7 ms·

I'm glad he made it to the US. Of course because it's The Atlantic, they were obligated to implicate the US as a co-conspirator: "Islamophobic discourses that

I'm glad he made it to the US. Of course because it's The Atlantic, they were obligated to implicate the US as a co-conspirator: "Islamophobic discourses that gathered strength in the U.S. have been central to China’s efforts to justify its Xinjiang policies". Yeah, of course it's all really our fault, of course. Keep in mind, The Atlantic is a lifestyle magazine.

celticninja 5y ago
I fail to understand why it is the west that speaks up for these Muslims, whilst the Islamic countries remain quiet. Where is the outrage from Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran? Why are the US the ones accused of needing to do more? Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something?
- chaostheory 5y ago
  I would guess it’s because many if not most Islamic majority governments are not democracies. Their people cannot speak out, and their governments seek favor with Beijing.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something? They're farther down the hierarchy of nation state needs than where you need to be to be in order to call out someone like China. So they all shit on Israel because it's the only "local enough we could conceivably do something about it" problem they can all agree on.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    I think you're simplifying it by a lot. Israel is not about "being able to do anything about" (they arguably can't do much about Israel in the sense of destroying it or changing it's policy). If that was the explanation they wouldn't call out the U.S (or sometimes Europe), yet they do (e.g Mohammed Cartoons). The geography is also not a good explanation. The Mohammed Cartoons, which happened in Denmark, made Muslims go out to the streets all throughout the world. My explanation for "why Israel" is another comment on this thread.
- toberoni 5y ago
  The victims are humans first (their religion shouldn't be a concern) so I don't find it surprising that many Western people speak up for them. I would be happy to see more opposition from Islamic countries though.
  - celticninja 5y ago
    I agree. I expect the west to call it out. I also expect the Muslim world to call them out. They are currently failing to walk the walk.
- stanislavb 5y ago
  I've wondered the same... given that they've been prosecuted due to their religion.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  > Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something? I am gonna make some sweeping generalization (how could you not when speaking about 1.5 billion people) but here goes: Not really, the Islamic world didn't care much about ISIS and the Syrian civil war, both of which killed and displaced millions of people. The only place where Muslims pay attention to regularly and express outrage is Palestine as far as I know. I mean yes some Arab newspaper may talk about Syria or ISIS now and then, even talk badly about it, but nothing that will make people go out to the streets like Israel/Palestine does. Muslims are much more sensitive to killings of Muslims by the West than by other empires (e.g Russia or China) since the West is perceived as a threat to their way of life and other empires aren't. Israel is part of the West in their eyes. I am quite confident that if it were Israel or the U.S running these camps we would've heard much more about it in the Muslim world.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
    Do you live in the Muslim world? Xinjiang and Uighur Muslims are spoken up for in nearly every country by people on the ground. Govts are different. Many of the Arab govts now kiss up to Israel the same way they defend China, but the people are different. And yes, Uighur Muslims and their genocide does get people out in the streets. It's a newer event less people know about (Palestine has been being dealt with this way for decades) but it still has a huge sway on people proportionally.
  - celticninja 5y ago
    So when they claim to hate the abuse Muslims face in the west, really they mean they hate the west and the abuse Muslims face there is just a handy tool. They don't really care about Muslims they just care about being outraged. Just your common or garden religious zealots then.
    - shadilay 5y ago
