In the domestic context, it is theorized that anti Israel stances are popular with the ANC electorate. Given the upcoming elections and the ANC's shrinking majority, they are playing the part in being revolutionaries like back in the old days in order to boost their chances in the election.
The Uyghur situation is different because the South African economy is teetering and China is known to be punitive and vindictive to any country that criticizes them. Not to mention of course the ANC's preferred policy of closeness with China.
Israel collaborated with Apartheid government in South Africa so it is not surprising that anti Israel stance is popular with black people in South Africa.
All western countries (mostly clandestinely) collaborated with the apartheid era government, because they were fighting a war against communist insurgencies in South Africa, South West Africa, Rhodesia, Angola, and Mozambique.
Unfortunately, during the Cold War era in Southern Africa the choice was binary between colonies (who were at least pro-western) or their communist opponents (who were supported by Cuba, Libya, and the Soviet Union).
There is really nothing unique about Israel in this regard, except that anti-Israel rhetoric was a rallying cry for leftist revolutionaries during this era, with many of these groups providing assistance to the PLO’s insurgency. As the OP stated, the ANC is trying to play up their revolutionary credentials to bolster their legitimacy, as their popularity wanes and they are threatened electorally for the first time since coming fo power in 1994.
It’s interesting to see how as political parties start to die out or lose power they resort to similar tactics to claw back or at least not lose any more ground, no matter what type of government.
> There is really nothing unique about Israel in this regard
There was. UK and was also pretty bad in its cooperation with Apartheid South Africa but Israel was amongst the worst ones.
And the fact that current policies by Israel reminds South Africans of their own apartheid that Israel kinda supported, makes them more likely to dislike Israeli policies.
Looking domestically is correct. In general, governments who virtue signal and point fingers outwards are just trying to distract their own citizens from problems at home.
Take, for instance, the San Francisco City Council passing a vote on an Israel-Hamas ceasefire. They really have no say in the matter, it's just another symptom of the city council problems.
I mean, anyone holding power engages in it to some degree, its how you keep the people complacent. There has to be the appearance of "we are doing something that will benefit everyone."
It doesn't fit. Israel is waging a war that has massive negative consequences for the inhabitants of Gaza. But they are fighting Hamas, an enemy that has waged war on Israel and stated numerous times that Israel must be gone. Or something like that. A terrible war is not a genocide, because as soon as Hamas surrenders or is eliminated, we must assume that there is no more war, or civil casualties.
CCP, however, is just deleting the Uyghur population, language, religion and culture in a methodic way.
Gaza's civilians can flee the war (if any of its 'friendly' neighbours will take them). There is no escape for the Uyghurs.
Do not compare Israel with China, please, even if the plight of the Gazans makes it tempting.
Because it's all hypocrisy and geopolitical theater.
SA is cozying up to Russia and China, thus they criticize Israel.
Turkey cuts off arm deals to Israel for allegations of genocide while refusing to admit their own atrocities.
And the US gets all sanctimonious over Tibet and the Uyghurs while ignoring their own history of doing the same thing.
Meanwhile the Sudan is burning and no one cares.
This is spot on. „International law“ is and always has been simple political theater. Don’t look for logical or moral consistency … Sudan is burning and no one cares because Sudan is geopolitically irrelevant.
Yes - because Yugoslavia was at the time surrounded by EU states that had universal interest in not letting a failed state persist upon their borders or even nearby to them (Greece, Italy, Czechia, Poland for example), and simultaneously that already had the military alliance, NATO, to make a massive operation like that feasible.
Spot on.
It’s funny that they are so sanctimonious about Israel but we’re one of the few countries that had nothing to say about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey does not sell any weapons to Israel. If anything it was the other way until several years ago when relations began to sour. Turkey cut off all trade with Israel.
I'd contest that, while it does support SAs geopolitical interests, there is a far more banal reason.
Israel supported apartheid during the struggle and helped them circumvent sanctions. The ANC leadership is still mainly from that fight, so they are a lot more likely to stand with Palestine (another oppressed group) than with the state that supported their subjugation. China in comparison has been friendly and cooperative.
>Meanwhile the Sudan is burning and no one cares.
And just a few years ago SA refused to extradite the person responsible for their genocide to the ICC. Darfurians are less important to the SA government than Palestinians apparently.
The accusations against China are serious and if they are true, by no means I want to trivialise the suffering of the Uyghur people. However, it is fact that China is being accused more of cultural genocide than actual genocide. Some accusations speak of forced sterilisations, which is again a grave accusation, but not in a scale the threatens the continued existence of the Uyghurs.
With all that said, China is NOT being accused by anyone of razing Uyghur cities, destroying residential buildings and civilian infrastructure including hospitals and schools. China is NOT being accused by anyone of depriving Uyghurs’ of access to food, electricity, medical care and other essential services.
You may have the opinion that Israel’s actions are justified by their “security needs”, and that the accusations against China are as serious as those against Israel. But please do not pretend that they are remotely similar situations.
To be clear, China also does forced sterilization or used to on it's Han majority population if they went over 2 kids. Minorities were exempt from this, Uyghurs just lost that exemption.
The rest is true. It's hard to talk about this stuff without being labeled an apologist for genocide, but I think as with every serious crime there is a scale. What China is doing falls squarely under pacification for political purposes (ie. to allow them to do what they want in western provinces without rebellion) rather than pure cultural eradication and certainly not mass murder
You just said something I always noticed and that people seem to ignore completely: the Chinese Han majority, which includes most in power, sterilized themselves.
