Uighers

[Wolf]

Pronounced "Weeghurs." It seems that a rather violent outbreak has occurred in Western China, that some sources-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_riots --speculate has caused the deaths of over 200 people. Frankly, I feel for the Uighers--it's tough to be any ethnicity in a 95% Han Chinese PRC. Comments, questions, concerns?

[Edric O]

It appears this started as a labour dispute. It's probably an indications of the class tensions within the PRC as much as it is an indication of ethnic tensions.

As a matter of general principle, I tend to support any group within the PRC that opposes the government. But the reality is that any Uigher struggle is hopeless unless it is also supported by large numbers of Han Chinese workers.

[Caid Ivik]

Quite a weird general principle. I personally wouldn't, vice versa, support the PR government against any group which opposes it. But it's interesting, how the Germans and Austrians complain about Turks taking "their" jobs, and here, Turks complain about Chinese, who find work in Xinjiang. It's a mere chauvinism, some people vent their frustration of misfortune (if not inability) in finding a work on an imaginary obstacle, the Chinese nation. And what about Hui, Kazakhs, Russians, Mongols etc there? They wouldn't complain in such a way.

[Tatar Khan]

Pronounced "Weeghurs." It seems that a rather violent outbreak has occurred in Western China, that some sources-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_riots --speculate has caused the deaths of over 200 people. Frankly, I feel for the Uighers--it's tough to be any ethnicity in a 95% Han Chinese PRC. Comments, questions, concerns?

China looks like one large ethnic group however it is not. They have been made to appear as one ethnic group by the previous Chinese government policies that over centuries stamped out the other languages and cultural differences, but in reality there are many ethnic groups living there and the Chinese are aware of them.

Ulghers riots are more economy based than the ethnicity based.

[Edric O]

Quite a weird general principle. I personally wouldn't, vice versa, support the PR government against any group which opposes it.

Well, the PRC isn't only a capitalist dictatorship - there are plenty of those around - but also a continuing embarrassment to communists due to its official claims to be still following communist ideology (albeit with, ahem, "Chinese characteristics"). Having communism associated with the Soviet Union is at least somewhat fair, because the Soviet Union did share a number of similarities with the kind of society that communists advocate. However, present day China shares no similarities at all. So I really wish something would happen to make them stop using the "communist" label.

But it's interesting, how the Germans and Austrians complain about Turks taking "their" jobs, and here, Turks complain about Chinese, who find work in Xinjiang. It's a mere chauvinism, some people vent their frustration of misfortune (if not inability) in finding a work on an imaginary obstacle, the Chinese nation. And what about Hui, Kazakhs, Russians, Mongols etc there? They wouldn't complain in such a way.

If it's all about ethnic Han Chinese "taking away jobs" from the Uighers, then you're right, this is mere chauvinism. However, as Tatar_Khan said, this appears to be more of an economic conflict than an ethnic conflict. All of China has been hit hard by the global recession, and the inland provinces have been hit hardest of all. Unemployment is rising quickly, and there is no social safety net.

The Uighers may simply be the group most eager to protest about it. Han Chinese feel a greater sense of loyalty to Beijing.

[Caid Ivik]

Chinese tend to be richer than Turks and in hold of key political/economic positions - so much for the economic aspect. And they tend to be more loyal to Beijing and also racially and culturally different. But if the majority of a certain population group shows a certain characteristic, it doesn't mean you may imply the same about the others. Prejudices are showed by the other side as well, when Chinese of eastern provinces label Uighurs "terrorists". From another point of view, if I were in a party in, let's say, Hangzhou, and a subordinate embarrassed me by his, hm, antiideological actions, to find him a bureau in a Xinjiang village would be a perfect way to get rid of him.

[Wolf]

http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/07/13/unrest-in-xinjiang-wheres-the-muslim-outrage/

This is a fantastic article. It's an absolutely fair point: when a Dane draws a picture of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, the Muslim world goes into a whirlwhind of violence-inspiring fury, but when China murders dozens and imprisons thousands of Muslims, it's as if it never happened. I suppose we all have higher standards for the West?

