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[flagged] China's Detention Camps for Muslims Turn to Forced Labor (nytimes.com)
57 points by scruple on Dec 17, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 34 comments


I am not politically ignorant but ... I did not know about this.

Is there a global list of, well, shit going on. A heat map or an ordered backlog of things that need fixing in the world? Because if I missed this, what else don't I know


War in Yemen fueled by American arms sales to the Saudi Arabia.


Russian invasion of Ukraine?


What invasion?


Great, now China appears to have descended to effectively using slave labor. I wonder what it would take for other countries to refuse to trade with them if not this. China has already shown it is willing to kill political prisoners for their organs, and I have no doubt that this is already happening to the Uighurs.


What would take for the US to refuse to trade with Saudi Arabia?

Executing and imprisoning opposition, illegal war in Yemen, the recent murder of a journalist are clearly not enough.


That is another country that I believe nobody should have anything to do with. Unfortunately it's not up to me. For governments economic considerations carry more weight


The comments section here is borderline criminal. Focus on radicalization and "Europe should take note". Shameful and inhuman. To think these are our neighbors in Silicon Valley :/


Nah, it's the 50 cent party. They get alerted on anything China related on Social Media and swarm in to push a pro-Chinese agenda.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party


This is offensive.

A comment about radicalization is made by an account more than 6 years old and having karma over 17000.

Labeling everyone who you disagree with as a paid propagandist is bad for public discourse.


Offensive? Someone who is older than twelve is suggesting that UK, France and Germany stop "playing nice" with Muslims. And they weren't called a shill, read it again, read what is actually written. As far as I'm concerned, it would have been more charitable than to assume they're older than 12 and really mean what they wrote. I mean, where do you from there, right? A shill can quit their job at least.

As a German, the idea that we should put a whole religion in camps so beyond the pale, I think it's mainly bad for public discourse that this discussion was flagged. People should have their comments dissected until the cows come home, instead of not really having to own up to their words. This coy short flashing of this unwashed, ugly underbelly, that's the problem, that people who say A don't have to say B is the problem. They should have to sleep in the beds they declare fit for others.

It's pretty rich to bring up being offended, or radicalization for that matter, while people happily normalize putting a whole religion in concentration camps.


"they weren't called a shill"

Really? What else can "It's the 50 cent party" mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party


Yes, really. There was a specifc reference to that comment but also the thread in general, which didn't mention shills, and a reply which didn't reference that comment, but the thread in general.

The way stories critical of some, uhm, vaguely important developments in China regularly get flagged off the front page, while utter fluff about China winning some "race" or other being on the front page every second day is quite something. I don't know what the karma threshold is for flagging stories, but it sure isn't 17000. Of course, as that article notes:

> David Wertime of Foreign Policy argued that the narrative where a large army of paid Internet commentators are behind China's poor public dialogue with its critics is "Orwellian, yet strangely comforting". Rather, many of the Chinese netizens spreading nationalist sentiment online are not paid, but often mean what they say.

Either way, shill or useful idiot [1] or just independent nonthinker; it's still poor dialogue, as a result of poor reasoning and/or underdeveloped empathy, in defense of abominable practices -- and if someone can shrug off people being put into camps, they can shrug off being called names. Again, this didn't even happen here, but even if it had happened.. not that I find that constructive, of course it's also destructive and poor, talking about how "the shills are out" is totally useless and more toxic than shitty arguments I can at least disagree with -- but I still reject your claim that that'd be "offensive". Maybe for you, my priorities are vastly different.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot


"Yes, really. There was a specifc reference to that comment but also the thread in general, which didn't mention shills, and a reply which didn't reference that comment, but the thread in general."

I have no idea what you are talking about - the comment I was replying to made a statement that many other comments including the one about radicalization are the product of the 50 Cents Party. It's the only way it was talking about other comments.

Perhaps, your statement about 'poor reasoning' and 'poor dialog' applies to you as well and your sense of superiority is unwarranted.


'As a German'

Are you aware that the Latvians that used to happily help Nazies to round up Jews, today are forbidding Russians that live in their country to be taught in Russian? [0]

Does it concern you that your country and the rest of the EU look the other way?

Since Latvia became independent, the Russian population in it dropped from 900000 to less than 500000. The same happened to other ethnicities like Belorussians and Ukrainians.[1]

This slow motion ethnic cleansing happens right in the EU and nobody cares.