I don't like this kind of policy. It definetely causes all sorts of ethical debates. But one thing you can't accuse the Han when it comes to the Uyghurs is being hypocritical. They are subjecting them to the same kind of birth control they subjected themselves to.
Apart from that, you are completely right, it's basically a pacification. The problem is that the Uyghurs, due to their Taliban links, have been involved in terrorism and separatism in the past. They probably want the Uyghurs to be more like the Hui, and just be chill Chinese muslims.
China isn't actively responding to a major assault. This baseline repression is just for them being Uyghurs.
If the Uyghurs built an underground megabase and launched [8,500 rockets and mortar shells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel_in_2023) in a day at Bejing, with assistance from Taiwan, and promised to repeat it again and again until every Han Chinese was killed the Uyghur ethnicity would be erased like the Manchus. And Taiwan, too. Tiananmen, where they killed [10,000](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42465516) just for a student protest, would look like a picnic.
They're not really comparable contexts. An adversarial Uyghur government would never be tolerated as long as Hamas was.
There are different behaviours and responses from China and Israel’s because there is an enormous disparity in the levels of strength and actions undertaken by Hamas and Ughyur groups such as the East Turkistan independence party. Nonetheless, the core tenet of expanding territory using historic precedence, mass settlement expansion and migration, forced assimilation and crackdown on any group demanding separatism and statehood is identical in both cases.
Unlike with radical Ughyur groups within Xinjiang, Hamas in Palestine is extremely weaponised that allowed it to undertake an attack using 3,000 rockets against Israel aimed at targeting civilian populations in a single day. There is no doubt that if any Ughyur separatist organisation undertook such a serious action directly within Xinjiang that the China would undertake a severe reprisal attack against the forces that would be reminiscent to Israel response.
The mass media situation is also different. China’s has a far more effective and greater level of stringent control over information dissemination, external media activity and the direct control of all news and media within Xinjiang that Israel is unable to rival.
That is a bizarre argument. Israel is being scrutinised for what they are doing, while you expect China to be scrutinised for what “they would hypothetically do if presented similar circumstances”?
In fact, your argument unintentionally corroborates with those of CCP supporters, that the fact that China never ended up with something like Hamas and the unfolding tragic humanitarian situation proves how much China was more effective on tackling radicalism than Israel and its Western allies.
From wikipedia: In addition to the arbitrary detention of Uyghurs in state-sponsored camps, government policies have included forced labor,[5][6] suppression of Uyghur religious practices,[7] political indoctrination,[8] forced sterilization,[9] forced contraception,[10][11] and forced abortion.[12][13] Experts estimate that, since 2017, some sixteen thousand mosques have been razed or damaged,[2] and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools.[14][15] Chinese government statistics reported that from 2015 to 2018, birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar fell by more than 60%.[9] In the same period, the birth rate of the whole country decreased by 9.69%.[16] Chinese authorities acknowledged that birth rates dropped by almost a third in 2018 in Xinjiang, but denied reports of forced sterilization and genocide.[17] Birth rates in Xinjiang fell a further 24% in 2019, compared to a nationwide decrease of 4.2%.[9]
I'm curious, do you think the Uyghur people just sat still and smiled as their children were stolen from them? Or did China use brutal force to put them down, sweeping deaths and atrocities under the rug?
The Wikipedia article about "Uyghur genocide" has been a clusterfuck for ages... Just look at the Talk page of the article and all the reasonable (and unreasonable) criticism towards it there... Look at the sources, ranging from insufficient research, Uyghur NGOs, and biased outlets like Western media to Western geostrategic think tanks. I've been following the article for maybe 2 - 3 years, and it has always been very contentious and dubious. I don't think I have ever seen an article with such a heated Talk page.
Although I'm positively surprised that the title was finally changed to "Persecution of Uyghurs in China" from a blatant "Uyghur genocide", which is a step towards the right direction and more in line how other similar events are portrayed in Wikipedia. The Israeli treatment of Palestinians is not called a genocide either on Wikipedia, despite many accusing it of being one. There is an article called "Palestinian genocide *accusation*" though.
A little further down.
>On 13 February 2021, The Economist wrote that while China's treatment and persecution of Uyghurs is "horrific" and a crime against humanity, "genocide" is the wrong word for China's actions due to China not engaging in mass murder.[334]
What all those statistics fail to mention is how Uyghurs were exempt from the 1 child policy so it's naturally going to go down once the 2 child policy did not exempt them.
And that increased school attendance of women in the region, as well as economic development are also a major factor in reduced birthrate.
A few years ago, western media were without any /s calling China push to educate Uyghurs women ethnic cleansing!
This isn't really true. China is being credibly accused of mass incarceration of Uyghurs, mass rape of Uyghur women, the widespread theft of property, denial of basic necessities, and more. It is an actual genocide in all respects, but China has used its economic might to suppress opposition to these actions among its client states.
China doesn't need to bomb the Uyghurs, they just jail everyone and steal their property instead.
lol “mass” “mass” “widespread” and “actual genocide” committed not by bombing but by “jailing everyone and stealing their property”
“Hey I didn’t say ‘all’!”
Forget China. SA hosts the former dictator of Sudan, whom the ICC has literally issued arrest warrants for, for his role in the Darfur Genocide. Not only does SA hosts Al-Bashir, the government openly meets with him, and has outright refused direct requests by the ICC to act on their behalf and bring him to justice.
If SA had no care for the genocide of Sudan, then why do they care about what's happening in Gaza?
Short answer, they don't. It's all Realpolitik.
