7 ms·
“Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang
- Tomte 6y agoNo, it isn't. From the article: > It has forcibly sterilised some Uyghur women. But it is not slaughtering them. Not slaughtering them makes no difference to whether it's genocide. Genocide is about "intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". Sterilizing them counts. As would snatching the children of that group and placing them in families of your own group (to give an example where nobody dies, not even the unborn).
- jjgreen 6y agoNot saying that you're wrong -- would you include the US eugenics programs [1] or the Australian forced adoptions [2] in that? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations
- OwlsParlay 6y agoUndoubtedly, yes.
- hd4 6y agoCan you bring contemporary examples, not things that happened decades before many of the posters here were even alive?
- jjgreen 6y agoMy question was not a rhetorical device, it was a question -- I'm genuinely interested in the answer.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoFrom the wiki article itself: > The compulsory sterilization of American men and women continues to this day. In 2013, it was reported that 148 female prisoners in two California prisons were sterilized between 2006 and 2010 in a supposedly voluntary program, but it was determined that the prisoners did not give consent to the procedures. > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-stern/sterilization-california-prisons_b_3631287.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-stern/sterilization-calif... It was banned in 2014 at least. But 2013 is contemporary enough.
- marcinzm 6y agoEvil as that is, it's not genocide since it's not aimed at the destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The other western examples cited were aimed at that as is what China is doing.
- maxerickson 6y agoAlso last summer in the immigration detention center(s?). https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/9/15/21437805/whistleblower-hysterectomies-nurse-irwin-ice https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/9/15/21437805/w... I guess there can be some room for discussion about whether it is genocide if there is not a clear target group/culture. Doesn't make it less heinous, just a different sort of heinous.
- emptysongglass 6y agoIt was one center by one doctor who is being investigated. This was not the machinations of federal or state.
- maxerickson 6y agoThere's strong evidence of the one doctor and concerns that it might be more widespread. Were there people that knew about it and didn't stop it? And it very much is a failure of government if an individual is systematically abusing people that are in government custody.
- __s 6y agoYes. Same for the residential schools in Canada my grandmother attended https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc...
- chartpath 6y agoThank you for bringing this up. It's outrageous that it isn't more known outside of Canada (and inside). The last one only closed in 1996. EDIT: and good on you for honouring her.
- calvinmorrison 6y agoI think something similar existed in Alaska. I had relatives up in south east Alaska ( the chain of islands that hang down, with cities like Juneau, Ketchican. While visiting we were shepherded around in a little school van by a retired teacher who worked at the local boarding school which was managed by Indian affairs. It was quite interesting talking to him - essentially kids who lived a traditional remote lifestyle in fishing and other villages all over the various islands would come to the school for months at a time for an education. I'm sure I didn't hear that 'other' side of the story, but it's pretty clear what was happening - taking kids away from their traditional families and putting them into American style education is a softer form of cultural destruction. I also spoke with his former students who had moved to the big city (think 3,000 people), and the city itself is mostly a mix of native, old russian and americans. In some ways their lifestyle was the same, their income was still fishing but they were living in a mostly normal American town - aside from the fact it was in the middle of no where and there were more boats and than cars in the city. I'd like to go back up there, everything I have learned about tlinget and the people I spent time with was a really interesting and awesome opportunity. Similar things happened to the scotts when scottish gaelic stopped being taught in school and was transferred to English. Now of course almost everyone in Scotland besides the Outer Hebrides speaks English. In many ways the Tlinget I met in SE Alaska were aware of what was going on and there was a lot of cultural preservation and focus on their language and traditional lifestyle, but again what else would you expect when you talk to people who work at the local cultural center? It's hard to say what the 'average' Tlinget experience is and since it's pretty sparse up there, experiences vary wildly. Anyway - Go to Sitka, AK, it's beautiful!
- formerly_proven 6y agoObviously.
- CaptArmchair 6y agoDefinitely, yes.
- Juliate 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#International_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#International_law quotes: Article II of the Convention defines genocide as: ... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
- Tomte 6y agoFrom skimming those articles I'd tend towards yes, but I'm neither a legal professional, nor would I claim that I know enough about those situations to make a judgment myself.
