Monday, March 13, 2017

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Why is it that, with regard to the Chinese-occupied Uighur homeland of East Turkestan/ Xinjiang, Western reporters have no trouble in recognising the roots of violence there and sheeting home the blame to those responsible, in this case successive Chinese governments?

For example:

"Xinjiang has for decades been blighted by outbreaks of vicious ethnic violence, a process experts believe has been exacerbated by the government's poor treatment of Uighurs, which includes draconian religious restrictions and social and economic discrimination." (China: Xi Jinping wants 'Great Wall of Steel' in violence-hit Xinjiang, Tom Phillips, the guardian.com, 11/3/17)

And yet, when it comes to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Arab homeland of Palestine/ Israel, and the periodic outbursts of violence there, most Western reporters invariably reference the Israeli claim that it is Palestinian Authority/Hamas incitement against Jews, not Israel's repressive and never-ending occupation, that is at the root of the violence.

Funny that...

1 comment:

Grappler said...

My comment, MERC, is if you know that the Guardian is frugal with the truth when it comes to reporting on Palestinian matters, why would you expect it to operate differently when it comes to Chinese issues? I suspect that, as Western newspapers do, they listen to dissidents only. The difference between Palestinians and the Uyghurs is that we have many sources of information - and even the Israelis can't keep the lies coherent. We have a pretty good idea from multiple sources of what Israel is and has been doing for decades.

China is not as intolerant of religion as Western media would have us believe. Here is another Western source with Western biases but it notes that China is not anti-religion of itself. It is against a religiously separate community that it sees as a threat to the state.

http://time.com/3099950/china-muslim-hui-xinjiang-uighur-islam/

The view of Chinese people I have talked to is that minorities receive many advantages over the Han people including, during the one-child era, the freedom to have more than one child per family, and extra state funding. I don't know the truth but I do know not to trust the Guardian.