PS: In the comments section for that piece, Comment #7 from "Harry McAllister" is clearly a Han Chinese probably even writing from the PRC, based solely on his interestingly ferocious response that echoes something-the-Chinese-government-would-say, and the fact that he can barely write English correctly. Born and raised in Columbus, OH, too, I imagine?

PPS: And then we have a comment like #15: "Please note that despite their western sounding names, posters such as

[Edric O]

http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/07/13/unrest-in-xinjiang-wheres-the-muslim-outrage/

This is a fantastic article. It's an absolutely fair point: when a Dane draws a picture of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, the Muslim world goes into a whirlwhind of violence-inspiring fury, but when China murders dozens and imprisons thousands of Muslims, it's as if it never happened. I suppose we all have higher standards for the West?

First of all, don't underestimate media hype. It works just as well on Muslims as on everyone else. I expect that part of the reason for the response to the Danish cartoons in the Muslim world was that they got a lot of attention from their media - whereas the conflict in Xinjiang probably did not.

Second, as sad as this may sound, the fact is that someone drawing cartoons of Muhammad is a much more rare event than someone persecuting Muslims. It's almost like physical persecution is just same old same old, while Muhammad cartoons are a novelty.

Third - yes, the West is held to higher standards. Mainly because the West itself claims to have higher standards. There would be a much bigger outcry if the West did what the PRC is doing right now, because everyone expects the PRC to crush dissent with an iron fist, but it would be strange and shocking if, say, Denmark did it.

Fourth, and most important in my opinion... beneath all religious conflicts there lies realpolitik. It's not about religion, it's about us vs. them, and much of the Muslim world feels that the West is "them," and any potential rival of the West is at least partially "with us" - no matter what they do to Muslims in their country. The West, of course, takes the same approach when it supports all sorts of repressive, murderous, but pro-Western dictators. "It doesn't matter if their domestic policies are things we would abhor in our own countries; as long as they'll support us in international politics, they're our friends." To some extent, this even happens in relations between Western countries. George Bush and Tony Blair were great friends, but Blair was to the left of Obama on domestic issues, and George Bush was to the right of almost everyone in Britain on domestic issues. If Bush and Blair lived in the same country they would have been at each other's throats.

PS: In the comments section for that piece, Comment #7 from "Harry McAllister" is clearly a Han Chinese probably even writing from the PRC, based solely on his interestingly ferocious response that echoes something-the-Chinese-government-would-say, and the fact that he can barely write English correctly. Born and raised in Columbus, OH, too, I imagine?

PPS: And then we have a comment like #15: "Please note that despite their western sounding names, posters such as

[Wolf]

Well, the question I have is: can propaganda work if it's bad? And I don't mean "bad" in the sense that it's publication aids in the doing of nefarious deeds, I mean "bad" in the sense that it's executed poorly. When I see an article critical of China and a comment from "John Howard" that reads "This are the same CIA propaganda used incite terrorism in the Middle East, and also helps the Dalai Lama," I can't help but think, "Okay, this is disturbing and sad, but at the same time, can someone possibly fall for this shit?" Is there a man working for CNN (again, let's use them as the benchmark) who is going to read this and think, "Gee whiz, Bob, there sure do seem to be a lot o' folks who love China out there!" and market CNN's coverage accordingly? Sure, the non-Western folks are lagging behind in the field of Internet propaganda, but it isn't like the FBI employs people to raid the comment boards of local newspapers. Or, if they do, they're at least somewhat subtle about it. I can't put my finger on exactly why I find this so troubling, I think that there's some sort of unconscious realization on my part that if the People's Republic of China is so desperately insecure as to assign people goddamn jobs that consist of going to Internet forums, posing as white people, and posting--in ludicrous English--pro-China sentiments... well, then they're going to nuke someone at some point. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but this sort of activity belies such an outrageous departure from the realm of sanity and sober analysis that it can do nothing but portend truly, truly horrible things. The only thing more dangerous than a bomb-waving fanatic, in my opinion, is an idiot.

