He Needed a Job. China Gave Him One: Locking Up His Fellow Muslims.

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

The businesses he started had failed, and he had a wife and two children to support. So when the authorities in China’s far western Xinjiang region offered him a job with the auxiliary police, Baimurat welcomed the good pay and benefits.
For months, he stood at roadside checkpoints, looking for people on the government’s blacklist, usually from Muslim ethnic minorities. As a Kazakh Muslim himself, he sometimes felt uncomfortable about his work, but he needed the money.
Then he was asked to help bring 600 handcuffed people to a new facility — and was stunned by what he saw. Officials called it a job training center, but it was basically a prison, with toilets and beds behind bars. One detainee was an acquaintance he barely recognized because he had lost so much weight.....

The Chinese government has hoped that economic development in the resource-rich region would ease tensions. But many Uighurs and Kazakhs complain they have been left out of growth and face discrimination in hiring, along with stifling restrictions on their practice of Islam, their cultures and their languages.....

To read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/world/asia/china-muslim-detention-uighur-kazakh.html

More evidence of the intolerance of the Chinese Government. An intolerance directed against theist in general, and in this case, against Muslims.

[marylandblue]

1. Nothing to see here, just humans being humans

I myself run a re-education camp in my living room.

[Lordquinton]

2. Intolerance is a human trait

or that's what I've read here.

[MineralMan]

3. And here, people work in gay conversion camps, sponsored by Christian churches.

People with Hispanic names work in tent cities where child migrants and asylum seekers with Hispanic names are being held prisoner.

Man's inhumanity to man is an eternal theme. What will you do to change China? What will you do to stop Christian gay conversion? What will you do about internment of child migrants? My guess is: Not much in any of those cases.

But, which cases are closer to you? Which cases could you protest in person? Think about it.

[guillaumeb]

4. A classic example of whataboutism.

So why the diversion?

Does it make you uncomfortable to read about non-theists repressing theists?

Do you not care about the fate of these theists?

And considering how very many little stories you love to post about pedophilia, I might ask of you the same questions that you asked here.

To wit:

Man's inhumanity to man is an eternal theme. What will you do to change China? What will you do to stop Christian gay conversion? What will you do about internment of child migrants? My guess is: Not much in any of those cases.

But, which cases are closer to you? Which cases could you protest in person? Think about it.

What, except posting, are you personally doing about the problem of pedophilia? Where have you protested?

[marylandblue]

5. Diversion is the norm for this group.

[guillaumeb]

6. True.

So, in that spirit, the weather today in Chicago was 12 degrees at noon.

Reminds me of home.

[marylandblue]

7. You don't have to contribute it. You can take a vow to stop doing it yourself right now.

Last edited Tue Mar 5, 2019, 10:37 AM - Edit history (1)

And make this tiny corner of the world a better place, one person at a time.

[guillaumeb]

13. No one has to do it.

Agreed.

[marylandblue]

16. So you choose to do it, knowing it is wrong. Agreed.

[guillaumeb]

17. And your reason for doing so?

And for this diverting subthread?

[marylandblue]

18. To tell you something you obviously decided to ignore.

[guillaumeb]

19. When I said "doing so", I was referring to the act of diverting.

[marylandblue]

22. I know what you were referring to.

[Lordquinton]

8. It's actually not though

He included Chinese issues in n his post. This whole theme of yours is actually whataboutism. You bring it up when others are discussing what theirs has done lately. You tried to expand your scope by talking about Cuba, but that backfired spectacularly.

Why should anyone come to this thread with anything but pointing out intolerance being a human trait?

[trotsky]

10. "A classic example of whataboutism"

Yes, I'm glad we agree that your constant reference to actions by the Chinese government against theists AND atheists are a pathetic appeal to whataboutism.

[MineralMan]

11. "Where have you protested?"

At the Archdiocese of Minneapolis St. Paul. Both against covering up and hiding pedophile priests and against blocking the right of LGBTQ folks to marry the person they love. At Planned Parenthood clinics where religion was being used to intimidate women from seeking reproductive services. In front of the Pentagon in 1968, protesting the Vietnam war, wearing my USAF dress blue uniform. In Montgomery, Alabama in March of 1965. Sadly, I missed the march across the Edmund Pettus bridge by one day. I had driven there from California, as a 19-year-old white boy, to lend my voice to the call for an end to racism.

At many other locations over the years, lending my voice to the voices of others seeking justice and protesting injustices. At age 73, I do not engage in street protests very often any more. I focus more on communicating with legislators about my concerns now. My hips hurt; my knees hurt; my back hurts. My fingers and brain, though, work just fine.

Ask and you shall be told.

[guillaumeb]

14. Good for you.

Others have also protested.