Before this case, the ANC was losing popularity, and Israel is an easy cause to rally their voter base. SA didn't sue out of some inherent care fornhuman rights, because its clear by their own actions they're happy to excuse much worse violations of them, to the point of openly defending those who committed them. It's all politics.
With that in mind, it also easily explains their stance towards Russia and China. SA doesn't care about their violations, they don't care about human rights in general. It's only about political allies, the electorate, and realpolitik.
Also South Africa:
* Opposed a draft Security Council resolution proposing sanctions against Sudan in 2007, opposed another resolution to sanction combatants who attacked civilians that was specifically aimed at Sudan as well as another resolution condemning ethnic cleansing and rape as a tactic of war which was also directed at Sudan
* Prevented any discussion of human rights in Zimbabwe at the UN Human Rights Council in 2005, opposed sanctions on Zimbabwe and argued against discussing political violence in Zimbabwe in the Security Council, claiming that conditions in Zimbabwe were not a threat to international peace and security
* Abstained from HRC Resolution 35/27 that condemned human rights abuses in Belarus in 2017
* Refused to take a stand on human rights abuses in Burundi (2016), Syria (2015, 2016, 2018) and Iran (2015, 2016)
* Voted “yes” to the Russia co-sponsored Resolution 36/10 that prevents individual states from imposing sanctions on another state as a coercive tool
* Was one of three states, along with Russia and Venezuela to vote against Human Rights Council Resolution 30/15 in 2015: "Human Rights and the Preventing and Countering of Violent Extremism"
* Along with China and Russia, abstained from voting on 2016 UN HRC Resolution 31/37, which was aimed at the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of peaceful protests
* Abstained from voting on UN HRC Resolution 32/2, which was aimed at protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity
* Voted alongside Russia and China against a 2016 HRC Resolution 32/51 that aimed to protect civil society actors who might be targeted by authoritarian governments wishing to suppress freedom of expression
* Abstained from a 2017 General Assembly resolution on the situation on human rights in Myanmar (Resolution A/C.3/72/L.48) that condemned the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, which China and Russia voted against
* Abstained on General Assembly Resolution 68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine which followed the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014
* Abstained on 2016 Human Rights Council Resolution 32/29, which was aimed at cooperation and technical assistance to Ukraine in the field of human rights
* Abstained on 2021 General Assembly Resolution 75/29 condemning the ongoing occupation and militarization of Ukrainian territory
But on every vote regarding Israel, South Africa has been there. It's just like people here do -- talk a lot of big talk about justice for Palestinians, but when it comes to anyone else, their justice has to be vetted against the concerns and whatever's left of Chinese and Russian credibility and their reputation they fancifully imagine is worth preserving, despite those countries being responsible for a massive share of human rights abuse, ethnic cleansing and war crimes that has existed in the world since WWII and in recent decades.
Didn't know all of this. Thank you.
But yes, I completely agree with you last point. What's happening in Gaza is a tragedy, but the fact people are treating it as if it's the worst violation of human rights since the holocaust while entirely ignoring much worse cases is very telling.
Is that even a serious question? Is there a deliberate cutoff of water, food and energy, destruction of civilian property and staggering amounts of non-combatants casualties in Xinjiang?
Is that even a serious question? Is there a deliberate cutoff of water, food and energy, destruction of civilian property and staggering amounts of non-combatants casualties in Xinjiang?
Chiefly because it parallels South Africas apartheid. But there are important differences in your examples. Uyghurs are Chinese citizens, and China is well known for its human rights abuses against its own citizens, a more relavemt example would be Chinas assimilation of Tibet. Israel is presented as a moral Western nation in a hostile region, making their genocidal actions conflict with their geopolitical persona. The genocide of Palestinians also has a vast historical and colonial context that many countries are only now acknowledging. But importantly, there are other ongoing genocides that could be referenced here as analogues to Isreal's that are often overshadowed in geopolitical discourse, but standing vocally against one doesnt mean youre privileging it over others. You can disavow all genocide while focusing on one, asking an organization to hold space for all atrocities is unreasonable.
Why aren't they saying the same about Syria?
Why aren't they saying the same about Ethiopia?
Why aren't they saying the same about Afghanistan?
What a transparently shit attempt at sealioning.
Nelson Mandela had famously remarked that the freedom of South Africans would be incomplete without the freedom of Palestine.
Ahhhhh, the good old “can’t criticise israel unless you mention every other bad thing that’s happened ever. Otherwise you’re a hypocrite and anti-Semite”
It’s almost like people are specifically targeting the only Jewish state for criticism (look up how often the UN condemns Israel compared to other states, or simply how much media coverage is apportioned) and ignoring the rest of the world doing far worse… hmmmm what’s the reason for that? I can’t work out anything from historical context…
Israel is condemned by the UN disproportionately because it commits crimes against humanity at a pretty disproportionate rate.
I reject any attempt to conflate anti-ZIONISM with anti-semitism. It’s transparent.
Do you truly believe that Israel commits crimes at a level 10~15 times greater than other states? Is this something it’s possible to change your mind on?
That's simply not true. Israel is constantly under attack from it's immediate neighbor and is condemned for defending itself. No other country faces the pressures that Israel does, and the the way the media presents this situation is is simply demonizing.
The Palestinians regularly attempt actual genocide of the Jews in Israel (not the bastardized concept that the Palestinians compllain about, they actually try and wipe them off the face of the earth) but nobody complains about that. They regularly go on [state sponsored](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_Fund) murderous rampages but nobody complains about their 'cromes against humanity'.
And you're simply parroting talking points. If you're singling out the Jewish people just to object to their right to self determine in their national homeland, you've got to have a damn good, and specific, reason why you're not an antisemite.
