How much does sth have to “resemble the Holocaust” for ppl to take it seriously as a genocide? asked @SamanthaJPower. i looked into this question wrt to Uyghurs, amid a surge in expressions of concern and Holocaust comparisons by Jewish communities qz.com/1892791/a-cons…
among those who were outspoken on the abuses against Uyghurs in the Jewish community or invoked Holocaust comparisons: @BoardofDeputies, @rabbisacks, @GilTaieb, while @RianThum highlighted the importance of @JewishNewsUK putting the Xinjiang hair seizure story on their frontpage
according to @j_smithfinley, what really moved the needle on using the word “genocide” was the timing of the @AP forced sterilisations story and then the hair seizures. on top of that, the train video geolocated by @Nrg8000 went viral. @AuschwitzMuseum alluded to it in a tweet.
the train video became part of the broader UK-China spat after the Chinese ambassador was grilled about it by @AndrewMarr9. i detailed the rapidly growing interest in Xinjiang in the UK in this thread partly as a result of that exchange https://t.co/Fr3IqyzMV5
lawyer @philippesands has written abt the importance of not getting bogged down in definitions lest it stop ppl from focusing on the response. Peter Irwin of @UyghurProject: “The intl community has an obligation to respond, irrespective of whatever label one might want to apply”
while @RayhanAsat acknowledged the difficultly of getting countries to adopt the G-word. “once they do they have to act on it.” the US in Rwanda is one historical example, tho she said it seems that a sort of a Western consensus on the genocide definition is starting to form.
and this is what Hannah Arendt had to say about the point or lack thereof of Holocaust comparisons (h/t @maryhui)
thank you to @JAFU709 for their help and diligent work collecting Jewish responses from around the world to the Uyghur issue, which has spread steadily from UK Jewry now to the US and beyond
https://t.co/LEUCRSCOmw
Biden and Trump both using “genocide” to define the abuses against Uyghurs
"Mike Pompeo has been unwilling to declare the Rohingyas’ case a genocide...Pompeo worries that leveling a genocide accusation against Myanmar could lead its government to tighten its embrace of China" politico.com/news/2020/08/2…
"Genocide is a very serious crime," says gbl tms, and "whatabout whatabout whatabout whatabout" globaltimes.cn/content/119897…
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