORSESHOE THEORY” it just means you haven’t spent any time thinking about it. I bet if you did think about it you’d learn something.

                  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                    Where are leftists denying genocide? I’ve never heard a leftist deny a genocide, ever.

                    In Xinjiang province of China. That’s where.

                    But of course, if you define “genocide” as “thing that I’m willing to politically accept is a genocide”, it’s very easy to pretend someone isn’t a genocide denialist.

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                There’s a big difference between being upset at some difference in ideology and looking at people sincerely defending or denying a genocide in the name of that ideological difference.

                • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  There was a 2020 statement to the UN, read by a Cuban representative, speaking on the behalf of 45 other countries who were endorsing China’s policy on Xinjiang. Among those countries are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Belarus, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Palestine (this one is important), and Myanmar.

                  These places are completely disparate in terms of geography and state ideology, yet they all came together to very solidly proclaim China’s policy in the region does not constitute genocide. Palestine and Yemen in particular seems very egregious to me, because if anything those should be aware of what an ethnic genocide looks like, and yet they endorsed Cuba’s statements on China. Furthermore, China’s Xinjiang program ended in 2019 as far as I know. This is part of the statement those nations endorsed:

                  “China has undertaken a series of measures in response to threats of terrorism and extremism in accordance with the law to safeguard the human rights of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. There was no single terrorist attack in Xinjiang in the last three years. People of all ethnic groups enjoy their happy life in a peaceful and stable environment. China maintains openness and transparency by, among other things, inviting more than 1,000 diplomats, officials of international organizations, journalists, and religious persons to visit Xinjiang who witnessed Xinjiang’s remarkable achievement.”

                  At a certain point maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask if it’s yourself who’s clouded by ideology in this matter

                  • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    Since you brought up Yemen, it’s interesting to compare Google image results for the Yemen genocide and the alleged Uyghur genocide. Search the former and you get pictures of destroyed towns, columns of refugees, mass graves, and starving people. But Google “Uyghur genocide” and it’s nothing but pictures of protests in Western countries. You would think that the Uyghur people, being much wealthier than the Yemenese and receiving much more attention from Western journalists, would have an easier time getting those pictures out there.

            • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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              Hm, so you’re saying that every political faction “denies genocide and defends aggressive warmongering”? Could it perhaps be that every faction gets accused at one point or another of genocide and aggressive warmongering, and it’s your responsibility as a political person to use your brain to figure out who is lying?

              • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                so you’re saying that every political faction “denies genocide and defends aggressive warmongering”?

                No. Leftists who aren’t tankies don’t.

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                  I’m a leftist who isn’t a tankie. I don’t much care about China and I think the struggle for liberation can only be fought where we are at. I don’t uncritically accept the propaganda and the worldview of the state I seek to destroy at face value. Thus I do not accept claims about “genocide” committed by the US’ main rival without good evidence. Having principles and critical faculties are important to my politics. What about you? What makes you, someone who identifies liberals as “center-left,” significantly different from them? Your conditional support for Palestinian liberation?

                  • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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                    like, “such and such country is committing genocide and covering it up!” is a very serious claim! fortunately, it is also very incredible. it’s improbable that mass murder of a population can go almost totally unnoticed except for reports and evidence from sources that are demonstrably untrustworthy. Just knowing who Adrian Zenz is should be making you suspicious unless you’ve completely disabled your bullshit detectors.

                  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                    I’m a leftist who isn’t a tankie

                    To be clear. If you call yourself a leftist, and you pretend China isn’t committing genocide, that makes you a tanky. That’s what tankies are: people who claim to be leftists who support violent authoritarian regimes.

                  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                    Thus I do not accept claims about “genocide” committed by the US’ main rival without good evidence

                    It’s very easy to say this, because it means you can just reject any evidence to the contrary as “not good” or “biased”.

                    Separating children from their parents. Raising them to be assimilated with the majority culture. Clamping down on their expression of their culture. These are all acts of genocide.

                    The most untrustworthy source here is the Chinese government themselves. Any report from a country should be treated with scepticism, but none more so than when that country clamps down on the free press.

                    We have so many reports out of Xinjiang. Leaks from people in the province itself. Reports from the family of people there. Evidence inferred from satellite imagery and what information is publicly available from the Chinese government. There’s just no denying it. You can choose to pretend China’s doing nothing wrong if you like. I hope you sleep well, knowing you’re defending genocide.

          • Starshader@lemmy.mlOP
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            Except that I’m a Swiss socialist and that I’m taking my sources from very left wing ONG that I work with ?

        • WhyEssEff [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          if i had to guess, probably. it’s somewhat of a plausibly-deniable dogwhistle for ‘asian = yellow’. not saying you meant that, just that I don’t blame the mods for their hypervigilance here

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            1 year ago

            Oh wow. I honestly didn’t thought about that. I may be an ass sometime but… not like that :o !

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              You hadn’t thought of it because it’s completely made up. Xi started getting compared to Winnie the Pooh by Chinese citizens after a picture came out showing Xi and former US President Obama together in a similar pose to Pooh and Tigger. Used originally for rather light-hearted ribbing of Xi, the Chinese government decided to crack down on it hard, which has had a massive Streisand Effect with the comparison between Xi and Pooh becoming popular in the West because Xi has shown how sensitive he is to it.

              There’s no racial component to it at all. It’s all about being critical of the absurd censorship of the current PRC’s government.

              • Garfield@lemm.ee
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                i wonder why western redditors found a depiction of an asian president as a fat yellow bear and a black president as a character called Tigger so funny 🤔 definitely no racism here, no sir

              • raven [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                There’s no racial component to it at all

                That’s a pretty bold statement to make. Have you seen the west?

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                Wow, look at this racism denial from the same person who was criticizing Tankies for genocide denial.

                “The meme was started by a Chinese person, therefore it can’t be racist” is just a new veneer on “black rappers use the n-word in music, therefore it’s not racist if I use it.”

                • nublug@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  except winnie the pooh isn’t already a slur, and it kinda does matter the history of the usage of a term if you’re trying to determine the intent and usage of it.

                  literally nobody used the winnie the pooh insult against him because of his race, it was always because he literally looks like the character, and then threw a fit and banned all mention or image of a worldwide-known and beloved fictional character. because he’s an unstable tyrant.

              • Bassword [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                the Chinese government decided to crack down on it hard

                Deleting some memes from Weibo isn’t a “hard” crackdown, westerners just want to pretend it is and for some reason still care ten years later.

              • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                Have you considered that the meme might have different impact coming from a Chinese person ribbing their leader than a white westerner echoing it? The former might be “light ribbing” but the later is racist. Who says a thing matters significantly on whether its ok to say. You know this very well because I’d hope you’d know that its not ok for white people to use the soft r n word even though many black people use it.

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              Yeah, the comments of yours in the modlog are rude but the mod is definitely reaching and banning you for dissent

      • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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        Taken very seriously, and applied very selectively. That mod team loves to put their thumb on the scale.

      • Starshader@lemmy.mlOP
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        So if someone say Christianism sucks because it’s a religion and I respond by saying all religions sucks, is that whataboutism ? Excuse me if I just think that it’s better to criticize everyone than a specific group of person…

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Nations are a sociological formation that objectively exist in the world. Even fucking fascists have better education than you, and not because their education is impressive.