- Loughla 6y agoYes, obviously. But what is the point of bringing that up, honestly?
- jjgreen 6y agoOne does not hear about the "US genocide" or the "Australian genocide" in the same way. So is the West exhibiting double-standards until it reflects a little more on its own actions?
- refurb 6y agoWell, one of them happened quite a while ago, and both govts have acknowledged and in some cases apologized for their actions. And the other one is happening right now and the govt is denying it.
- rvr_ 6y agoJudge de current situation by ethical standards of the present and judge historic ones with the eyes of those days. Eugenics was, once upon a time, seen like "good stuff" all around the globo, not anymore.
- lmz 6y agoIt sounds unfair. It's OK for these other countries to keep enjoying the benefits of eugenics they did in the past, but China can't join in? (same argument can be used for pollution)
- pseudalopex 6y agoWhat benefits?
- lmz 6y agoIncreased unity, no need to consider minority demands. e.g. consider the Keystone XL pipeline. Would it be easier and quicker to build without the Native population being there to protest? Or consider the recent race riots in the USA, would such a thing even be possible in places without such diversity?
- veidr 6y agoAbsolutely yes, clearly, for the US eugenics programs. (I don't know much about the Australian example, so won't comment on that, other than to say that a cursory search that seems to also imply UM YES)
- concordDance 6y agoThe former only would if actually erradicating a group was either the intent or the (eventual) end result. Not sure the US eugenics program would count under that def (it might have hit many minorities disproportionately, but wouldn't have wiped them out entirely).
- horsemessiah 6y agoWhat evidence is there of sterilization that’s not coming from Falun Gong? I don’t find those cultists to be any more of a legitimate source than Scientology. They have pretty insane and hateful believes and have been found unreliable many times. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Falun_Gong https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
- zdragnar 6y agoThere have been a number of first-person interviews; fairly certain those weren't from Falun Gong members.
- api 6y agoThe Nazi genocide also started with "softer" measures like this and then progressed to forced labor and finally to mass murder. It's sort of like a large scale collective version of how serial killers escalate.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mytailorisrich 6y agoForced sterilisations have unfortunately happened all over China as a result of the One Child policy. To my knowledge that has occurred across the board and no ethnic group was ever specifically targeted. In fact under the One Child policy minorities have the right to have more children than the Han majority, and they do have more children. So reporting that "some forced sterilisations" have occurred is not really significant in itself. Likewise, when it said that the birth rate has significantly dropped I think it would be useful to see figures (if they exist) on the average number of children per woman in the region because, again, China has a pretty strict birth control national policy and that would allow to see how it was enforced in Xinjiang before versus now. The figures quoted in an article I quickly found through Google [1] suggest that the One Child policy (even with recent relaxation) was not strictly enforced and that the birth rate was much higher than it should have been under national policy. If so that could mean that they were cut some slack and have now been brought in line with the rest of the country. Of course this is from the Golbal Times, an official Chinese organisation, so I do not know how reliable the figures are. [1] https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1212073.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1212073.shtml
- podric 6y agoHow do you quantify the "in part" portion of that definition: "intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group"? What's the minimum number or percent of a group that must be targeted in order for an act to be considered genocide according to that definition?
- __s 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#%22In_whole_or_in_part%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#%22In_whole_or_in_par...
- pietrovismara 6y ago> Sterilizing them counts > As would snatching the children of that group and placing them in families of your own group Ok, then the USA are committing genocide in ICE camps[0][1][2]. How can the US government go and call China mass murderers, feeling all morally superior, when the same happens in their country, in their immigrant detention centers? Why the rest of the west doesn't say anything about the horrors perpetuated by the US? We keep going with this idiotic double standard, where West = GOOD, Not West = BAD. Wake up. [0]: https://www.justsecurity.org/72587/the-u-s-bears-international-responsibility-for-forced-sterilization-of-women-in-ice-detention/ https://www.justsecurity.org/72587/the-u-s-bears-internation... [1]: https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/immigration-detention-and-coerced-sterilization-history-tragically-repeats-itself/ https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/immigration-dete... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_separation_policy#:~:text=Since%202017%2C%20the%20Trump%20administration,COVID%2D19%20in%20the%20facilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_se...
