4 ms·

Are we restricting this to businesses, or is the genocide of the Uyghurs fair game?

nixon_why69 3mo ago
They ran a rolling internment program for a few years, holding people against their will in mandatory patriotism camp for months at a time. That's bad and wrong but you need to be killing people to call it genocide. It's been a master class in propaganda on this topic, look up the name Adrian Zenz and see how often he gets uncritically quoted.
- mmooss 3mo ago
  You're omitting so much, such as torture and ethnic cleansing and massive levels of abuse. Any genocidal concentration camp could be called 'an internment camp'. Anyone reading this, just look up coverage in credible sources.
- saxonww 3mo ago
  > you need to be killing people to call it genocide No, you don't. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-prevention-and-punishment-crime-genocide https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/... See Article 2.
  - refurb 3mo ago
    So the “-cide” root of the word which means “kill” no longer means that?
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - saxonww 3mo ago
      It's never meant only that, but that's not the argument. We decided that a long time ago. Genocide refers to a People (race, kind, tribe, family, etc.), not individual people. The group is a concept, and 'killing' it doesn't have to involve the biological death of the group members. That's part of what the linked resolution is trying to say. For example, you could go sterilize every member of an ethnic group, without killing - causing the biological death of - any of them. None of them will be able to have children, and as they die of old age, the group disappears. That's genocide. Another example would be to forcibly separate all the members of the group and prevent them from engaging in the lifestyle associated with membership in the group (e.g. style of dress, music, food, language, worship, etc.). Over time, perhaps generations, the people basically give up trying to do any of these things if they even remember what they were. They have no group cohesion, so the group has essentially disappeared. No need to directly cause any biological death. The argument is that if this is done intentionally, it is also genocide. Genocide as a concept is about ending the group, not specifically the individual members. It's definitely true that you can end a group by killing all its members, though.
      - nixon_why69 3mo ago
        Ok but none of those things came even close to happening in this case. The arguments are all, like, it was in pursuit of genocide, because I say so, so if one guy died in detention then it's a genocide.
        saxonww 3mo ago
        Well there are allegations of mass detentions, forced labor, destruction of religious sites, suppression of language, separation of children into Chinese-controlled boarding schools, coercive birth control, and sterilization. You agreed with me that genocide is more expansive than "we're directly killing people". For the sake of argument, let's assume the allegations are true: what would you call that?
        nixon_why69 3mo ago
        But the allegations aren't true for the most part. Some are out-of-context true, like if you have too many kids they sterilize you, that was true across China for decades and going away now. But then the limit on kids for minorities was HIGHER than it was for Han Chinese until recently. So were they self genociding? Taking an angle like "well, lets assume these things are true, THEN can we accuse China of genocide" is basically what the media did for 5 years on this topic.
        saxonww 3mo ago
        Was, yes. That policy ended in 2017 I think, which I don't know if I call that recent. Post-2017 some evidence pieced together by a journalist suggested that IUDs and forced sterilizations were higher in Xinjiang than the rest of the country, and went up when the rest of the country went down. But you're right, their population has not evaporated. My point about the assumption was to get you to agree that if these things are happening, we know that it constitutes genocide. At this point I don't care if you agree or not.
        3mo ago
- nkmnz 3mo ago
  "Killing people" is not required for committing a genocide: Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements: 1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and 2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively: 2.1 Killing members of the group 2.2 Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group 2.3 Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part 2.4 Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group 2.5 Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group [0] https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
  - nixon_why69 3mo ago
    Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Nobody destroyed any groups. There was a big overreaction that violated people's rights but the people still exist and are fine. If we contrast with how the West have reacted to terror attacks, its quite rich to see them throwing UN definitions at China.
    - defrost 3mo ago
      > Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Honest question here; is it a traditional Uyghur owned and managed restaurant freely frequented by local Uyghurs as a living expression of past and ongoing Uyghur culture, or is it more a Disney "themed Uyghur restaurant" with the same relationship to Uyghur culture as Outback Steakhouse has to actual IRL Australian food and culture (ie three tenths of f-all).
      - nixon_why69 3mo ago
        It's run by a family from there, they speak dialect among themselves which is very much not Wuhanhua. The food is only slightly xinjiang actually, its a stretch noodle shop with a couple of lamb dishes. But even if it were the latter.. even that would go against the narrative of total cultural hostility?
ClumsyPilot 3mo ago
How does it relate to the question? Wuhan situation is clearly government policy. It may be terrible, but that is besides the point. It was not policy of British government to burn down a skyscraper in central london with hundred of people inside cooked alive. It was not the policy of British government to infect 30,000 people with AIDS. Yet British government is unable or unwilling to take action against people responsible.

