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Genocide in Xinjiang with silence from Canada

The Canadian government’s silence about ongoing genocide speaks volumes

In a mountainous region thousands of miles from the glittering lights of Beijing, a people face cultural extinction. Within the remote and sparsely populated region of Xinjiang, a tremendous evil is at hand while the world watches with an indifferent gaze. The inhabitants of the region, the Uyghur people, with a history spanning thousands of years, face a genocide of epic proportions.

The Uyghurs sit at the eastern edge of the Turkic world. Unlike other Turkic groups, the Uyghurs’ national aspirations suffered following the Qing Dynasty’s 18th-century conquest. Subjugated and deprived of a nation, the Uyghurs were left powerless over their collective future. In the subsequent decades, a series of clashes between various political groups culminated in the 1949 absorption of the Uyghurs into the People’s Republic of China.

Under the new regime, Beijing began a rapid assimilation program bent on enacting conformity across the budding communist nation. The Uyghur language, religion, and culture faced a ferocious onslaught as the Chinese government fought to maintain control over the northwestern region. In the 1950s, the Chinese government ordered the migration of thousands of Han Chinese — China’s largest ethnic group — in the first of many policies promoting assimilation. Consider a report released from Arizona State University indicating the Han population rose from 220,000 (6.9 per cent) in 1949 to 8.4 million (40 per cent) in 2008.

The demographic shift is no coincidence or product of the natural migration of peoples between areas. Instead, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sought to actively dilute the Uyghurs into a subservient people deprived of their national identity. Under the guise of economic development, Chinese organizations such as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), moved at least hundreds of thousands of Han Chinese into Xinjiang, dramatically shifting the region’s demographics.

In 2014, Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and president of China began interning Uyghurs in concentration camps with the “Strike Hard Against Violent Terrorism” campaign. Under the guise of “vocational training” and “re-education,” the Chinese government began the largest internment of people since the Second World War with as many as three million Uyghurs detained.

Today, the campaign is worsening with reports of torture, compulsory sterilization, rape and brainwashing. Forced to recite slogans in Mandarin pledging loyalty to the CCP, beaten for praying, and tortured at the whim of the Chinese authorities, the Uyghurs face individual bodily harm and collective cultural annihilation.

Concurrently, the world continues to grovel to the Chinese government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent Canadian troops to a military parade where they saluted Xi Jinping. Furthermore, the Trudeau government, unlike the other Five Eyes, welcomed Huawei to build a 5G network, despite the company’s role in surveilling Uyghurs.

In the fading days of the Trump administration, American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rightfully declared the situation in Xinjiang a genocide. Last week, Parliament unanimously passed a Conservative motion calling on the Liberal Government to recognize China’s atrocities against the Uyghurs as a genocide. Additionally, MPs also passed an amendment introduced by the Bloc Quebecois calling on a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games should the genocide continue.

However, hope of Canada following the United States in holding China accountable collapsed when Liberal Minister of Foreign Affairs Marc Garneau abstained on behalf of the “Government of Canada.” The abstention ought to shock Canadians as their government chose to ignore the will of Parliament. In doing so, Garneau revealed the dark underbelly of the Trudeau administration — one that claims to cherish and protect minorities while remaining silent in the face of their cultural destruction.

Regardless of the genocide’s progression, the Olympics and all economic activities benefiting China ought to cease. Doing business with a country that utilizes de facto slavery against its own people, imprisons political dissidents, and executes thousands annually is not only an act of complicity, but support.

The lights of the internment camps only remain illuminated because of the world’s economic relations with Beijing. However, concerned Canadians, organizations, universities, and governments can take action through reevaluating engagements with complicit Chinese institutions. In doing so, Canada can proudly defend human rights and perhaps change history. The alternative is a red Maple Leaf affixed to the death certificate of the Uyghur people.

 

 Graphic by Chloë Lalonde  @ihooqstudios

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Pro-Armenian protestors gather to call for Mayor Valérie Plante’s support

A thousand protestors gathered in front of city hall on Thursday

A pro-Armenian protest in front of Montreal City Hall on Thursday Oct. 8 called on Mayor Valérie Plante to publicly support Armenians in the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh territory conflict.

On Sept. 27, conflicts re-erupted in the region, leaving at least 23 civilians killed. While the Nagorno-Karabakh territory is recognized internationally as located in Azerbaijan, the majority of the territory is occupied and controlled by a majority population of ethnic Armenians.

Aram Shoujounian, one of the organizers of the demonstration on Thursday, said they want Plante to denounce Azerbaijan and Turkey’s violence towards Armenians in a conflict that has claimed over 300 lives, according to Armenian, Turkish, and Azeri reports.