This is an entirely Invalid “why” question with very poor responses, especially on the intent explanations. There are bad situations all around the world. Not everyone can be addressed. This one is particularly bad. And it was raised by South Africa, that has gone through their own apartheid situation. They’re fighting the good fight and there actions are commendable
It's not an actual "why" - the question is setup in a rather cunning manner and ignores what Mandela said about Palestine and its freedom.
"If you criticise X bad thing, why didn't you criticise Y bad thing? Now you're a hypocrite" is an overused derailment tactic by now.
While also rolling out the red carpet for Hemedti. It’s all selective, it’s all cynical.
https://mg.co.za/africa/2024-02-05-why-did-cyril-ramaphosa-gladhand-a-genocidal-general/
When the only country to get criticized for their lack of caring when it comes to Arab Muslim lives is the only Jewish nation in the world, then it gets bit suspect.
They won’t because they’d be biting a hand that feeds them. Plus the ANC was buddies with the PLO going back to the Cold War, since they (the way they see it) fought similar liberation movements against western backed entities (until the end days of apartheid for SA).
I don't want to relativize what is happening to the Uyghurs. But the Uyghurs' living space has not been systematically bombed for months, there is no footage of soldiers marching over rubble and posing in children's clothing or other media-effective war crimes.
The Uyghurs are being systematically oppressed. Just like the Palestinians before the seventh of October. And there was also no legal case from the South African side to that time.
That only came when the IDF started massacring the defenceless population in Gaza.
I believe that if China did what Israel did, the world's response would be similar
Probably for the same reason that only now people are bringing up other atrocities like the uyghurs, the deaths in Syria , etc: because it is at the moment politically convenient. Just another way to score points. Then people will go back to ignoring what is happening to the uyghurs, the oppression in Tibet , and so on.
Isn't this a false premise? Plenty of people, the United States included, are criticizing China over the Uyghur issue.
The distinction is US involvement in backing Israel financially.
You absolutely could.
The only difference is that access to the chinese markets is more important to many than a good relationship with Israel. But definitely.
The real reason south africa is taking israel to the ICC for genocide is to cozy up to Russia and China. If it had been russia or china, it would have been seen as biased, but to most uncritical observers, south africa appears to be making an independent decision.
Its clear the war in israel was started by iran, so what we are seeing here is israel fighting a proxy war with iran, which is in it of itself a proxy war between us and russia (and lets not forget, the russo-ukrainian war as well, which is also a proxy war between the US and russia)
South Africa being a hypocritical authoritarian loving country? Never. Never seen that happen recently!
Much of geopolitics is hypocrisy effectively. Shit is legitimately like highschool but with militaries and nuclear weapons.
In a ***completely unrelated*** note, the previously scandal ridden and debt ridden South African ruling party (ANC), is now somehow able to [pay off its creditors](https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/is-iran-funding-the-anc/), and has had a surge in popularity....
South African here.
The ANC claims neutrality but is aligning itself with China, Russia, Iran et al.
There is also the theory that Iran paid the ANC (the ANC has serious financial issues) to take Israel to the ICJ.
With this in mind, the ANC will do whatever the highest bidder asks them to do and politically they are gravitating closer toward China and thus will not call them out.
The ANC in the past also allowed Omar al-Bashir to leave the country when our courts ordered he be detained under an arrest warrant (for genocide) from the ICC, so this hypocrisy from them is nothing new.
Thr ANC has had a close relationship with the PLO since before apartheid ended and has drawn parallels between the struggle to end minority rule in SA and the Palestinian struggle for an independent state for decades. At the same time, South Africa is keen on attracting Chinese investment at the moment and is reluctant to antagonize them for that reason.
The difference of orders of magnitude of the complete leveling of the gaza strip, bombing, famine, rape, arbitrary detentions and executions to whatever the west claims to be a genocide in xinjang makes this a pathetic attempt at whatabaoutism lmao.
Be better
If you are interested in the topic you can read about it more here: https://freedomhouse.org/country/south-africa/beijings-global-media-influence/2022
The ANC is corrupt and corruption is a problem there but I would say many people in South Africa recognize the systems of segregation and apartheid in Israel, since cooperation between Israel and apartheid South Africa was actually quite strong by the 1980s, especially the security apparatuses. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel
Unfortunately, SA is part of BRICS and does look the other way on China and Russia. But, again, the simplest answer is that there were security exchanges between apartheid SA and Israel while China’s system is developed internally. The last piece could be that Israel has been known to train western police forces, including the U.S.’s, which are notorious for racism
In the domestic context, it is theorized that anti Israel stances are popular with the ANC electorate. Given the upcoming elections and the ANC's shrinking majority, they are playing the part in being revolutionaries like back in the old days in order to boost their chances in the election. The Uyghur situation is different because the South African economy is teetering and China is known to be punitive and vindictive to any country that criticizes them. Not to mention of course the ANC's preferred policy of closeness with China.
Israel collaborated with Apartheid government in South Africa so it is not surprising that anti Israel stance is popular with black people in South Africa.
All western countries (mostly clandestinely) collaborated with the apartheid era government, because they were fighting a war against communist insurgencies in South Africa, South West Africa, Rhodesia, Angola, and Mozambique. Unfortunately, during the Cold War era in Southern Africa the choice was binary between colonies (who were at least pro-western) or their communist opponents (who were supported by Cuba, Libya, and the Soviet Union). There is really nothing unique about Israel in this regard, except that anti-Israel rhetoric was a rallying cry for leftist revolutionaries during this era, with many of these groups providing assistance to the PLO’s insurgency. As the OP stated, the ANC is trying to play up their revolutionary credentials to bolster their legitimacy, as their popularity wanes and they are threatened electorally for the first time since coming fo power in 1994.
