• merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    Haven’t you heard? It was silently downgraded to a cultural genocide, because there was no actual proof of genocide. Cultural genocide is not recognized by the UN, because Western colonial powers started sweating profusely when Lemkin proposed it.

    • Alaknár@sopuli.xyz
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      3 days ago

      Cultural genocide is not recognized by the UN

      This is false.

      Article II

      In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

      1. Killing members of the group;
      2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
      Elements of the crime

      The Genocide Convention establishes in Article I that the crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. (…) The same article establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.

      Bold by me.

      • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        This article would therefore define ANY war as genocide. (in whole or in part, killing members of the group), and it may even be a “peaceful situation”!

        This would mean the Nazis were genocided by the Allies.

        This would mean Japan’s treatment of Aum Shinrikyo was also a genocide

        and on and on and on

        In other words, it’s absolute shit.

        This is why no one takes them seriously. I don’t even like China, but look at this tripe, come on. Be better

        • Alaknár@sopuli.xyz
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          2 days ago

          This article would therefore define ANY war as genocide. (in whole or in part, killing members of the group), and it may even be a “peaceful situation”!

          People always focus on the wrong part of the definition.

          The important one is the intent.

          Wars are waged for various reasons - you need “lebensraum”, you need oil, you intervene on behalf of the UN, you counterattack after being attacked yourself, etc.

          The goals in these cases are: expansion of borders, hoarding of wealth, arguably humanitarian intervention, or military defence.

          If your goal is to eliminate a people, that’s genocide.

          And yes, that’s also the reason why it’s so difficult to actually define a military action as “genocide” - because it’s often almost impossible to unequivocally determine what was the intent behind an attack.

          And with that, let’s look at your examples:

          This would mean the Nazis were genocided by the Allies.

          No, because the goal was the stopping of the genocide of Jews, and defeating an aggressor that terrorised Europe and North Africa for four years.

          This would mean Japan’s treatment of Aum Shinrikyo was also a genocide

          No, because the death sentences were carried out not because of their religious beliefs, but because they committed acts of terror.

          This is why no one takes them seriously

          No. No one takes them seriously because most people, like you, don’t understand the definition.

        • Alaknár@sopuli.xyz
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          3 days ago

          From your first link:

          Among many other potential reasons, cultural genocide may be committed for religious motives (e.g., iconoclasm which is based on aniconism); as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing

          This is covered by “intent to destroy (…) ethnical (…) group”.

          From your second link:

          The final prohibited act is the only prohibited act that does not lead to physical or biological destruction, but rather to the destruction of the group as a cultural and social unit

          There will always be political legalese in play, when imperialist powers want to commit genocide, and so they’ll cling to the fact that “cultural genocide” is not specifically mentioned. But, in the case of Uyghurs, it’s a very clear-cut case of both ethnic cleansing and physical genocide (through forced sterilisation and displacement of children).

            • Alaknár@sopuli.xyz
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              2 days ago

              I’m sorry, could you re-write that? I’m having trouble understanding what you meant.

              • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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                1 day ago

                They’re talking about the cultural genocide of the Sami people in Norway and Sweden. Bet you didn’t hear about that in state sponsored Western propaganda, huh?

                • Alaknár@sopuli.xyz
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                  1 day ago

                  OK, now I get it.

                  Of course I heard about it. The “state sponsored Western propaganda” also very specifically mentioned that phrenology studies were shut down only in the 70s in Sweden, in case that would be your further attempt at a “gotcha”.

                  Why would you think that it’s some sort of secret?

          • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            Here is the human rights report from the United Nations on Xinjiang. It talks of human rights abuses (which there are), but it doesn’t use the word genocide, because it doesn’t meet any definition of genocide, especially not the ones recognized by the UN.

            The Western move to label it genocide before any actual proof is just atrocity propaganda to divert people’s attention towards China, rather than the West’s own crimes against humanity.

            • starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works
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              3 days ago

              Funny that you say it’s to distract from the west’s crimes against humanity, since the report literally uses those exact words to describe what China is doing to the uyghurs, but yes you are correct it doesn’t say it’s a genocide.

              • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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                2 days ago

                I’m sure the West is very good at recognizing crimes against humanity, given their vast experience at committing them. If only they used the same due diligence when dealing with their own past (and in some cases present).