So, please, spare me of this talk from the hights of your moral high ground.

[0] https://www.euronews.com/2018/07/20/children-go-native-as-la...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Latvia


I'm wondering why this was flagged?


I don't understand why important articles such as these, especially written by NYTimes, get flagged?


President Xi is the reincarnation of Stalin?


[flagged]


We noted that putting people in camps because of their religion was bad ~60 years ago.


It was more about ethnicity than religion (which did not have a goal of spreadsheet itself)


No, it actually was about Nazism and its goal to spread itself. I might try to translate this later, I might not. If you have this shallow an understanding of that important a topic, and actually actively use that to excuse concentration camps, without even looking back at your comment to notice it says "spreadsheet" instead of "spreading"... this is probably not going to help you, but it might benefit others yet, and at any rate, you're utterly wrong. You pretty much know nothing.

> Verglichen mit der Irrsinnswelt der Konzentrationslagergesellschaft selbst, die von der Phantasie nie ganz erreicht werden kann, weil sie außerhalb von Leben und Tod steht, ist der Prozeß, durch den Menschen auf sie präpariert und gleichsam zugerichtet werden, einsichtig und zweckvoll. Den Anstoß und, was mehr ist, die schweigende Billigung solch unerhörter Zustände in der Mitte Europas haben jene Ereignisse erzeugt, welche in einer Periode untergehender politischer Formen plötzlich Hunderttausende und dann Millionen von Menschen heimatlos, staatenlos, rechtlos machten, wirtschaftlich überflüssig und sozial unerwünscht. An ihnen hatte sich bereits erwiesen, daß die Menschenrechte, welche ohnehin weder philosophisch begründet noch politisch je gesichert gewesen waren, auch ihre rein proklamatorische, appellierende Wirkung verloren und in ihrer traditionellen Form zumindest nirgends mehr Geltung hatten. Dies aber sind nur die negativen Vorbedingungen; schließlich war der Verlust des Arbeitsplatzes und damit des angestammten Platzes in der Gesellschaft, wie die Arbeitslosigkeit ihn mit sich gebracht hatte, oder der bei den Staatenlosen eingetrene Verlust von Paß, Heimat, gesicherten Aufenthalt und Recht auf Erwerb nur eine sehr vorläufige, summarische Vorbereitung, die für das Endresultat schwerlich ausgereicht hätte.

> Der erste entscheidende Schritt auf dem Wege zur totalen Herrschafft ist nichtsdestoweniger die Tötung der juristischen Person, die im Falle der Staatenlosigkeit automatisch dadurch erfolgt, daß der Staatenlose außerhalb allen geltenden Rechts zu stehen kommt. Im Falle der totalen Herrschaft wird aus dieser automatischen Tötung ein geplanter Mord, der dadurch eintritt, daß die Konzentrationslager immer außerhalb des Strafvollzugs gestellt werden und die Insassen niemals "zur Ahndung von strafbaren oder sonst verwerflichen Taten" eingeliefert werden dürfen. [Siehe Maunz, op. cit. p. 50.] Unter allen Umständen achtet die totale Herrschaft darauf, in den Lagern Menschen zu versammeln, die nur noch sind - Juden, Bazillenträger, Exponenten absterbender Klassen - , aber ihre Fähigkeit zu handeln, zur Tat wie zur Missetat, bereits verloren haben.

[..]

> Verbrecher gehören eigentlich nicht in das Konzentrationslager. Daß sie dennoch eine permanente Kategorie in allen Lagern bilden, ist vom Standpunkt des totalen Herrschaftsapparats aus gesehen eine Art Konzession an die Vorurteile der Gesellschaft, die man auf diese Weise am leichtesten an die Existenz der Lager gewöhnen kann.

[..]

> Zu dem Amalgam von Politischen und Verbrechern, mit dem in Deutschland wie in Rußland die Konzentrationslager begannen, fügt sich sehr bald ein drittes Element, das bald die Majorität aller Insassen bilden sollte. Diese größte Gruppe bestand aus Menschen, die überhaupt nichts getan haben, was, sei es in ihrem eigenen Bewußtsein oder im Bewußtsein ihrer Peiniger, in irgendeinem rationalen Zusammenhang mit ihrer Haft steht. Ohne sie hätten die Lager niemals existieren beziehungsweise die ersten Jahre des Regimes überleben können.