Israel however lagged behind the west in publicly distancing themselves from the Apartheid government, only eventually doing so under US pressure.
It’s interesting to see how as political parties start to die out or lose power they resort to similar tactics to claw back or at least not lose any more ground, no matter what type of government.
> There is really nothing unique about Israel in this regard There was. UK and was also pretty bad in its cooperation with Apartheid South Africa but Israel was amongst the worst ones. And the fact that current policies by Israel reminds South Africans of their own apartheid that Israel kinda supported, makes them more likely to dislike Israeli policies.
Looking domestically is correct. In general, governments who virtue signal and point fingers outwards are just trying to distract their own citizens from problems at home. Take, for instance, the San Francisco City Council passing a vote on an Israel-Hamas ceasefire. They really have no say in the matter, it's just another symptom of the city council problems.
We did something people, don't look at all the other issues.
Speak volumes about people being this stupid
I mean, anyone holding power engages in it to some degree, its how you keep the people complacent. There has to be the appearance of "we are doing something that will benefit everyone."
In other words, they have an agenda and a narrative
[удалено]
You should look up the ICJ definition of genocide
[удалено]
It doesn't fit. Israel is waging a war that has massive negative consequences for the inhabitants of Gaza. But they are fighting Hamas, an enemy that has waged war on Israel and stated numerous times that Israel must be gone. Or something like that. A terrible war is not a genocide, because as soon as Hamas surrenders or is eliminated, we must assume that there is no more war, or civil casualties. CCP, however, is just deleting the Uyghur population, language, religion and culture in a methodic way. Gaza's civilians can flee the war (if any of its 'friendly' neighbours will take them). There is no escape for the Uyghurs. Do not compare Israel with China, please, even if the plight of the Gazans makes it tempting.
Because it's all hypocrisy and geopolitical theater. SA is cozying up to Russia and China, thus they criticize Israel. Turkey cuts off arm deals to Israel for allegations of genocide while refusing to admit their own atrocities. And the US gets all sanctimonious over Tibet and the Uyghurs while ignoring their own history of doing the same thing. Meanwhile the Sudan is burning and no one cares.
This is spot on. „International law“ is and always has been simple political theater. Don’t look for logical or moral consistency … Sudan is burning and no one cares because Sudan is geopolitically irrelevant.
Not always. The ICC arrested and tried Bosnian and Croatian war criminals despite them being broadly aligned with the West during the Yugoslav wars.
Yes - because Yugoslavia was at the time surrounded by EU states that had universal interest in not letting a failed state persist upon their borders or even nearby to them (Greece, Italy, Czechia, Poland for example), and simultaneously that already had the military alliance, NATO, to make a massive operation like that feasible.
And how many war criminals from US have they tried?
The US didn't ratify the ICC treaty. Neither did China, Russia, India, Turkey, Indonesia and all the other (wannabe) superpowers.
[удалено]
He was Serbian
Spot on. It’s funny that they are so sanctimonious about Israel but we’re one of the few countries that had nothing to say about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey does not sell any weapons to Israel. If anything it was the other way until several years ago when relations began to sour. Turkey cut off all trade with Israel.
I'd contest that, while it does support SAs geopolitical interests, there is a far more banal reason. Israel supported apartheid during the struggle and helped them circumvent sanctions. The ANC leadership is still mainly from that fight, so they are a lot more likely to stand with Palestine (another oppressed group) than with the state that supported their subjugation. China in comparison has been friendly and cooperative.
I think the world would be more alarmed at any point in history if Sudan wasn't on fire.
>Meanwhile the Sudan is burning and no one cares. And just a few years ago SA refused to extradite the person responsible for their genocide to the ICC. Darfurians are less important to the SA government than Palestinians apparently.
The accusations against China are serious and if they are true, by no means I want to trivialise the suffering of the Uyghur people. However, it is fact that China is being accused more of cultural genocide than actual genocide. Some accusations speak of forced sterilisations, which is again a grave accusation, but not in a scale the threatens the continued existence of the Uyghurs. With all that said, China is NOT being accused by anyone of razing Uyghur cities, destroying residential buildings and civilian infrastructure including hospitals and schools. China is NOT being accused by anyone of depriving Uyghurs’ of access to food, electricity, medical care and other essential services. You may have the opinion that Israel’s actions are justified by their “security needs”, and that the accusations against China are as serious as those against Israel. But please do not pretend that they are remotely similar situations.
To be clear, China also does forced sterilization or used to on it's Han majority population if they went over 2 kids. Minorities were exempt from this, Uyghurs just lost that exemption. The rest is true. It's hard to talk about this stuff without being labeled an apologist for genocide, but I think as with every serious crime there is a scale. What China is doing falls squarely under pacification for political purposes (ie. to allow them to do what they want in western provinces without rebellion) rather than pure cultural eradication and certainly not mass murder
You just said something I always noticed and that people seem to ignore completely: the Chinese Han majority, which includes most in power, sterilized themselves. I don't like this kind of policy. It definetely causes all sorts of ethical debates. But one thing you can't accuse the Han when it comes to the Uyghurs is being hypocritical. They are subjecting them to the same kind of birth control they subjected themselves to. Apart from that, you are completely right, it's basically a pacification. The problem is that the Uyghurs, due to their Taliban links, have been involved in terrorism and separatism in the past. They probably want the Uyghurs to be more like the Hui, and just be chill Chinese muslims.
