this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2021
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Anarchism

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Thread of sources on Uyghur oppression (threadreaderapp.com)
submitted 3 years ago by xe8@lemmy.ml to c/anarchism@lemmy.ml
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I haven’t read a lot of these sources myself yet, but the first one at least by the Communist Party of India is worth a read.

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[–] polymerwitch@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I don't use the word "tankie" personally. I find it over simplifies the position of many communists. Yes I straw-manned a fake ML take just I staw-manned a fake anarchist take, because I was trying to say that's those staw-men are how people often argue about this. The whole concept of anarchists treating both the US and China equally in the matter is a straw-man. No anarchist that I know of is organizing efforts in Xinjiang to fight China. While pretty much every anarchist I know in the US spends hours every week organizing efforts to fight the US in one way or another.

You keep claiming I'm saying something I'm not which is what is annoying to me. My entire point is that you are creating better propaganda for the US imperialist machine than a take of "some Uyghurs claim oppression" ever could. You make any claim that the West is producing propaganda on the subject with goals of imperial aggression seem childish and not worth listening to. You berate people who ostensibly agree with you, but they just don't want to start flying the flag of China outside their house either.

[–] BlackLotus@lemmy.ml -2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

No anarchist that I know of is organizing efforts in Xinjiang to fight China.

See, I disagree with this. By regurgitating the unverified claims (which some anarchists do), those anarchists are organizing efforts against China. (Edit: Although not in Xinjiang, but that distinction is not important in my opinion.)

While pretty much every anarchist I know in the US spends hours every week organizing efforts to fight the US in one way or another.

Awesome work for sure.

The discussion around China’s treatment of Uygurs is always so unnuanced to me. ... China is a villain and needs to be stopped. China has not and never will do anything wrong. Your criticisms are orchestrated by the CIA.

Tankies don't say the latter at all. We painstakingly and categorically debunk the unverified claims and point out that it's extremely dangerous to promote Western propaganda. That being said, we do not dance around with nuance in this respect, and we cite sources such as the nuanced anti-war takes which perpetuated criticisms against the imperialist's targets. Those nuanced takes completely failed to prevent the Gulf War, the war on terror efforts against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc. Public opinion matters. Spreading unverified claims feeds the public opinion machine.

My point is that it makes sense to deride the takes of anarchists who promote the unverified claims, but it does not make sense to deride the takes of tankies who fight against promotion of the unverified claims.

[–] polymerwitch@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 years ago

You keep implying that any "nuanced take" contains unverified claims, but you already said that my take (which I consider more nuanced than the straw-men takes I listed) doesn't. You just believe it doesn't warrant US aggression toward China. Hey, I agree. I have no delusions that my take is going to stop US aggression more than the fact that I ate toast this morning will. My nuanced takes didn't stop the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but neither did my organizing, marching, and shutting down the city I live in when the bombs fell. GWB literally just said "he didn't care about protests".

This thread is literally the most I've ever written or spoken about the Uyghurs, and probably the most I've criticized China this year. It was literally a response to someone posting a list of claims where I called for considering that a lot of it is filtered through the US propaganda machine.

I honestly have better things to do now. If you want to cancel me for saying China isn't perfect and some Uyghurs exist who are unhappy with China, then by all means do so I guess. I'm going to go and actually work on a project that helps change the material reality in the community I live in.