      I'm forgetting the specifics but I read a story about how little the muslim world cares about specific instances but universally they are outraged by mohammed cartoons. Everything else is political and doesn't unite them.
- yorwba 5y ago
  All Muslim-majority countries also have large Muslim minorities and are worried about charismatic leaders using their religious authority to challenge the government (e.g. Indonesia: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indonesia-arrests-firebrand-clerics-lawyer-attacks-77343267 https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indonesia-arr... ) so they tend to be in favor of allowing only state-sanctioned forms of Islam.
- lupire 5y ago
  "Islamic" countries are dictatorships like China.
  - pc86 5y ago
    Theocracy and dictatorship go hand in hand by definition, that doesn't make the country any less Islamic so no need for the quotes as if it's meant ironically or superficially.
- _alxk 5y ago
  There's a few things. 1) One thing to keep in mind is that religion is usually only the backdrop for some geopolitical issues. Yes, ISIS was an Islamist movement, but it was first and foremost opportunists seizing a vacuum of power in Iraq, and the instability in Syria, to put themselves into power. When looked at through that lens, why would a Muslim in Morocco or Algeria or Indonesia care that much about ISIS? Does a Catholic in Rome feel intimately connected to violence in Mexico? Most of them thought ISIS were a bunch of assholes, but it wasn't happening in their backyard. 2) Another thing is again politics. It's good for Arab leaders to criticize Israel and blame it for their problems. (Most of them) don't need Israel for anything. They rely more in China. That's the same reason most Western countries are falling short of accusing China of genocide. 3) From a purely religious point of view, Jerusalem/Al-Quds is a very important religious site Islam. It's the direction they originally faced when they prayed (Mohammed moved it to Mecca later), and is the location from which Mohammed ascended to heaven in one of his visions. China has no religious value.
- sidibe 5y ago
  > Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something? Realistically they are much better off being China's friend which in China's view means not criticizing China for anything. Pakistani PM said it best last month about Xinjiang: "Because of our extreme proximity and relationship with China, we actually accept the Chinese version." It's pretty sad, but you can't really blame him either, they can't really afford to lose all the deals and propping up they get from China.
- steve76 5y ago
  If you think AT&T tech support is bad, imagine asking for help from the corrupt Pakistanis, or the stone age syphilitic Iranians out of a Marxist death camp. In all seriousness, dying and crying is ineffective. It's better to do a good job so your slavers are leveraged, and in response to slightest praise from the lowest echelon, kick off in Asian tradition the mass suicide. You don't have to really do it. People die anyways. Just store their bodies in oil, and when the time comes, tie a rope around them and drop them off an abandoned skyscraper. Throw some branded product around the ground level mush from a big client, like Nike or Apple, so the viral video shows starving prisoners throwing that cheap junk out of the way to slurp up the remains in a tragic and desperate act of survival cannibalism [1]. You don't ride into Dodge City just to complain about how you've been cheated and how unfair the world is. Just don't go there. Speaking of that, to our Afghan partners, if you're not fighting and winning, why do we have to worry about where the bombs land? Win or be firebombed [2]. Loose, the Taliban, Iran, Pakistan, China, and Russia get the blame for the war and have a massive bill to pay. We'll run it through godless Europe under the guise of carbon credits or some garbage like that. I would rather talk about movies, or tv shows, or video games, or comic books, or even advances in physics and medicine. But here I am, saying horrible things. The one and only reason why is because Karl Marx, the one white European man who has murdered more people than anyone else in history. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre#Massive_cannibalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre#Massive_canni... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike#The_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike#The_...
kvathupo 5y ago