[..]

> Diese in jedem Sinne vollkommen Unschuldigen bilden nicht nur die Majorität der Lagerbevölkerung, sie sind auch diejenigen, die schließlich in den deutschen Gaskammern "ausgemerzt" wurden. Nur in ihnen konnte der Mord der juristischen Person so vollständig durchgeführt werden, daß sie ohne Namen und ohne Taten oder Missetaten, an denen man sie hätte erkennen können, in den Massenfabriken des Todes "verarbeitet" werden konnten, die zudem schon ihrer Fassungskraft wegen individuelle Fälle gar nicht mehr berücksichtigen konnten. (Ein Jude etwa, der sich wirklich gegen das Naziregime "vergangen" hatte, kam dort gar nicht erst hinein, er wurde sofort erschossen oder totgeschlagen.) Die Gaskammern waren von vornherein weder als Abschreckungs- noch als Strafmaßnahme gedacht; sie waren bestimmt für Juden oder Zigeuner oder Polen "überhaupt", und sie dienten letztlich dem Beweis, daß Menschen überhaupt überflüssig sind.

[..]

> Während die Einteilung der Insassen in Kategorien nur eine taktisch-organisatorische Maßnahme für die Verwaltung der Lager ist, zeigt die Willkür der Einlieferungen das wesentliche Prinzip der Institution als solcher an. Die Existenz einer politischen Opposition ist für das Konzentrationslagersystem nur ein Vorwand, und sein Zweck ist nicht erreicht, wenn infolge ungeheuerlichster Abschreckung die Bevölkerung sich mehr oder minder freiwillig gleichschaltet, daß heißt ihrer politischen Rechte begibt. Die Willkür bezweckt die bürgerliche Entrechtung aller von einem totalitären Regime Beherrschten, die schließlich in ihrem eigenen Land so vogelfrei werden wie sonst nur Staaten- und Heimatlose. Die Entrechtung des Menschen, die Tötung der juristischen Person in ihm ist die Vorbedingung für sein totales Beherrschtsein, dem selbst freie Zustimmung hinderlich ist [Damit hängt zusammen, daß jede Propaganda und "Weltanschauungslehre" in den Lagern ausdrücklich verboten waren. (Siehe Himmler, Wesen und Aufgabe der SS und der Polizei.) Hiermit wiederum muß man zusammenhalten, daß Lehre und Propaganda auch für die bewachenden Eliteformationen nicht zugelassen waren; ihre Weltanschauung sollte nicht "gelehrt", sondern "exerziert" werden (Robert Ley, op. cit.)]. Und dies gilt nicht nur von speziellen Kategorien wie Verbrechern, politischen Gegnern, Juden, an denen die Sache ausprobiert wird, sondern von jedem Einwohner eines totalitären Staates.

-- Hannah Arendt, "Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft", S. 655 ff.


Wow it seems I have ruffled some feathers :)

I'm not disagreeing that Nazism and Lebensraum was a reason in itself, what I'm saying is that Anti-semitism is more connected to ethnicity than religion. Judaism does not proselytize


As "promised"... some bits I didn't know how to translate, and I'm sure it still has errors, but I tried my best.

> Compared with the insane world of the concentration camp society itself, which can never be quite grasped by the imagination, because it is outside of life and death, the process by which humans get prepared and [zugerichtet] for it, is rational and purposeful. The [Anstoß], and what's more, the tacit approval of such conditions in the middle of Europe, was created by those events, which in a period of dissolving political forms suddenly had suddenly made hundreds of thousands and then millions of people homeless, stateless, rightless, economically superfluous and socially unwanted. On them it already had been demonstrated that human rights, which were never philosophically founded nor secured politically anyway, had lost even their proclamatory, their appelatory effect and were at least in their traditional form no longer applied anywhere. But these are only the negative preconditions; after all the loss of the workplace and therefore the place in society, which came with unemployment, or in the case of statelessness the loss of papers, home, a secure place to stay and a right to work, were only preliminary, summary preparation, which would have hardly sufficed for the ultimate result.

> Regardless, the first crucial step on the way to totalitarian power is the killing of the juridical person, which in the case of statelessness happens automatically because the stateless person ends up outside of all law. In the case of totalitarian power this automatic killing becomes a planned murder, because concentration camps are always placed outside of the penal system, and the inmates are never to be put there "for punishable or other offenses" (also see Maunz, p. 50). Under all conditions totalitatarian power takes care to put people into the camps, which only are -- Jews, carriers of diseases, members of dying classes -- but have already lost their ability to act, be it for good or bad.

