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The term "concentration camp" has an extremely negative connotation though due to Nazi Germany. China isn't gassing and cremating people. They are helping minor

by umvi 7y ago

The term "concentration camp" has an extremely negative connotation though due to Nazi Germany. China isn't gassing and cremating people. They are helping minorities integrate into Chinese society via ethically questionable means.

maeln 7y ago
They are not minorities in the region they mostly live.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  It really isn’t that’s simple if we are talking about northern rather than southern xinjiang, where Han is much more common. The history of that area is really complicated (the Manchu brought in the Uighurs to help exterminate the Mongolians...).
  - mc32 7y ago
    This is off topic, but maybe you know: what’s the practical difference between being an autonomous region and being a province?
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      Effectively not much. They all have leaders (party secretaries) appointed by Beijing who are almost all Han (only ceremonial heads would be minorities, the autonomy is mostly ceremonial unless we are talking about the SARs).
      - mc32 7y ago
        Interesting that it’s mostly political dressing with little impact. Good to know, thanks.
jandrese 7y ago
Concentration camps are not necessarily death camps. They are prisons for specific political, social, or ethnic groups--this seems to qualify. Even the phrase "concentration camp" is a bit of a euphemism. A better phrase might be a "political prison". And yes it has a negative connotation, because it is a bad thing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  The same kind of terminology debate comes up when people use "third world" to mean "developing countries" and, when corrected, they just declare the meaning changed. So if that's how we're supposed to roll then why wouldn't the same logic apply here?
  - kodz4 7y ago
    “Our language is an imperfect instrument created by ancient and ignorant men. It is an animistic language that invites us to talk about stability and constants, about similarities and normal and kinds, about magical transformations, quick cures, simple problems, and final solutions. Yet the world we try to symbolize with this language is a world of process, change, differences, dimensions, functions, relationships, growths, interactions, developing, learning, coping, complexity. And the mismatch of our ever-changing world and our relatively static language forms is part of our problem.” - Wendell Johnson
    - mc32 7y ago
      Language isn’t planned and created. It evolves. The problem isn’t language, but how it’s used. A dire statement from a doctor and the same statement from an unsympathetic actor comes across differently. That’s not quite the fault of language.
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    I thought "third world" was an informal and occasionally derogatory synonym for "developing countries". Is that not the case?
b_tterc_p 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_... Arguably worse
- el_benhameen 7y ago
  I'm not sure that it helps anyone's cause to try to rank the awfulness of various fundamentally awful things. Both of these things are unspeakably horrific.
  - komali2 7y ago
    Not unspeakably so - the more we speak about it, the more people aware that China is harvesting the organs of religious groups.
- sdegutis 7y ago
  It just occurred to me. We're in a very similar situation as Americans were 90-100 years ago when hearing about the extreme atrocities of the Nazis. Many didn't believe it, many believed it but didn't know what we could do about it. I wonder what we can do about these abominable practices we keep hearing about in China. I mean, what can we, individuals, do to help put an end to the constant stream of injustices there? The obvious solution is to boycott Chinese merchandise and vote with our wallets. But will we be able to overcome the inconveniences it would cause us? Could enough of us actually go through with it collectively to make a dent?
  - komali2 7y ago
    North Korea has been mass incarcerating and torturing its people in concentration camps for many decades now and America has done practically nothing about it. I've always wondered the same thing. Why Germany didn't get away with it, but North Korea does? My only guess is because Germany started invading all of Europe and posed a legitimate threat to American interests, whereas North Korea doesn't. Added bonus of defeating the Nazis is we freed everyone in concentration camps, but I guess that wasn't why we mobilized the American war machine. It'll take more than crimes against humanity.
ceejayoz 7y ago
If you're going to quibble on terminology, you'll probably want to start with not calling this "helping minorities integrate into society".
altec3 7y ago
heres the definition of concentration camp: a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. Seems like we have: - Large numbers of people - Persecuted minorities (Uyghurs) None of the reports seem to indicate forced labor or mass execution, but those seem to be optional requirements for a concentration camp.
iamnotacrook 7y ago
"They are helping minorities integrate into Chinese society " They are already part of Chinese society. And they don't want help. They want to be let out of prison and to return to their families.
- Ygg2 7y ago
  A more sinister reading could be they are disintegrating the minorities and recycling them (as organs) to be integrated into the Chinese (and Western) society.
- sct202 7y ago
  The sad part is they probably could have assimilated the Uighers faster if the Han were less racist against them. There were pictures of job agencies that had signs up that said no Uighers.
faissaloo 7y ago
Like how talking about IQ is just 'race realism' right
LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
Better then no integration measures like in europe- just have them live in there parallel worlds, speak there own language, have there own justice systems and drag some "model" citizens in front of the camera every month for a rainbow photo. Then watch the social justice warriors return to there gated communitys for another month of ignoring or fights with white "trailer park trash", that is more diverse and in touch with economic reality then the people yelling at them.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
The Nazi extermination camps were just one of the types of concentration camp they ran, and the most notorious for obvious reasons. There were also the labour concentration camps, and the Work Instruction Camps that are most comparable here - they "re-educated" Poles to accept their new life as slavic slaves.
gwbas1c 7y ago
> China isn't gassing and cremating people. Don't conflate concentration camps and death camps. Nazi Germany had both, and they are both different things. Death camps operated very differently than the concentration camps. Specifically, people got off the trains and went into the gas chambers rather quickly. They didn't stay in the death camps for months or years awaiting execution. (This is in contrast to people who stayed in concentration camps.) The death camps were also geographically isolated, so that it was very hard for civilians to learn that mass executions were happening. (The Nazis learned to do this when they performed mass euthanasia in hospitals in cities, because civilians would see people arrive in busses, then smoke come from crematoriums, and then more people arrive. They nearly got voted out of power because the churches started to turn against them.) Honestly, as an adult, it's worth spending some time reading up on the holocaust. It's not that our history classes were wrong, it's just that the depth of understanding that we can get as adults is much more than when we learned about the holocaust in grade school or high school.
olliej 7y ago
Yes, because they are a negative thing. And it’s interesting to use phrase “indefinite detention and torture” as “helping minorities integrate”. The fact that we don’t know how many people are being killed doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Every time some country decides to do this they hide that they’re killing people. China is still actively trying to hide how many people are in these camps, and isn’t allowing anyone else to go in to verify that they aren’t just killing people. Hell we can’t even get the from ICE.