Shoujounian said the protest also calls on Plante to recognize the independence of the “Republic of Artsakh.”

While the disputed territory is officially called the Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenians refer to the territory as the Armenian-language name of the region: “Artsakh.”

At present, the majority of the territory is ruled by a government called the “Republic of Artsakh,” and positions within the government are largely held by ethnic Armenians.

“We’re telling Valérie Plante, and the entire city hall, to recognize the Republic of Artsakh as an independent state, because that’s the only way to guarantee the security and the right to live on the territory of the Republic of Artsakh,” Shoujounian told The Concordian.

“We do not want our democratic societies to stay neutral,” said Shoujounian.

Located between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the territory has been disputed through political and military conflict for decades, beginning in the ‘80s.

Russia brokered a cease-fire with both countries in 1994, but conflict continued throughout the years.

Canada suspended drone technological exports to Turkey after reports emerged that the technology was used by Turkey to target Armenian civilians.

A ceasefire agreement on Oct. 10 was promptly broken just minutes after the agreed upon deadline. Both countries put blame on the other for breaking the agreement.

On Friday Oct. 16, Justin Trudeau met with Armenian and Turkish leaders to speak on the conflict, and to encourage a peaceful resolution. A petition supporting Armenia and Armenians in Artsakh was begun by Ontario Liberal Member of Parliament Bryan May, and will collect signatures to present to parliament until Nov. 8.

Fourth-year Concordia student at the protest.

One fourth-year Concordia student said she was attending the protest because more needs to be done.

“There is a second genocide towards Armenians happening right now and people are silent,” she said.

She says leaders need to take a stand to get involved beyond peace talks, stating, “Talking nicely and telling them to cease fire won’t work because we had a ceasefire agreement.”

Nathalie Setian, the student’s close friend, said, “they [Azerbaijan and Turkey] just want to invade and erase us as a nation as an Armenian race.”

Both Armenian Montrealers said they came to pressure government officials to support the self-determination and safety of the people in the disputed region, and to aid the movement in Montreal.

“We’re raising money [for Armenian soldiers], we’re donating a lot, we’re writing open letters,  we’re urging the government and the politicians and especially the media to stand with us,” said Setian.

“We’re raising our voices and doing as much as we can to get people to stand up for us, because we’re not accepting biased and falsified information by journalists.”

Last week the Armenian diaspora in Montreal organized a protest in front of the Montreal Gazette and Global News media offices, to call out the “surface level” reporting on the conflict, and how the reporting does not accurately represent the level of threat this conflict has for the ethnic Armenians in the conflict zone.

“If you are neutral, that means you support terrorism,” said Setian.

“We don’t want genocide to repeat itself and we don’t want whatever happened in Syria to repeat itself in Artsakh,” said Setian.

Since the protest, Setian has co-written an article on the conflict.

On Saturday Oct. 17, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a ceasefire starting at midnight. The deal was brokered by the OSCE Minsk Group. Early Sunday morning, the ceasefire deal was broken with both sides blaming each other for the violation.

Today, Monday Oct. 19, Plante has released a statement saying she stands in solidarity with the Armenian people, and will support efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

“To the Armenian community of Montreal I would like to offer you all our support…I wish you strength and peace in these very difficult times and know that we stand altogether with you,” said Plante.

Photos by Hadassah Alencar

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Struggle is intersectional

After more than a century of quiet cowardice, the United States House of Representatives voted to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, condemning the killing of 1.5 million Armenians and other Christians by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923.

405 members of Congress voted in solidarity with Armenians while 11 voted against the resolution and three abstained. A nearly unanimous, bipartisan House vote raises the question: why has it taken more than 100 years for Congress to form this consensus?

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, the only Democrat to abstain from voting rather than recognize the genocide, calls the vote a “cudgel in a political fight” against Turkey, amid tensions involving military operations in Syria. According to Omar, the genocide should be recognized “based on academic consensus outside the push and pull of geopolitics.” The Congresswoman also used the vote as an opportunity to call for a “true acknowledgement of historical crimes against humanity” which addresses not only the Armenian Genocide, but also the transatlantic slave trade and systematic murder of Indigenous people.

According to academic consensus, the Armenian Genocide accounts for some of the most brutal instances of human rights abuses in history. Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the word “genocide,” named the mass murder of Armenians as a definitive example of the term. Over 30 countries announced solidarity with Armenians prior to the United States in the wake of violence experienced by their ancestors as well as the continued violence perpetrated by genocide deniers.