And China seems to be a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.

[Sneakgab]

''This are the same CIA propaganda used incite terrorism in the Middle East, and also helps the Dalai Lama''

Hey, judging by internet grammar nowadays it's hard to tell that from the ''English'' speakers.:D (just kidding, by the way).

Anyway, if you're going to be scared of China because of a little stupidity why didn't you flee America when Bush was re-elected. :D (once again, just kidding).

[Wolf]

Sneak, I understand that you are joking, but I will rise to that: firstly, you commit the same fallacy that most Obama supporters do on a daily basis, which is, "just because Bush did it, it means that we can do it too." Usually I hear this trotted out in support of, for example, ludicrous stimulus spending, but there is an analogous application here as well. Bush may have been a moron--though, considering that he was a only a mediocre Ivy League graduate, and all reports indicate that his IQ hovers near 120, he would occupy a place in the top 1% of intelligent people on the planet. Ignoring even that, however, there is a difference in Bush's behavior--who by all accounts pissed everyone off merely because he was stubborn--and that of the PRC--which acts like a 17-year old who desperately wants people to like him on faceook. But even if all of this wasn't true, you would still have to answer why Bush's stupidity is in any way equivalent to the institutionalized stupidity of the government of 1,200,000,000 people. Bush necessarily had to leave office after 8 years; the PRC does not. The PRC's behavior--including that which I am currently and vociferously lamenting--is designed to keep it alive and well indefinitely. No, "Bush stupidity" and "PRC stupidity" are by no means equivalent. Even if they were, just because the one was bad doesn't mean we have to tolerate the other being bad, too. And even if you think I shouldn't have tolerated Bush's stupidity for as long as I did, I wouldn't have had to leave, I simply could have voted him out of office. Again, no such luck for the PRC--you can't vote the People's Government out of office.

I mean, where would you rather live? Bush's United States, or the People's Republic of China?

[Caid Ivik]

I would choose China. But I'm not sure if Xinjiang particularly.

In China, I would say the president has a "moronic", inexperienced PR agency, while in USA it seems as if Bush acted primitively as a person. But anyway, how many people were responsible for electing Hu, what were the reasons they did so, and what does apply in cases of Bush or Obama? Of course, I consider USA to be a true republic, where the politicians don't need to impose curfew to gain respect from its citizens and prevent them to cause ethnic cleansings... Anyway, who are these presidents? The main actors in the problem are mismanaged people (or ethnic groups) and media (but anyway, what kind of nonsense should have been that "muslim outrage" thing? when eg Kaddafi organizes a demonstration in his streets, why should it be expression of world's Islam?), not the governments.

[Sneakgab]

Wolf, I completely understand how you might think that something underlies my joking, considering my posts and what a lot of people do.

However, in truth I only used Bush's name because it was the most famous and the only one I could come up with (and one that went most humorously with the joke, since it replied to the one coming up with fears of PRC stupidity directly). In truth, I feared that somebody might think that I was performing the irritating act of trying to cover up an offense with a joke when using Bush's name, but really couldn't come up with anything else.

I only ''sped-read'' your comment, but it is probably reasonable and I shall read it later, but really, feel free to change ''Bush'' to whatever you feel most comfortable with as it really was intended purely comically and in no way reflected any opinions I have.

Of course I would not make the underlying serious suggestion in my joking that you should have left America because Bush was an idiot; that would be probably be ridiculous.

On that note, it should be said that I don't actually consider Bush to be , for example, barely literate as the popular view of him seems to go somewhat.

[Wolf]

Sneak, there is absolutely no reason for you to defend yourself, as there is not an iota of ire, malice, or even offense in my response. I rose to your comment simply because there was a legitimate point within that joke, whether you knew you were making it or not: sure, the Chinese are ludicrous, but how does that make them different from anyone else? We've all had our moron in office, and for those of you who are Persian, some of us still do.