> Keep in mind, The Atlantic is a lifestyle magazine. Have you ever read The Atlantic? Quite a few of its writers have either been nominated for or outright won Pulitzers, with one winner this year [1]. Even beyond awards, it has published important reporting [2] and very influential commentary [3]. [1] - https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/ed-yong-atlantic https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/ed-yong-atlantic [2] - https://pulitzercenter.org/publications/atlantic https://pulitzercenter.org/publications/atlantic [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Reparations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Reparations
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  .
  - kvathupo 5y ago
    Wrong prize...
  - mkmk 5y ago
    Are you perhaps confusing the Nobel Prize with the Pulitzer Prize?
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  It's undeniable that the Atlantic has become overly polarizing (like every other American outlet). But for every Pulitzer winner, they have 5 other writers writing overly-partisan clickbait. Right now under their "Most Popular" column, the top article has "Trump" in it. Trump has been out of office for over 6 months, and people are still fucking writing about him, still giving him coverage. If Trump wins again in 2024, he'll have won mostly because left-leaning rags learned nothing from 2016 by constantly giving him free press.
  - fencepost 5y ago
    Right now under their "Most Popular" column, the top article has "Trump" in it. Trump has been out of office for over 6 months, Have you somehow failed to notice that the former guy is both legitimately significant in the news (legal troubles, ongoing "fraudit" movements) and the defacto leader of US Republicans?
guscost 5y ago
A magazine dangling this important humanitarian story behind a “soft” paywall to sell subscriptions, no less. Imagine the reaction if they had done this with their COVID collection.
- SamBam 5y ago
  If you think they published an important story just to sell more copies... well then you'd be right, of course. That's how every single publication in the country works, if they're not scraping by on ads. But what a silly way to look at it. "The Times and Post are publishing this Watergate thing, and they expect me to pay for a paper??? They're only publishing it to sell more copies."
- benrbray 5y ago
  That's just capitalism for you. The same happens with all important news stories, including about covid and active warzones. It's a problem, sure, but it doesn't invalidate journalism entirely.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    It's not capitalism. Everything needs funding. Capitalism just means it's voluntary funding instead of mandatory funding.
- lupire 5y ago
  If you cared enough to finance open access to the article, I'm sure they'd be amenable.
  - guscost 5y ago
    I would also be financing the rest of what they publish, so it’s a non-starter for me. This journalist should quit and go to Substack.
pastage 5y ago
If you do nothing it is your fault. That is what these camps have thought us you really need to critize them harshly and take action. That said the legal power nations have to put people in camp during war time is anachronistic. So there is alot we can do to make it better.
- lupire 5y ago
  > critize them harshly does nothing. > and take action. How? Suit up and form an A*Team to infiltrate? Cyberattacks? Pool funds to bribe politicians?
  - pastage 5y ago
    Words are important and public opinion matters. And you need a lot more money than what it costs to bribe some politicians. E.g. back the companies that takes a stand against the worst violations.
JohnClark1337 5y ago
If it's not our fault then the problem resides in a foreign nation that we have little or no direct control over. This is unacceptable because modern journalism is focused on fighting for social justice and making the world a better place. If the US is the problem then we simply need to get more liberal democrats in office and the problem will be solved.
FemmeAndroid 5y ago
I'm disappointed that the highest upvoted comment on a long and thoughtful read is a critique of its introduction by a different author. The quoted text requires you to even click to read more of the introduction. It's not the substance of the piece.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
user-the-name 5y ago
That statement is both correct, and also does not say "it's all really our fault". That is a very weak strawman argument.