- Supermancho 6y ago> As would snatching the children of that group and placing them in families of your own group While these acts are unquestionably immoral, I don't think the ICE detention or transplanting children equates to genocide. It's not the same intent or effect. Eliminating "culture" is not the same as eliminating "people".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DharmaPolice 6y ago>Not slaughtering them makes no difference to whether it's genocide. In terms of the definition adopted in various official contexts this is obviously correct. But the problem is in terms of discourse "genocide" has a much more specific connotation for most of the public and it's all too easy to (deliberately or not) to conflate the two things - making the issue harder to discuss. If you'll forgive a controversial analogy - it's like the term sexual assault. Clearly sexual assault in legal terms has to include unwanted sexual touching of any degree. No doubt. But if I say "I am a sexual assault survivor" then this inevitably conjures up images very different to the truth (which is : my bum was pinched a few times in nightclubs two decades ago). In the case of sexual assault modifiers like "serious" or "minor" get used because clearly there is a big range of possibilities here. And although my experience was sexual assault, it's intellectually dishonest for me to put it like that (at least not without heavy explanation). Similarly with genocide, if (to use your least severe hypothetical example) the only issue was an above average number of children from one ethnic group being taken into care and placed with foster families of another ethnic group then it would feel dishonest to say (in public discussions) that that was a genocide (by itself). (Note : That is NOT what is happening here, I am merely responding to your example) I don't know enough about the Uyghur situation to say myself but maybe "genocidal practices" might be more appropriate, I don't know. It feels poor taste to call anything "a minor genocide".
- noobface1337 6y agoI wonder if anyone had ever read any of the accounts of these "forced sterilisation"? They all claim to be "sterlised" by a needle while they were sleep or something. However, actual female sterilisation requires surgery https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/contraception/female-sterilisation/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/contraception/female-sterilisa... This really makes me question the narrative of it even happening. If it were, then there needs to be a prelude to all of the stories of "China invents female sterilisation without surgery", which in itself is a huge scientific achievement, since even with surgery female sterilistaion is only 99% effective.
- gridder 6y agoAlso, nobody knows how many Uyghurs are actually being killed (probably a lot). It could be a lot worse.
- jarym 6y agoThe crackdown in Hong Kong was and is severe and that was with the worlds media watching. One can only imagine how bad it is in Xinjiang with the strict control of independent reporting as to what is going on.
- draklor40 6y agoBy the common understanding of the word, it is not. Just as “homicide” means killing a person and “suicide” means killing yourself, “genocide” means killing a people. China’s persecution of the Uyghurs is horrific: it has locked up perhaps 1m of them in prison camps, which it naturally mislabels “vocational training centres”. It has forcibly sterilised some Uyghur women. But it is not slaughtering them. - Yes, Guardian is so sure that no mass murders took place. How ? Cause you know, CCP says so, so must be the truth. A sham of an article in the name of journalism and "trying to name the crime accurately".
- zdragnar 6y agoAs defined in the Geneva convention, genocide also includes forced sterilisation and removal of children from parents. Also, what do you expect the end result of mass incarceration in prison camps to be, other than mass graves?
- Clewza313 6y agoThese aren't extermination camps, people are eventually being released from them. Their notional aim is re-education and making people genuinely love Big Brother/the Communist Party, but I doubt the deciders are naive enough to believe that will actually happen. Instead, it's sufficient that the detainees become broken, intimidated and compliant.
- zdragnar 6y agoRecent interview showed they also round up people for "further education" after releasing them the first time. Assuming the allegations are true- psychological, physical torture, rape, forced work and so on- is it not reasonable to assume that not all who enter will leave?
- Clewza313 6y agoPeople die in prisons too, that doesn't make them extermination camps.
- bhouston 6y ago[deleted]
- thedudeabides5 6y agoYes. It appears so. But it's so horrific, no one wants to talk about it. In December 2018 The Tribunal issued an interim judgement: “The Tribunal’s members are certain – unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt – that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.” https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgment/ https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgment/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is-harvesting-organs-from-detainees-uk-tribunal-concludes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is-harve... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-30324440https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/index.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-30324440https://ww...