And I wanted to qualify why I felt that there was a difference, and, indeed, to explain why this specific government action bothers me so much. Because it does. Naturally, as someone who was "born and raised" with the Internet as his forum for frank, candid discussion (and, well, general hilarity and insanity), there's something profoundly troubling about "Gary Powers" posting on a newspaper's comments thread regarding his love for China. I can't quite put my finger on it, but knowing that a government, or any institution, does something so disingenuous as going to message boards, creating identities specifically to deceive, and then, on top of it all, having the audacity to commit the act badly, so that it's obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together exactly what they're doing... it's naked, it's there, and it's poisonous. I suppose that, right now, little damage is done, but it does not bode well for the day when China, or any government, learns to do this kind of crap well. Where once the Internet was a place for us all to hang out, create our own forums and communities, and have our own rules and codes of behavior, there will be interests that we cannot resist who will want us to join different communities, to follow different rules and codes of behavior, and, frankly, China is a country that is extremely interested in just that. And I will pre-empt the popular objection, "how is that different form the democratizing force of the United States?" by saying that it is different because at least there is a debate regarding that in the United States. At least Americans are allowed to say, "I don't know if we want to be involved in this," and at least we can see that debate occurring before our very eyes. In China there is no debate, there is no discussion, there are no dissenting opinions, and there never were. And in the world of digital communication, where my words can easily be deleted as if they, too, had never been, I think an attitude like China's is profoundly dangerous--not just to the world--but to us, the kids and bored adults trying to have conversations on the Internet. Bullshit like what I pointed out bothers me because it indicates that China is interested precisely in discussions like these--they just don't know what to do with them yet.

*EDIT: I still don't feel I'm expressing this correctly: it's us, man, they're messing with us by doing this--the Internet! I suppose others do worse, and do it more effectively, but if you're going to mess with us on our own turf, you could at least try not to wave it in our faces. I don't know. It's almost like a pet peeve.

[Edric O]

Well, the question I have is: can propaganda work if it's bad? And I don't mean "bad" in the sense that it's publication aids in the doing of nefarious deeds, I mean "bad" in the sense that it's executed poorly.

That's a good point. But still, bad propaganda is a step forward compared to no propaganda at all, and it shows the PRC is at least aware of what it needs to do - even if it's not terribly good at doing it yet.

Sure, the non-Western folks are lagging behind in the field of Internet propaganda, but it isn't like the FBI employs people to raid the comment boards of local newspapers. Or, if they do, they're at least somewhat subtle about it.

The United States government does not directly employ people to write propaganda (at least not to my knowledge), but it does give a lot of money to private organizations - think tanks, institutes, NGOs and so on - that make it their job to spread propaganda in favour of fundamentalist liberalism across the world.

In other words, the US government does not pay people to say "I love America and you should too," at least not openly, but it does pay very many people to say "I love these political principles and you should too" - where the principles in question happen to be the ones that stand at the base of the American political and economic system.

It is a more subtle way of trying to gain popular support. Instead of directly praising itself, the United States government tries to get people to have political opinions that are designed to automatically place America on the moral high ground. Instead of trying to show that it is good according to some pre-existing standard, the US tries to redefine the world's idea of "good" so that it will be good by definition.

[Sneakgab]

''Sneak, there is absolutely no reason for you to defend yourself, as there is not an iota of ire, malice, or even offense in my response.''

I know that but:

''I rose to your comment simply because there was a legitimate point within that joke, whether you knew you were making it or not:''

I wanted to ensure that it was known that I was not making that point. The thought did cross my mind (that if we fear China being ruled by a fool, why not anywhere else), but I don't immediately write whatever randomly pops into my head.

After all, you did say:

''firstly, you commit the same fallacy that most Obama supporters do on a daily basis''

I'm guilty of nothing but a decent joke. :D (certainly I'm no Obama supporter).