by umvi 7y ago

maeln 7y ago

They are not minorities in the region they mostly live.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
It really isn’t that’s simple if we are talking about northern rather than southern xinjiang, where Han is much more common. The history of that area is really complicated (the Manchu brought in the Uighurs to help exterminate the Mongolians...).
- mc32 7y ago
  This is off topic, but maybe you know: what’s the practical difference between being an autonomous region and being a province?
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Effectively not much. They all have leaders (party secretaries) appointed by Beijing who are almost all Han (only ceremonial heads would be minorities, the autonomy is mostly ceremonial unless we are talking about the SARs).
    - mc32 7y ago
      Interesting that it’s mostly political dressing with little impact. Good to know, thanks.

jandrese 7y ago

Concentration camps are not necessarily death camps. They are prisons for specific political, social, or ethnic groups--this seems to qualify. Even the phrase "concentration camp" is a bit of a euphemism. A better phrase might be a "political prison". And yes it has a negative connotation, because it is a bad thing.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mehrdadn 7y ago
The same kind of terminology debate comes up when people use "third world" to mean "developing countries" and, when corrected, they just declare the meaning changed. So if that's how we're supposed to roll then why wouldn't the same logic apply here?
- kodz4 7y ago
  “Our language is an imperfect instrument created by ancient and ignorant men. It is an animistic language that invites us to talk about stability and constants, about similarities and normal and kinds, about magical transformations, quick cures, simple problems, and final solutions. Yet the world we try to symbolize with this language is a world of process, change, differences, dimensions, functions, relationships, growths, interactions, developing, learning, coping, complexity. And the mismatch of our ever-changing world and our relatively static language forms is part of our problem.” - Wendell Johnson
  - mc32 7y ago
    Language isn’t planned and created. It evolves. The problem isn’t language, but how it’s used. A dire statement from a doctor and the same statement from an unsympathetic actor comes across differently. That’s not quite the fault of language.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  I thought "third world" was an informal and occasionally derogatory synonym for "developing countries". Is that not the case?

