This is the article, it probably isn’t crazy to assume a couple of you might have seen it before:

leohezhao.medium.com/xinjiang-facts-vs-fiction-bdc2aa403c91

Do you all know of any other great sources of debunking this myth?

Some context:

spoiler

My dad is in a weird place politically. If he wasn’t Palestinian and Muslim he would probably be a MAGA Christofascist. He is passively pro-capitalist, anti-fascist (because American fascists are very Islamophobic), anti-socialist. He, like many American boomer white men who might have had a hard past, is very emotionally stunted, alienated, classist, bigoted, “traditional values,” “life is hell and then you die.” However, he does try, sometimes. If he read this I would hope he knows that I love him and don’t blame him and know he easily has the capacity to birth a new understanding. Someone in our family is trans, and that was very hard for him and he still has his moments but for the most part he accepts them. He’s very pro-environment in the abstract. He has a weird mix of largely American conservative and liberal views mixed with Palestinian liberation and Arab/Islamic conservatism that all make sense considering his life. I know he’s smart and deep down has a heart, and is deeply unhappy with the life he has curated for himself with these values.

I’m not trying to radically change him in an instant, but he’s always been radically pro-Palestine, anti-Israel (yes bleeding into antisemitism quite a lot), and he’s always had a less-than-monstrous idea of AES (mainly in a “every country is shit equally” sort of way). However, when I tried to casually bring up China to him, he almost immediately dismissed the conversation with a vague gesture to “yeah have fun visiting there, they’ll disappear you and I,” obviously referencing the American-made Xinjiang myth.

He doesn’t really respect me much as an adult so it’s hard to try and have a conversation with me directly citing this stuff, I figured a reasonably professional-looking stranger was the route to go.

With that in mind, is this a good masterpost of information in your opinion? Do ya’all know of perhaps a better one, or something that would supplement it?

I’ve never “broke the ice” with most of my family members about my political views except those that I managed to pull to Bernie Sanders-esque liberalism. I’m trying to challenge myself to try and radicalize people close to me (without being a nuisance), figuring how am I going to convince strangers if I can’t convince my own blood. I figure as a fellow proud Palestinian and Muslim (I definitely have not been Muslim for ~8 years but I’m not trying to have that conversation), he might listen to me and this article on the basis of so many Muslims cosigning the Chinese approach to this American-made fiasco. I’m honestly not sure what other angle I could approach it from.

I purposefully didn’t wait til after Thanksgiving because he will be there and I was wondering if he might even bring it up after dinner, this Professional Adult Stranger maybe softening him up a bit for me to pull the I’m Your Family And Also Care Deeply About Palestine And My People card.

I also have an old friend from high school that I recently met up with. He’s white and very uhh…hangs out in VR with rich kids all day. So we had this exact same issue, and I’m wondering if just cold-linking this article would be a good idea for my dad, let alone my old friend.

  • @ZhuGweilo
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    141 year ago

    Just think if you would trust news from the biggest muslim killers crying crocodile tears about xinjiang muslims.

  • KiG V2OP
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    131 year ago

    Will try and remember to post an update after Thanksgiving 👀😁😁😁

  • @Idliketothinkimsmart
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    121 year ago

    Brian Berletic of the New Atlas is pretty good source for this kind of stuff. I like that he also has the veneer of “neutrality” that can be used to sway more moderate types.

  • @Stalins_Spoon
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    121 year ago

    If US lies about Palestine to favor Israel, why would they tell the truth about Xinjiang?

  • @Aria
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    121 year ago

    I think Vijay Prashad and Daniel Dumbrill are quite well spoken and have done rebuttals on Uigur narratives.

  • KiG V2OP
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    91 year ago

    Thanks everybody for the responses so far, I’ll have to check them all out, and hopefully use them to back me up after I talk with him tomorrow!

  • @Aria
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    91 year ago

    Could you explain your dad’s relationship to Palestine and the USA more clearly? He grew up in Palestine and emigrated to the USA as an adult? Where does most of his news and social circle come from?

    • KiG V2OP
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      141 year ago

      This might be oversharing (but I like sharing lol)

      spoiler

      His family, especially by Palestinian standards, is quite wealthy; they own some major share of a large apartment building and their neighborhood was only like a mile away from Yasser Arafat’s (reportedly, I saw it myself but I cannot confirm as I was 13 (also for context this didn’t stop their next door neighbor from being leveled by Israeli bombs a decade ago)). His family all grew up in Palestine, immigrated to Ohio, had him and his siblings, moved back and forth several times. My dad absolutely grew up with an incredibly strict, very traditional, very Muslim upbringing in every sense, they are culturally very Palestinian (as far as I can tell, as someone who visited Ramallah several times, sometimes for months, albeit again the last time I was there I was only 13).