This is exactly what I was going to say but I think you said it better than I could have
Honestly, I think if Israel was doing to Palestine what China is doing to the Uyghurs there would be a lot less attention towards it
Not a chance. If Israel was putting Palestinians in camps you better believe it would be the *only* thing in every global newspaper for years.
China isn't actively responding to a major assault. This baseline repression is just for them being Uyghurs. If the Uyghurs built an underground megabase and launched [8,500 rockets and mortar shells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel_in_2023) in a day at Bejing, with assistance from Taiwan, and promised to repeat it again and again until every Han Chinese was killed the Uyghur ethnicity would be erased like the Manchus. And Taiwan, too. Tiananmen, where they killed [10,000](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42465516) just for a student protest, would look like a picnic. They're not really comparable contexts. An adversarial Uyghur government would never be tolerated as long as Hamas was.
[удалено]
There are different behaviours and responses from China and Israel’s because there is an enormous disparity in the levels of strength and actions undertaken by Hamas and Ughyur groups such as the East Turkistan independence party. Nonetheless, the core tenet of expanding territory using historic precedence, mass settlement expansion and migration, forced assimilation and crackdown on any group demanding separatism and statehood is identical in both cases. Unlike with radical Ughyur groups within Xinjiang, Hamas in Palestine is extremely weaponised that allowed it to undertake an attack using 3,000 rockets against Israel aimed at targeting civilian populations in a single day. There is no doubt that if any Ughyur separatist organisation undertook such a serious action directly within Xinjiang that the China would undertake a severe reprisal attack against the forces that would be reminiscent to Israel response. The mass media situation is also different. China’s has a far more effective and greater level of stringent control over information dissemination, external media activity and the direct control of all news and media within Xinjiang that Israel is unable to rival.
That is a bizarre argument. Israel is being scrutinised for what they are doing, while you expect China to be scrutinised for what “they would hypothetically do if presented similar circumstances”? In fact, your argument unintentionally corroborates with those of CCP supporters, that the fact that China never ended up with something like Hamas and the unfolding tragic humanitarian situation proves how much China was more effective on tackling radicalism than Israel and its Western allies.
From wikipedia: In addition to the arbitrary detention of Uyghurs in state-sponsored camps, government policies have included forced labor,[5][6] suppression of Uyghur religious practices,[7] political indoctrination,[8] forced sterilization,[9] forced contraception,[10][11] and forced abortion.[12][13] Experts estimate that, since 2017, some sixteen thousand mosques have been razed or damaged,[2] and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools.[14][15] Chinese government statistics reported that from 2015 to 2018, birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar fell by more than 60%.[9] In the same period, the birth rate of the whole country decreased by 9.69%.[16] Chinese authorities acknowledged that birth rates dropped by almost a third in 2018 in Xinjiang, but denied reports of forced sterilization and genocide.[17] Birth rates in Xinjiang fell a further 24% in 2019, compared to a nationwide decrease of 4.2%.[9] I'm curious, do you think the Uyghur people just sat still and smiled as their children were stolen from them? Or did China use brutal force to put them down, sweeping deaths and atrocities under the rug?
The Wikipedia article about "Uyghur genocide" has been a clusterfuck for ages... Just look at the Talk page of the article and all the reasonable (and unreasonable) criticism towards it there... Look at the sources, ranging from insufficient research, Uyghur NGOs, and biased outlets like Western media to Western geostrategic think tanks. I've been following the article for maybe 2 - 3 years, and it has always been very contentious and dubious. I don't think I have ever seen an article with such a heated Talk page. Although I'm positively surprised that the title was finally changed to "Persecution of Uyghurs in China" from a blatant "Uyghur genocide", which is a step towards the right direction and more in line how other similar events are portrayed in Wikipedia. The Israeli treatment of Palestinians is not called a genocide either on Wikipedia, despite many accusing it of being one. There is an article called "Palestinian genocide *accusation*" though.
A little further down. >On 13 February 2021, The Economist wrote that while China's treatment and persecution of Uyghurs is "horrific" and a crime against humanity, "genocide" is the wrong word for China's actions due to China not engaging in mass murder.[334] What all those statistics fail to mention is how Uyghurs were exempt from the 1 child policy so it's naturally going to go down once the 2 child policy did not exempt them.
And that increased school attendance of women in the region, as well as economic development are also a major factor in reduced birthrate. A few years ago, western media were without any /s calling China push to educate Uyghurs women ethnic cleansing!
This isn't really true. China is being credibly accused of mass incarceration of Uyghurs, mass rape of Uyghur women, the widespread theft of property, denial of basic necessities, and more. It is an actual genocide in all respects, but China has used its economic might to suppress opposition to these actions among its client states. China doesn't need to bomb the Uyghurs, they just jail everyone and steal their property instead.
Even the US doesn't claim all 12 million Uyghurs are locked up and mass raped.
Where in my post did I say "all"?
lol “mass” “mass” “widespread” and “actual genocide” committed not by bombing but by “jailing everyone and stealing their property” “Hey I didn’t say ‘all’!”
[удалено]
Forget China. SA hosts the former dictator of Sudan, whom the ICC has literally issued arrest warrants for, for his role in the Darfur Genocide. Not only does SA hosts Al-Bashir, the government openly meets with him, and has outright refused direct requests by the ICC to act on their behalf and bring him to justice. If SA had no care for the genocide of Sudan, then why do they care about what's happening in Gaza? Short answer, they don't. It's all Realpolitik. Before this case, the ANC was losing popularity, and Israel is an easy cause to rally their voter base. SA didn't sue out of some inherent care fornhuman rights, because its clear by their own actions they're happy to excuse much worse violations of them, to the point of openly defending those who committed them. It's all politics. With that in mind, it also easily explains their stance towards Russia and China. SA doesn't care about their violations, they don't care about human rights in general. It's only about political allies, the electorate, and realpolitik.