They ran a rolling internment program for a few years, holding people against their will in mandatory patriotism camp for months at a time. That's bad and wrong but you need to be killing people to call it genocide. It's been a master class in propaganda on this topic, look up the name Adrian Zenz and see how often he gets uncritically quoted.

mmooss 3mo ago
You're omitting so much, such as torture and ethnic cleansing and massive levels of abuse. Any genocidal concentration camp could be called 'an internment camp'. Anyone reading this, just look up coverage in credible sources.
saxonww 3mo ago
> you need to be killing people to call it genocide No, you don't. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-prevention-and-punishment-crime-genocide https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/... See Article 2.
- refurb 3mo ago
  So the “-cide” root of the word which means “kill” no longer means that?
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - saxonww 3mo ago
    It's never meant only that, but that's not the argument. We decided that a long time ago. Genocide refers to a People (race, kind, tribe, family, etc.), not individual people. The group is a concept, and 'killing' it doesn't have to involve the biological death of the group members. That's part of what the linked resolution is trying to say. For example, you could go sterilize every member of an ethnic group, without killing - causing the biological death of - any of them. None of them will be able to have children, and as they die of old age, the group disappears. That's genocide. Another example would be to forcibly separate all the members of the group and prevent them from engaging in the lifestyle associated with membership in the group (e.g. style of dress, music, food, language, worship, etc.). Over time, perhaps generations, the people basically give up trying to do any of these things if they even remember what they were. They have no group cohesion, so the group has essentially disappeared. No need to directly cause any biological death. The argument is that if this is done intentionally, it is also genocide. Genocide as a concept is about ending the group, not specifically the individual members. It's definitely true that you can end a group by killing all its members, though.
    - nixon_why69 3mo ago
      Ok but none of those things came even close to happening in this case. The arguments are all, like, it was in pursuit of genocide, because I say so, so if one guy died in detention then it's a genocide.
      - saxonww 3mo ago
        Well there are allegations of mass detentions, forced labor, destruction of religious sites, suppression of language, separation of children into Chinese-controlled boarding schools, coercive birth control, and sterilization. You agreed with me that genocide is more expansive than "we're directly killing people". For the sake of argument, let's assume the allegations are true: what would you call that?
        nixon_why69 3mo ago
        But the allegations aren't true for the most part. Some are out-of-context true, like if you have too many kids they sterilize you, that was true across China for decades and going away now. But then the limit on kids for minorities was HIGHER than it was for Han Chinese until recently. So were they self genociding? Taking an angle like "well, lets assume these things are true, THEN can we accuse China of genocide" is basically what the media did for 5 years on this topic.
        saxonww 3mo ago
        Was, yes. That policy ended in 2017 I think, which I don't know if I call that recent. Post-2017 some evidence pieced together by a journalist suggested that IUDs and forced sterilizations were higher in Xinjiang than the rest of the country, and went up when the rest of the country went down. But you're right, their population has not evaporated. My point about the assumption was to get you to agree that if these things are happening, we know that it constitutes genocide. At this point I don't care if you agree or not.
        3mo ago
nkmnz 3mo ago
"Killing people" is not required for committing a genocide: Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements: 1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and 2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively: 2.1 Killing members of the group 2.2 Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group 2.3 Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part 2.4 Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group 2.5 Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group [0] https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
- nixon_why69 3mo ago
  Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Nobody destroyed any groups. There was a big overreaction that violated people's rights but the people still exist and are fine. If we contrast with how the West have reacted to terror attacks, its quite rich to see them throwing UN definitions at China.
  - defrost 3mo ago
    > Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Honest question here; is it a traditional Uyghur owned and managed restaurant freely frequented by local Uyghurs as a living expression of past and ongoing Uyghur culture, or is it more a Disney "themed Uyghur restaurant" with the same relationship to Uyghur culture as Outback Steakhouse has to actual IRL Australian food and culture (ie three tenths of f-all).
    - nixon_why69 3mo ago
      It's run by a family from there, they speak dialect among themselves which is very much not Wuhanhua. The food is only slightly xinjiang actually, its a stretch noodle shop with a couple of lamb dishes. But even if it were the latter.. even that would go against the narrative of total cultural hostility?

ClumsyPilot 3mo ago

How does it relate to the question? Wuhan situation is clearly government policy. It may be terrible, but that is besides the point. It was not policy of British government to burn down a skyscraper in central london with hundred of people inside cooked alive. It was not the policy of British government to infect 30,000 people with AIDS. Yet British government is unable or unwilling to take action against people responsible.