[MineralMan]

20. You asked. I answered.

[guillaumeb]

21. And I said good for you. Congratulations are in order.

I was not being sarcastic. Many talk, but do nothing.

[trotsky]

9. "An intolerance directed against theist in general"

Categorically and unequivocally false.

The Chinese government persecutes all who pose a threat to their power, whether they be theists, atheists, or whatever.

Please stop with your biased spin that you use to promote your agenda.

[guillaumeb]

15. Only fake if you ignore all of the posts and information available.

But you are entitled to your opinion.

[trotsky]

23. Oh that's bullshit and you know it.

The Chinese government persecutes anyone who is a threat to its power structure.

It is bigoted to only acknowledge persecution that happens to you preferred social group.

[guillaumeb]

24. And, it focuses on theism as well.

And that anti-theism is why I post about the general intolerance of the Chinese Government in this group.

And the fact that the Chinese Government is run by atheists shows something as well. And that, in my opinion, is the real reason for the complaints by some here.

[trotsky]

25. You just don't know when to quit.

And you know I love that about you. I adore seeing you humiliate yourself over and over because you just can't stop digging.

Theists AND atheists are persecuted by the Chinese government. This ruins your whole argument, but it's the only thing you have, so you can't let it go.

How far will you take it, g? How much more do you want to embarrass yourself?

[guillaumeb]

36. You are consistently something. eom

[trotsky]

37. You stopped digging!

Congratulations! It's OK if you need to insult me to do so. It's your Christian way, after all.

[DetlefK]

26. +1

[Lordquinton]

27. Do the Chinese have a general philosophy?

Like buddhism, it's atheistic, but generally still considered a religion due to the organization. Is the fiat "Chinese government is run by atheists" an erasure of a non-western philosophy they follow?

[trotsky]

28. We're still waiting for him to prove that everyone in the Chinese government is an atheist.

Good luck getting him to answer even deeper questions.

[Lordquinton]

31. Oh, I have no intention of getting any kind of answer out of him

which is why I asked in a subthread where people actually operate in good faith.

[MineralMan]

29. The Wiki on Chinese Religion is fascinating, if

very confusing to westerners. I'm still sorting it out. In a civilization that old and diverse, it's complex. It's not one thing, but has common concepts that can be understood in terms of the current political situation. I need to study it further, but it's fascinating.

[Lordquinton]

30. Would you say that it falls more on the religious side?

or do you not feel comfortable making that kind of value judgement yet?

[MineralMan]

32. Well, traditional Chinese religion

Is very unlike western religion. It's closer to a naturalistic spirit religion, just with ancestor worship and spirits of things. It's millennia old, so it has varied over time, and has both rural, urban, and intellectual variations. Confucianism and Taoism seem to be a synthesis of all of it, in a way, but are more urban, imperial formalizations. The cultural diversity of China complicates things, too.

In its simplest form, it lends itself to being compatible with a centralized government. Western religions, on the other hand, are alien to the philosophical nature of traditional Chinese religious beliefs and practices. It all seems like philosophy more than theism.

I'm still trying to digest it.

[Lordquinton]

33. That's what I thought it was

from a very rudimentary level at least. When we're talking about theism and religion it's pretty much exclusively the abrahamic religions. For all that we atheists get the "What about islam?" I rarely hear them jumping out for Hindi, or what have you. Buddhism is pretty much only brought up in this group because we have a good natured practicing member. (and speaking of buddhists, isn't there some ethnic cleansing they are involved in? Or should I leave that out of it since they are technically atheists?)

I digress, all too easy to get going on a good rant here.

The issue is far more complicated than the OP would let on, or allow. Reducing the entirety of chinese belief to the western atheism minority is disrespectful to both them and us. I look forward to your findings on this issue!

[MineralMan]

34. Well, I'll look further into it, but don't have time at the moment.

Religion is culture, and culture is religion. Given the long history of China, there is no doubt that its historical religious beliefs, which are almost unknown to most people, have influenced the culture right through today.

Traditional Chinese religion is nothing like the Abrahamic religions at all. It's hard to characterize simply, since it is a hodgepodge of varying beliefs with long historical roots, leading back millennia.

I suspect that the process of learning about that history and practice will be a long one. There are language issues to deal with, as well as concepts that are quite foreign to western thinking.

Still, I'm sure our local expert on all things Chinese has a deep understanding of it all...you betcha...

[Lordquinton]

35. Yeah, I'm not expecting anything soon

Or at all really. I just know that when you start on something it always leads somewhere. And this topic is relevant to the group and rarely delved into from this perspective.

Of course something that would take multiple college years, and several diciplines to comprehend won't be solved after reading a wiki article.