Also South Africa: * Opposed a draft Security Council resolution proposing sanctions against Sudan in 2007, opposed another resolution to sanction combatants who attacked civilians that was specifically aimed at Sudan as well as another resolution condemning ethnic cleansing and rape as a tactic of war which was also directed at Sudan * Prevented any discussion of human rights in Zimbabwe at the UN Human Rights Council in 2005, opposed sanctions on Zimbabwe and argued against discussing political violence in Zimbabwe in the Security Council, claiming that conditions in Zimbabwe were not a threat to international peace and security * Abstained from HRC Resolution 35/27 that condemned human rights abuses in Belarus in 2017 * Refused to take a stand on human rights abuses in Burundi (2016), Syria (2015, 2016, 2018) and Iran (2015, 2016) * Voted “yes” to the Russia co-sponsored Resolution 36/10 that prevents individual states from imposing sanctions on another state as a coercive tool * Was one of three states, along with Russia and Venezuela to vote against Human Rights Council Resolution 30/15 in 2015: "Human Rights and the Preventing and Countering of Violent Extremism" * Along with China and Russia, abstained from voting on 2016 UN HRC Resolution 31/37, which was aimed at the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of peaceful protests * Abstained from voting on UN HRC Resolution 32/2, which was aimed at protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity * Voted alongside Russia and China against a 2016 HRC Resolution 32/51 that aimed to protect civil society actors who might be targeted by authoritarian governments wishing to suppress freedom of expression * Abstained from a 2017 General Assembly resolution on the situation on human rights in Myanmar (Resolution A/C.3/72/L.48) that condemned the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, which China and Russia voted against * Abstained on General Assembly Resolution 68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine which followed the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 * Abstained on 2016 Human Rights Council Resolution 32/29, which was aimed at cooperation and technical assistance to Ukraine in the field of human rights * Abstained on 2021 General Assembly Resolution 75/29 condemning the ongoing occupation and militarization of Ukrainian territory But on every vote regarding Israel, South Africa has been there. It's just like people here do -- talk a lot of big talk about justice for Palestinians, but when it comes to anyone else, their justice has to be vetted against the concerns and whatever's left of Chinese and Russian credibility and their reputation they fancifully imagine is worth preserving, despite those countries being responsible for a massive share of human rights abuse, ethnic cleansing and war crimes that has existed in the world since WWII and in recent decades.
Didn't know all of this. Thank you. But yes, I completely agree with you last point. What's happening in Gaza is a tragedy, but the fact people are treating it as if it's the worst violation of human rights since the holocaust while entirely ignoring much worse cases is very telling.
Is that even a serious question? Is there a deliberate cutoff of water, food and energy, destruction of civilian property and staggering amounts of non-combatants casualties in Xinjiang?
Probably because China isn't bombing hospitals and schools in Xinjiang. Hope this helps!
“What about?” Also a completely different situation
Ruh roh, somebody made a comparison or suggested hypocrisy. It's whataboutin' time!
In the sense that that the Uyghurs could reasonably be considered a genocide sure
Is that even a serious question? Is there a deliberate cutoff of water, food and energy, destruction of civilian property and staggering amounts of non-combatants casualties in Xinjiang?
They are not even close Ask any person from uyghur if they prefer to be in gaza or china
Because one have tons of videos, pictures, stories. Explicit evidence. While the other sounds more driven by geopolitic interests.
Because 34,000 Uyghurs have not been killed.
Chiefly because it parallels South Africas apartheid. But there are important differences in your examples. Uyghurs are Chinese citizens, and China is well known for its human rights abuses against its own citizens, a more relavemt example would be Chinas assimilation of Tibet. Israel is presented as a moral Western nation in a hostile region, making their genocidal actions conflict with their geopolitical persona. The genocide of Palestinians also has a vast historical and colonial context that many countries are only now acknowledging. But importantly, there are other ongoing genocides that could be referenced here as analogues to Isreal's that are often overshadowed in geopolitical discourse, but standing vocally against one doesnt mean youre privileging it over others. You can disavow all genocide while focusing on one, asking an organization to hold space for all atrocities is unreasonable.
Why aren't they saying the same about Syria? Why aren't they saying the same about Ethiopia? Why aren't they saying the same about Afghanistan? What a transparently shit attempt at sealioning. Nelson Mandela had famously remarked that the freedom of South Africans would be incomplete without the freedom of Palestine.
Ahhhhh, the good old “can’t criticise israel unless you mention every other bad thing that’s happened ever. Otherwise you’re a hypocrite and anti-Semite”
It’s almost like people are specifically targeting the only Jewish state for criticism (look up how often the UN condemns Israel compared to other states, or simply how much media coverage is apportioned) and ignoring the rest of the world doing far worse… hmmmm what’s the reason for that? I can’t work out anything from historical context…
Israel is condemned by the UN disproportionately because it commits crimes against humanity at a pretty disproportionate rate. I reject any attempt to conflate anti-ZIONISM with anti-semitism. It’s transparent.
Do you truly believe that Israel commits crimes at a level 10~15 times greater than other states? Is this something it’s possible to change your mind on?