      Our Palestinian heritage has always been a big source of pride. He even hung a huge Palestinian flag in his house in a very Christofascist neighborhood with Arabic text that said the whole “there is One God and Mohammed is his prophet” shpiel. I have always been surrounded by Palestinian imagery, mixed in with stereotypical suburban white American stuff growing up.

      However, he has definitely Anglicized himself as has some of his family to varying degrees. Our last name’s spelling was changed to look more English than Arabic and he goes by the English version or his name at work. I think most of his coworkers don’t realize his heritage until many months in when he casually might bring it up in conversation.

      He is as Muslim as an American Christian is Christian. That is to say, while we did Ramadan and he half-heartedly pressured us to learn Arabic, we never once went to a mosque, he breaks many common tenants of Islam, he definitely puts on a heavy Muslim face when around his family but beyond that I feel his strong identity with it is mostly half-baked spite at this Christofascist society.

      He is interested in returning to Palestine I theorize mostly as an obligation to family for face. Of course, it is no fun when, even as a very privileged Palestinian, you are subject to 4 hours of IDF stripping your car and all your belongings at a checkpoint every few miles. Even in my short amount of time there, I have many stories of violence and oppression. I’m sure there are truthfully very mixed feelings about going there, some legitimate some not so much.

      I genuinely don’t know where he gets most of his news from, but if I had to guess it would be mainly the type of American sources that tout themselves as “moderate.” Conservative/Blue Dog Democrats and the like. I do know that he keeps tabs on Palestine through family still, for example he shared many details with me about the Lion’s Den and their strategies and M.O. long before that was a well-documented group in the media.

      I don’t fully understand his concept of America, but if I had to guess, I would think that he thinks it is deeply flawed but fixable. He definitely doesn’t like billionaires and war profiteers, corrupt politicians and Israeli lobbyists, etc. but doesn’t truly see the full picture. He hated Bush and the American destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the British colonization of the Middle East and how they artificially provoked ethnic conflicts, etc…but at the same time he served in the American invasion of Yugoslavia, and had no qualms about one of our family members enlisting much more recently into the Army and another family member flirting with a job in the FBI. I don’t know how one sorts out these contradictory points.

      As far as social circle, he has none. He has largely isolated himself over the years. He is not dating, has no real friends (he has moderate-Christofascist work “friends”), all of his family lives hundreds or thousands of miles away from him.

      I will admit, part of me oversharing is coming to terms with me and his poor relationship, so I apologize if this is excessive. We spent 5-6 years not speaking to each other, his alcoholism went from 20 years to 30 years, we managed to reconnect but hit a wall after we ran out of things to talk about. At risk of sounding like a total psychopath, honestly, this is more about me trying to convert a powerful individual in the local community that I still have some sway over, not trying to be family again as there is much that is, in this lifetime, unlikely to reconcile. I basically lost all association with my entire extended family on both sides a decade ago and am out-of-touch in a lot of ways with where they all are, I have spoken to so few of them as an adult.

      Thanks for reading, any input welcome but it’s definitely a strange and difficult situation for many reasons.

      • Ayjan Ibrahimov
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        fedilink
        31 year ago

        ❤️🇵🇸 حرة حرة فلسطين أضرب أضرب تل أبيب سلام عليكم يا حبيبي انا اسم أي‌جان ابراهيموڤ و انا يهودي im very sorry for what is really happening right now in فلسطین i hope that this fake state of Isn’treal gets whipped out of the earth and I can feel your pain not all of us jews ( including me only i sadly can’t talk for them all ) are the same sure you will have some " jews " who sadly are 🤢 zionists ( pieces of shit ) and some jews ( like me and others) who are very but very againts this brutal and genocidal regime of Isn’treal i hope 🇵🇸 to be free and see the colonizer go away and perish for ever like Amerikkka hope to see it fall soon too it was nice reading your post have a great day or night 😊 שלום and سلام

        • KiG V2OP
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          21 year ago

          Thank you friend, of course I know not all Jews are Zionists just as not all white people are white supremacists, and I love all my Jewish comrades 💜💜💜 we are in the SAME FIGHT!!!