[..]

> Still the element of criminals must not be missing from any concentration camp. [..] the fact that nearly without exception they compromise the aristocracy of the camps and fulfill administrative duties, shows clearly that it is much harder to kill the juridical person of a human who is guilty of someone, than of someone who is innocent. The rise of criminals into the aristocracy of the camps is similar to the improvement that happens in the juridical situation of the stateless, who also have lost their rights as citizens, when they resolve to commit a theft.

[..]

> Criminals don't actually don't belong in a concentration camp. That they still form a permanent category in all camps is, from the viewpoint of the totalitarian power apparatus, a kind of concession to the prejudices of society, which in this way can be made to get used to their existence the most easily.

[..]

> To the amalgamation of politicals and criminals, with which the concentration camps began both in Germany and Russia, soon a third element is added, which would soon form the majority of all inmates. This largest group consisted of people who hadn't done anything that stood in any rational relation to their imprisonment, be it in their own mind or in that of their torturers. Without them the camps could have have existed, that is, they would not have survived the first years of the regime.

[..]

> These in every sense innocent people do not just form the majority of all the camp population, they also are those, which finally were "exterminated" in German gas chambers. Only on them could the murder of the juridical person be performed so completely that they could be "processed", without names, deeds or misdeeds, by which they could have been recognized, in the mass factories of death, which just because of their sheer capacity could not take individual cases into account anymore. (A Jew for example, who had done a "crime" against the Nazi regime, didn't even get put in there in the first place, they were shot or beaten to death right away.) From the beginning the gas chambers were not intended as means to intimidate or punish; they were intended for Jews or Gypsies or Poles "in general", and they served to prove, that humans in general are superfluous.

[..]

> While the separation of inmates into categories was merely a tactical-organisatory measure for the the purpose of administration of the camps, the arbitrariness of committal demonstrates the essential principle of the institution as such. The existance of a politacal opposition is just a pretext for the concentration camp system, and its purpose is not achieved when the population more or less voluntarily conforms as consequence of the most monstrous deterrence, that is, to give up its political rights. The arbitrariness has the purpose to deprive those under the totalitarian regime of all their rights as citizens, which finally become as outlawed [vogelfrei] in their own country as otherwise only the stateless and homeless. The deprivation of humans of their rights, the killing of the juridical person in them is just a precondition of their being totally controlled, for which even voluntary agreement is a hindrance. [Related to that is the fact that all propaganda and ["Weltanschauungslehre"] was expressly forbidden in the camps. (also see Himmler, "Wesen und Aufgabe der SS und der Polizei"). And together with this in turn it has to be considered that that teaching and propaganda was also not allowed for the guarding elite formations; their Weltanschauung was not to be "teached", but "exercized" (see Robert Ley)]. And this is not just the case for special categories of criminals, political enemies, Jews, on which it was tested [first], but for every citizen of a totalitarian country.


It had nothing to do with religion.


[flagged]


> but countries need to address the issue of radicalization

If by 'addressing it' you mean promote it, China is certainly addressing it.


I don't know, UK, France and Germany have always treated this group well and they get all the radical preachers and attackers, I say playing nice is not working so well


How many radical muslim attacks have there been in the last year in the UK?


[flagged]


Given that being an uighur isn't a crime, I guess they have gone beyond what USA has done


Out of curiosity, which page in the Chinese propaganda runbook is this on?


[flagged]


What sort of discussion do you hope to see from a comment like this?


Anything like "you are not right because..." instead of flagging my comment :) Now we just have people living nicely in their bubbles who just want to remove everything which doesn't fit to their vision of the world, regardless if that's true. Whenever I write some true but unpopular things, people just flag it and it's removed later. This is so pathetic.


labor camp, community service, maybe better than bombing somehow? It is kinda force women to get educated. I don't really know where I stand. Maybe for some religion education is bad. I hugely doubt people will disappear for no reason. Of course, my English friend always know more about how I live in China. Every time I try to have a discussion I always end on the losing end.


Also, I doubt that many of the allegedly million people in the camps are involved in bombing anything.


Why do you doubt that people disappear for no reason? It is happening right now.




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