It’s naive of Omar to suggest that the Armenian Genocide could exist “outside the push and pull of geopolitics.” The mass extermination of a group of people doesn’t happen by accident; it’s calculated, organized, and entirely political. The fact that Turkey, along with many other countries, will not acknowledge the struggles of Armenian people to have their history recognized, emphasizes the importance of the House’s decision to vote.

Perhaps this is what’s so jarring about Omar’s position; instead of acknowledging the collective trauma involved in a 100-year-old contested genocide, the Congresswoman uses the House as a soapbox to speak over the issue at hand, advocating instead on behalf of black and Indigenous people and the systematic violence they have faced. Although black and Indigenous struggle in America predates the Armenian Genocide – not to mention both groups continue to face discrimination and violence – it’s hypocritical to advocate for an intersectional call to arms encompassing all genocides only to abstain from voting in solidarity with Armenians. Intersectionality and solidarity involves showing up for one another; the House has passed resolutions recognizing the struggles of black and Indigenous people in America before, but this is the first affirming the Armenian genocide.

Though America is not the first country to pass this kind of resolution, its position encourages a dialogue about accountability and solidarity which  may motivate other countries to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide in the future. 

Graphic @sundaeghost

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This is not a conflict, this is a genocide

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin.

Western media has the power to highlight the injustices in Myanmar—if they pay attention

My sister was the first to inform me about the ongoing genocide happening in Myanmar. She only found out about it through an Instagram post. This revelation left me in complete shock. The fact that this unforgivable violence has been going on for more than three years is astonishing. But most shocking is that it has barely received any coverage in Western media, until now.

According to Al Jazeera, the Rohingya people are a Muslim minority living in a state originally known as Burma. There are currently 1.1 million Rohingya people living in Myanmar, and they are considered one of the most persecuted groups in the world. The Rohingya make up five per cent of Myanmar’s 53 million citizens, and mostly live in the state of Rakhine, which is described as one of the poorest states in Myanmar, “with ghetto-like camps and a lack of basic services and opportunities,” according to the same source. In addition, the Rohingya have been denied citizenship since 1982, making them illegal residents and stateless.

The majority of the population in Myanmar is Buddhist. This is a religion that honours life and is dedicated to living humbly, while doing as little harm as possible. Yet according to The Guardian, Ashin Wirathu, a nationalist Burmese Buddhist monk and leader of the country’s anti-Muslim movement, is allegedly parading across Myanmar spewing hate messages and inspiring violence against Rohingya Muslims. Labeled the “Face of Buddhist Terror” by Time magazine, Wirathu claims he is only “warning” his people about Muslims, when he is truthfully inciting hatred against them, according to The Guardian.

The civilian leader of Myanmar is Aung San Suu Kyi. She actually has a Noble Peace Prize, and according to the Washington Post, she’s a “democracy icon.” Yet, Suu Kyi has been criticized for refusing to acknowledge the violence taking place in her country as an actual genocide. When asked in interviews about the violence, she often claims the media is “exaggerating” and refuses to criticize the country’s military, according to the Washington Post.

In my opinion, labeling violence as a genocide makes it more urgent, and it takes us back to the horrors of colonialism, the Indian Act, the Rwandan genocide and, of course, the Holocaust. Discussing any kind of ethnic cleansing as genocide makes it more real because it reminds us of history, and of how many people have been murdered for being different.

For a long time, the violence in Myanmar has been considered a conflict of ideologies, a religious dispute between Buddhist Nationalists and Rohingya Muslims, without being labeled a genocide. It also wasn’t being investigated by Western media for a long time—I suppose Western media overlooked the issue because we’re so concerned with social justice, healthcare, President Trump and climate change in our own nations.

I don’t really blame us—we’ve got our own problems to deal with. But it’s sad to realize that it wasn’t until the conversation shifted and some outlets, like Al Jazeera, started using the word genocide that we suddenly became all ears.

Human Rights Watch has released a report criticizing Suu Kyi for doing nothing about the excessive violence against Rohingya Muslims. According to the Telegraph, a recent military crackdown caused almost 90,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, where they are in desperate need of basic necessities. Not only are the Rohingya people unwanted in Myanmar, they are also unwanted in Bangladesh, according to TRT World.

In my opinion, this marginalized group needs a safe zone and international intervention. But this will not happen without global acknowledgement. On Sept. 16, Concordia alumnus Majed Jam, organised a demonstration protesting the treatment of the Rohingya Muslims. This was not only a way to protest the genocide, but a way to capture the attention of the world, or at least Montreal’s attention.

The Western world’s attention is an extremely powerful tool that can shed light on this ongoing violence, and it is our responsibility to make sure people pay attention.

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

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