- kgwgk 6y agoHarvesting organs from prosecuted groups is, allegedly, a common activity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoAs horrifying as it is, it seems a relatively recent staple in our world. Most recent public example was Kosovo ( https://balkaninsight.com/2015/09/04/kosovo-organ-trafficking-how-the-claims-were-exposed-09-04-2015-1/ https://balkaninsight.com/2015/09/04/kosovo-organ-traffickin... ). It is hard not get depressed.
- yorwba 6y agoSome unknown but probably large number of people is executed in China every year. Some of them are Uyghurs. For organ transplantation, a corpse is a corpse, whether they died in a traffic accident or were executed doesn't matter (except probably execution by poison as practiced in the US). So yes, executed Uyghurs are used as organ donors in China, but the causality is inverted: they're not killed for organ harvesting, they have their organs harvested because they were killed.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- skissane 6y ago> Calling it genocide depends on a definition rooted in a UN convention which suggests that one need not actually kill anyone to commit it This article is ignoring the history of the word "genocide". It was coined by the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, during the Second World War, to describe what the Nazis were doing to his own people (and to others too). However, Lemkin himself never defined it so narrowly as to only involve mass slaughter. Indeed, Lemkin played a significant role in advocating for the UN Genocide Convention, and the breadth of the definition in the Convention reflects the breadth of Lemkin's own understanding of the word he originated. So I think dismissing this as just something some UN convention says is ignoring the actual history of the origins of the word.
- dfilppi 6y agoThen the word should be retired. The suffix -cide means to kill. Any other meaning makes the word itself a lie.
- skissane 6y agoIn geno-cide, it is the group you are killing (the genos), not necessarily its individual members. Sterilise them all and you will have successfully killed the group when its last member dies of old age, even though you never killed any individual member of it.
- hkmaxpro 6y agoThere are “growth regulator herbicides” and “growth-disrupting insecticides” that harm the growth of plants or inhibiting the reproduction of insects withing killing them. Xinjiang genocide is just the same.
- Svip 6y agoI thought Lemkin coined the word with the Armenian genocide in mind. In 1943, the scale of the Holocaust was unknown among the public, and even Western intelligence to some extend. Lemkin was in the US by then, so the information available to him about the scale of Nazi atrocities in Eastern Europe would be largely unavailable to him.
- baybal2 6y agoThe Economist is owned by the same clan who owns Fiat — Agnelli family. Fiat and its owner family made tons of money on making military machinery for Axis Powers. Fiat is a 50% shareholder of GAC FCA, a Chinese auto makers with factories in Xinjiang out of all places.
- rich_sasha 6y agoIf true, that’s bad and hypocritical, but good on Economist for having the balls/freedom to speak up anyway.
- Synaesthesia 6y agoGenocide is a bit much. Then we should also call what Israel is doing in Gaza "genocide".
- orange_joe 6y agoAs someone whose studied both situations pretty extensively I disagree. Israel practices something more akin to apartheid. There is no eugenic component as far as I’m aware, Gaza has a significantly higher birth rate than israel. In Xinjiang, forced sterilization is a systemic aspect of the campaign thereby fitting into the UN definition of genocide.
- baybal2 6y agoThen we do
- janeroe 6y agoNice, MSM is whitewashing Chinese inhumane practices basing their arguments on some semantic fraud.
- viktorcode 6y agoThe whole idea behind labour camps in Xinjiang is to strip Uyghurs living in China from their independent identity. Take away their history by destroying ancestral graveyards. Rid them of Islam by prohibiting religious practice and "educating" them with communist ideas through loudspeakers. And even end them as an ethnicity, by sterilising some women and raping others to produce Han offsprings. Genocide describes that perfectly. P.S. Though better of journalism quality of The Economist.
- gridder 6y agoGenocide is a perfect word for this. Keep in mind that the situation is probably a lot worse since we are talking about China.
- solarkraft 6y agoI thought the article was going to go into how the chinese are going beyond genocide instead of saying "it's not that bad, guys". There's also torture and organ harvesting, FWIW.
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.is/Gr4qw https://archive.is/Gr4qw