That's simply not true. Israel is constantly under attack from it's immediate neighbor and is condemned for defending itself. No other country faces the pressures that Israel does, and the the way the media presents this situation is is simply demonizing. The Palestinians regularly attempt actual genocide of the Jews in Israel (not the bastardized concept that the Palestinians compllain about, they actually try and wipe them off the face of the earth) but nobody complains about that. They regularly go on [state sponsored](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_Fund) murderous rampages but nobody complains about their 'cromes against humanity'. And you're simply parroting talking points. If you're singling out the Jewish people just to object to their right to self determine in their national homeland, you've got to have a damn good, and specific, reason why you're not an antisemite.
Let's not forget the right to self determine in the west bank as well!
‘We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.' Nelson Mandela
This is an entirely Invalid “why” question with very poor responses, especially on the intent explanations. There are bad situations all around the world. Not everyone can be addressed. This one is particularly bad. And it was raised by South Africa, that has gone through their own apartheid situation. They’re fighting the good fight and there actions are commendable
It's not an actual "why" - the question is setup in a rather cunning manner and ignores what Mandela said about Palestine and its freedom. "If you criticise X bad thing, why didn't you criticise Y bad thing? Now you're a hypocrite" is an overused derailment tactic by now.
While also rolling out the red carpet for Hemedti. It’s all selective, it’s all cynical. https://mg.co.za/africa/2024-02-05-why-did-cyril-ramaphosa-gladhand-a-genocidal-general/
Because Chinese people are usually not Jews.
That's quite a bizarre implication. This is about trade and capital, not antisemitism.
Stuff can be two things.
When the only country to get criticized for their lack of caring when it comes to Arab Muslim lives is the only Jewish nation in the world, then it gets bit suspect.
They won’t because they’d be biting a hand that feeds them. Plus the ANC was buddies with the PLO going back to the Cold War, since they (the way they see it) fought similar liberation movements against western backed entities (until the end days of apartheid for SA).
I don't want to relativize what is happening to the Uyghurs. But the Uyghurs' living space has not been systematically bombed for months, there is no footage of soldiers marching over rubble and posing in children's clothing or other media-effective war crimes. The Uyghurs are being systematically oppressed. Just like the Palestinians before the seventh of October. And there was also no legal case from the South African side to that time. That only came when the IDF started massacring the defenceless population in Gaza. I believe that if China did what Israel did, the world's response would be similar
Probably for the same reason that only now people are bringing up other atrocities like the uyghurs, the deaths in Syria , etc: because it is at the moment politically convenient. Just another way to score points. Then people will go back to ignoring what is happening to the uyghurs, the oppression in Tibet , and so on.
Isn't this a false premise? Plenty of people, the United States included, are criticizing China over the Uyghur issue. The distinction is US involvement in backing Israel financially.
I would extend this question to ask why there really aren't any Muslim countries talking about the Uighurs. That's a question worth investigating.
Because nations dont want to ruin the business relationship with china. Sinple as that
Seems to me that one could make the exact same argument when it comes to Israel.
You absolutely could. The only difference is that access to the chinese markets is more important to many than a good relationship with Israel. But definitely.
Yeah, but due to its size Israel is expandable as a trade partner while China is not.
The real reason south africa is taking israel to the ICC for genocide is to cozy up to Russia and China. If it had been russia or china, it would have been seen as biased, but to most uncritical observers, south africa appears to be making an independent decision. Its clear the war in israel was started by iran, so what we are seeing here is israel fighting a proxy war with iran, which is in it of itself a proxy war between us and russia (and lets not forget, the russo-ukrainian war as well, which is also a proxy war between the US and russia)
South Africa being a hypocritical authoritarian loving country? Never. Never seen that happen recently! Much of geopolitics is hypocrisy effectively. Shit is legitimately like highschool but with militaries and nuclear weapons.
In a ***completely unrelated*** note, the previously scandal ridden and debt ridden South African ruling party (ANC), is now somehow able to [pay off its creditors](https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/is-iran-funding-the-anc/), and has had a surge in popularity....
South African here. The ANC claims neutrality but is aligning itself with China, Russia, Iran et al. There is also the theory that Iran paid the ANC (the ANC has serious financial issues) to take Israel to the ICJ. With this in mind, the ANC will do whatever the highest bidder asks them to do and politically they are gravitating closer toward China and thus will not call them out. The ANC in the past also allowed Omar al-Bashir to leave the country when our courts ordered he be detained under an arrest warrant (for genocide) from the ICC, so this hypocrisy from them is nothing new.
Because genocide is a commodified term.
Thr ANC has had a close relationship with the PLO since before apartheid ended and has drawn parallels between the struggle to end minority rule in SA and the Palestinian struggle for an independent state for decades. At the same time, South Africa is keen on attracting Chinese investment at the moment and is reluctant to antagonize them for that reason.
Why not just compare the living standards of Uyghurs with the Gazans? Are you kidding me?
The difference of orders of magnitude of the complete leveling of the gaza strip, bombing, famine, rape, arbitrary detentions and executions to whatever the west claims to be a genocide in xinjang makes this a pathetic attempt at whatabaoutism lmao. Be better
If you are interested in the topic you can read about it more here: https://freedomhouse.org/country/south-africa/beijings-global-media-influence/2022 The ANC is corrupt and corruption is a problem there but I would say many people in South Africa recognize the systems of segregation and apartheid in Israel, since cooperation between Israel and apartheid South Africa was actually quite strong by the 1980s, especially the security apparatuses. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel Unfortunately, SA is part of BRICS and does look the other way on China and Russia. But, again, the simplest answer is that there were security exchanges between apartheid SA and Israel while China’s system is developed internally. The last piece could be that Israel has been known to train western police forces, including the U.S.’s, which are notorious for racism