celticninja 5y ago

I fail to understand why it is the west that speaks up for these Muslims, whilst the Islamic countries remain quiet. Where is the outrage from Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran? Why are the US the ones accused of needing to do more? Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something?

chaostheory 5y ago
I would guess it’s because many if not most Islamic majority governments are not democracies. Their people cannot speak out, and their governments seek favor with Beijing.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something? They're farther down the hierarchy of nation state needs than where you need to be to be in order to call out someone like China. So they all shit on Israel because it's the only "local enough we could conceivably do something about it" problem they can all agree on.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  I think you're simplifying it by a lot. Israel is not about "being able to do anything about" (they arguably can't do much about Israel in the sense of destroying it or changing it's policy). If that was the explanation they wouldn't call out the U.S (or sometimes Europe), yet they do (e.g Mohammed Cartoons). The geography is also not a good explanation. The Mohammed Cartoons, which happened in Denmark, made Muslims go out to the streets all throughout the world. My explanation for "why Israel" is another comment on this thread.
toberoni 5y ago
The victims are humans first (their religion shouldn't be a concern) so I don't find it surprising that many Western people speak up for them. I would be happy to see more opposition from Islamic countries though.
- celticninja 5y ago
  I agree. I expect the west to call it out. I also expect the Muslim world to call them out. They are currently failing to walk the walk.
stanislavb 5y ago
I've wondered the same... given that they've been prosecuted due to their religion.
joelbluminator 5y ago
> Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something? I am gonna make some sweeping generalization (how could you not when speaking about 1.5 billion people) but here goes: Not really, the Islamic world didn't care much about ISIS and the Syrian civil war, both of which killed and displaced millions of people. The only place where Muslims pay attention to regularly and express outrage is Palestine as far as I know. I mean yes some Arab newspaper may talk about Syria or ISIS now and then, even talk badly about it, but nothing that will make people go out to the streets like Israel/Palestine does. Muslims are much more sensitive to killings of Muslims by the West than by other empires (e.g Russia or China) since the West is perceived as a threat to their way of life and other empires aren't. Israel is part of the West in their eyes. I am quite confident that if it were Israel or the U.S running these camps we would've heard much more about it in the Muslim world.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  Do you live in the Muslim world? Xinjiang and Uighur Muslims are spoken up for in nearly every country by people on the ground. Govts are different. Many of the Arab govts now kiss up to Israel the same way they defend China, but the people are different. And yes, Uighur Muslims and their genocide does get people out in the streets. It's a newer event less people know about (Palestine has been being dealt with this way for decades) but it still has a huge sway on people proportionally.
- celticninja 5y ago
  So when they claim to hate the abuse Muslims face in the west, really they mean they hate the west and the abuse Muslims face there is just a handy tool. They don't really care about Muslims they just care about being outraged. Just your common or garden religious zealots then.
  - shadilay 5y ago
    I'm forgetting the specifics but I read a story about how little the muslim world cares about specific instances but universally they are outraged by mohammed cartoons. Everything else is political and doesn't unite them.
yorwba 5y ago
All Muslim-majority countries also have large Muslim minorities and are worried about charismatic leaders using their religious authority to challenge the government (e.g. Indonesia: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indonesia-arrests-firebrand-clerics-lawyer-attacks-77343267 https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indonesia-arr... ) so they tend to be in favor of allowing only state-sanctioned forms of Islam.
lupire 5y ago
"Islamic" countries are dictatorships like China.
- pc86 5y ago
  Theocracy and dictatorship go hand in hand by definition, that doesn't make the country any less Islamic so no need for the quotes as if it's meant ironically or superficially.
_alxk 5y ago
There's a few things. 1) One thing to keep in mind is that religion is usually only the backdrop for some geopolitical issues. Yes, ISIS was an Islamist movement, but it was first and foremost opportunists seizing a vacuum of power in Iraq, and the instability in Syria, to put themselves into power. When looked at through that lens, why would a Muslim in Morocco or Algeria or Indonesia care that much about ISIS? Does a Catholic in Rome feel intimately connected to violence in Mexico? Most of them thought ISIS were a bunch of assholes, but it wasn't happening in their backyard. 2) Another thing is again politics. It's good for Arab leaders to criticize Israel and blame it for their problems. (Most of them) don't need Israel for anything. They rely more in China. That's the same reason most Western countries are falling short of accusing China of genocide. 3) From a purely religious point of view, Jerusalem/Al-Quds is a very important religious site Islam. It's the direction they originally faced when they prayed (Mohammed moved it to Mecca later), and is the location from which Mohammed ascended to heaven in one of his visions. China has no religious value.
sidibe 5y ago
> Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something? Realistically they are much better off being China's friend which in China's view means not criticizing China for anything. Pakistani PM said it best last month about Xinjiang: "Because of our extreme proximity and relationship with China, we actually accept the Chinese version." It's pretty sad, but you can't really blame him either, they can't really afford to lose all the deals and propping up they get from China.
steve76 5y ago
If you think AT&T tech support is bad, imagine asking for help from the corrupt Pakistanis, or the stone age syphilitic Iranians out of a Marxist death camp. In all seriousness, dying and crying is ineffective. It's better to do a good job so your slavers are leveraged, and in response to slightest praise from the lowest echelon, kick off in Asian tradition the mass suicide. You don't have to really do it. People die anyways. Just store their bodies in oil, and when the time comes, tie a rope around them and drop them off an abandoned skyscraper. Throw some branded product around the ground level mush from a big client, like Nike or Apple, so the viral video shows starving prisoners throwing that cheap junk out of the way to slurp up the remains in a tragic and desperate act of survival cannibalism [1]. You don't ride into Dodge City just to complain about how you've been cheated and how unfair the world is. Just don't go there. Speaking of that, to our Afghan partners, if you're not fighting and winning, why do we have to worry about where the bombs land? Win or be firebombed [2]. Loose, the Taliban, Iran, Pakistan, China, and Russia get the blame for the war and have a massive bill to pay. We'll run it through godless Europe under the guise of carbon credits or some garbage like that. I would rather talk about movies, or tv shows, or video games, or comic books, or even advances in physics and medicine. But here I am, saying horrible things. The one and only reason why is because Karl Marx, the one white European man who has murdered more people than anyone else in history. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre#Massive_cannibalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre#Massive_canni... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike#The_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike#The_...

