My Take | Look who’s committing genocide according to American media
- China is guilty by investing in infrastructure, providing free education … and forcing tourists to pay to enter Xinjiang’s most sacred mosque
It’s that dreaded G-word again. Given the dangerous state of the world, but especially in Palestine, where do you think “the greatest persecution of Muslims at the hands of non-Muslims since at least the Yugoslav wars is taking place”? In the parallel universe of the US news media, it’s China, of course!
“The silent genocide of Uygurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang is the greatest persecution of Muslims at the hands of non-Muslims since at least the Yugoslav wars,” so thundered, last Friday, an op-ed from The Hill, the most widely circulated publication in Washington, that is, throughout the US Congress and the White House. “China is conducting what Israel’s harshest critics accuse the Israeli Defense Forces of: a systemic cleansing of innocent Muslims at the hands of infidels. That genocide is also a guarded secret …”
“Silent”? “Guarded secret”? Seriously! Until recently, you couldn’t open a newspaper or a website from the Anglo-American media without reading about how Beijing was intent on wiping out the Uygurs. And if you tried to point out that their population was growing and that their birth rate far exceeded the dominant Han Chinese population, the critics said well, it was all about wiping out their culture and language.
If you also point out that the vast majority of Uygurs freely speak their own language at home and in public, and that their culture is actually showcased – showcased! – as a tourist attraction, well, that’s just screaming cultural genocide!
As a report from CBS News puts it this month, “What we didn’t see was evidence of the detention centres and prison …” Absence of evidence is evidence enough that they must exist because they have been hidden away. Okay?
CBS continues: “The government has been investing heavily in Xinjiang, including a multibillion-dollar high-speed train. Everywhere we saw evidence of the eye-watering money China is spending on infrastructure, like wind farms, and tourist development. The message: forget human rights abuses, take in the sights.”