b_tterc_p 7y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_... Arguably worse

el_benhameen 7y ago
I'm not sure that it helps anyone's cause to try to rank the awfulness of various fundamentally awful things. Both of these things are unspeakably horrific.
- komali2 7y ago
  Not unspeakably so - the more we speak about it, the more people aware that China is harvesting the organs of religious groups.
sdegutis 7y ago
It just occurred to me. We're in a very similar situation as Americans were 90-100 years ago when hearing about the extreme atrocities of the Nazis. Many didn't believe it, many believed it but didn't know what we could do about it. I wonder what we can do about these abominable practices we keep hearing about in China. I mean, what can we, individuals, do to help put an end to the constant stream of injustices there? The obvious solution is to boycott Chinese merchandise and vote with our wallets. But will we be able to overcome the inconveniences it would cause us? Could enough of us actually go through with it collectively to make a dent?
- komali2 7y ago
  North Korea has been mass incarcerating and torturing its people in concentration camps for many decades now and America has done practically nothing about it. I've always wondered the same thing. Why Germany didn't get away with it, but North Korea does? My only guess is because Germany started invading all of Europe and posed a legitimate threat to American interests, whereas North Korea doesn't. Added bonus of defeating the Nazis is we freed everyone in concentration camps, but I guess that wasn't why we mobilized the American war machine. It'll take more than crimes against humanity.

ceejayoz 7y ago

If you're going to quibble on terminology, you'll probably want to start with not calling this "helping minorities integrate into society".

altec3 7y ago

heres the definition of concentration camp: a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. Seems like we have: - Large numbers of people - Persecuted minorities (Uyghurs) None of the reports seem to indicate forced labor or mass execution, but those seem to be optional requirements for a concentration camp.

iamnotacrook 7y ago

"They are helping minorities integrate into Chinese society " They are already part of Chinese society. And they don't want help. They want to be let out of prison and to return to their families.

Ygg2 7y ago
A more sinister reading could be they are disintegrating the minorities and recycling them (as organs) to be integrated into the Chinese (and Western) society.
sct202 7y ago
The sad part is they probably could have assimilated the Uighers faster if the Han were less racist against them. There were pictures of job agencies that had signs up that said no Uighers.

faissaloo 7y ago

Like how talking about IQ is just 'race realism' right

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago

Better then no integration measures like in europe- just have them live in there parallel worlds, speak there own language, have there own justice systems and drag some "model" citizens in front of the camera every month for a rainbow photo. Then watch the social justice warriors return to there gated communitys for another month of ignoring or fights with white "trailer park trash", that is more diverse and in touch with economic reality then the people yelling at them.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

The Nazi extermination camps were just one of the types of concentration camp they ran, and the most notorious for obvious reasons. There were also the labour concentration camps, and the Work Instruction Camps that are most comparable here - they "re-educated" Poles to accept their new life as slavic slaves.

gwbas1c 7y ago

> China isn't gassing and cremating people. Don't conflate concentration camps and death camps. Nazi Germany had both, and they are both different things. Death camps operated very differently than the concentration camps. Specifically, people got off the trains and went into the gas chambers rather quickly. They didn't stay in the death camps for months or years awaiting execution. (This is in contrast to people who stayed in concentration camps.) The death camps were also geographically isolated, so that it was very hard for civilians to learn that mass executions were happening. (The Nazis learned to do this when they performed mass euthanasia in hospitals in cities, because civilians would see people arrive in busses, then smoke come from crematoriums, and then more people arrive. They nearly got voted out of power because the churches started to turn against them.) Honestly, as an adult, it's worth spending some time reading up on the holocaust. It's not that our history classes were wrong, it's just that the depth of understanding that we can get as adults is much more than when we learned about the holocaust in grade school or high school.

olliej 7y ago

Yes, because they are a negative thing. And it’s interesting to use phrase “indefinite detention and torture” as “helping minorities integrate”. The fact that we don’t know how many people are being killed doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Every time some country decides to do this they hide that they’re killing people. China is still actively trying to hide how many people are in these camps, and isn’t allowing anyone else to go in to verify that they aren’t just killing people. Hell we can’t even get the from ICE.