kvathupo 5y ago

> Keep in mind, The Atlantic is a lifestyle magazine. Have you ever read The Atlantic? Quite a few of its writers have either been nominated for or outright won Pulitzers, with one winner this year [1]. Even beyond awards, it has published important reporting [2] and very influential commentary [3]. [1] - https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/ed-yong-atlantic https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/ed-yong-atlantic [2] - https://pulitzercenter.org/publications/atlantic https://pulitzercenter.org/publications/atlantic [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Reparations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Reparations

CountDrewku 5y ago
.
- kvathupo 5y ago
  Wrong prize...
- mkmk 5y ago
  Are you perhaps confusing the Nobel Prize with the Pulitzer Prize?
JohnWhigham 5y ago
It's undeniable that the Atlantic has become overly polarizing (like every other American outlet). But for every Pulitzer winner, they have 5 other writers writing overly-partisan clickbait. Right now under their "Most Popular" column, the top article has "Trump" in it. Trump has been out of office for over 6 months, and people are still fucking writing about him, still giving him coverage. If Trump wins again in 2024, he'll have won mostly because left-leaning rags learned nothing from 2016 by constantly giving him free press.
- fencepost 5y ago
  Right now under their "Most Popular" column, the top article has "Trump" in it. Trump has been out of office for over 6 months, Have you somehow failed to notice that the former guy is both legitimately significant in the news (legal troubles, ongoing "fraudit" movements) and the defacto leader of US Republicans?

guscost 5y ago

A magazine dangling this important humanitarian story behind a “soft” paywall to sell subscriptions, no less. Imagine the reaction if they had done this with their COVID collection.

SamBam 5y ago
If you think they published an important story just to sell more copies... well then you'd be right, of course. That's how every single publication in the country works, if they're not scraping by on ads. But what a silly way to look at it. "The Times and Post are publishing this Watergate thing, and they expect me to pay for a paper??? They're only publishing it to sell more copies."
benrbray 5y ago
That's just capitalism for you. The same happens with all important news stories, including about covid and active warzones. It's a problem, sure, but it doesn't invalidate journalism entirely.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  It's not capitalism. Everything needs funding. Capitalism just means it's voluntary funding instead of mandatory funding.
lupire 5y ago
If you cared enough to finance open access to the article, I'm sure they'd be amenable.
- guscost 5y ago
  I would also be financing the rest of what they publish, so it’s a non-starter for me. This journalist should quit and go to Substack.

pastage 5y ago

If you do nothing it is your fault. That is what these camps have thought us you really need to critize them harshly and take action. That said the legal power nations have to put people in camp during war time is anachronistic. So there is alot we can do to make it better.

lupire 5y ago
> critize them harshly does nothing. > and take action. How? Suit up and form an A*Team to infiltrate? Cyberattacks? Pool funds to bribe politicians?
- pastage 5y ago
  Words are important and public opinion matters. And you need a lot more money than what it costs to bribe some politicians. E.g. back the companies that takes a stand against the worst violations.

JohnClark1337 5y ago

If it's not our fault then the problem resides in a foreign nation that we have little or no direct control over. This is unacceptable because modern journalism is focused on fighting for social justice and making the world a better place. If the US is the problem then we simply need to get more liberal democrats in office and the problem will be solved.

FemmeAndroid 5y ago

I'm disappointed that the highest upvoted comment on a long and thoughtful read is a critique of its introduction by a different author. The quoted text requires you to even click to read more of the introduction. It's not the substance of the piece.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

user-the-name 5y ago

That statement is both correct, and also does not say "it's all really our fault". That is a very weak strawman argument.