{"id":549,"date":"2019-06-02T01:38:29","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T16:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/?p=549"},"modified":"2019-06-02T01:38:29","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T16:38:29","slug":"does-never-again-mean-anything-if-we-do-nothing-about-chinas-concentration-camps-will-bunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/2019\/06\/02\/does-never-again-mean-anything-if-we-do-nothing-about-chinas-concentration-camps-will-bunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Does \u2018Never Again!\u2019 mean anything if we do nothing about China\u2019s concentration camps? | Will Bunch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> Updated:\u00a0May 30, 2019 &#8211; 12:49 PM  <br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/columnists\/attytood\/china-concentration-camps-uighur-muslims-holocaust-american-jews-20190530.html?fbclid=IwAR2rRTGnuZmnEGKr-vgkPXeKyyf2Q6GffzphMvThs9E4iS9r1TPQ2KqbQ5g\">https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/columnists\/attytood\/china-concentration-camps-uighur-muslims-holocaust-american-jews-20190530.html?fbclid=IwAR2rRTGnuZmnEGKr-vgkPXeKyyf2Q6GffzphMvThs9E4iS9r1TPQ2KqbQ5g<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/resizer\/ju02Jmpnk-N2ihe_NsO9CFEBVSo=\/1400x932\/smart\/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/JSKSBAINZRCDFFBS5ILWPV7EVM.jpg\" alt=\"Does \u2018Never Again!\u2019 mean anything if we do nothing about China\u2019s concentration camps? | Will Bunch\"\/><figcaption><strong>CHRISTINA LARSON \/ AP<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s been more than three decades since Gulbahar Mamut and her husband left the remote corner of Earth that her&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Uyghurs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Uighur<\/a>&nbsp;people call&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/East_Turkestan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">East Turkestan&nbsp;<\/a>and the ruling Chinese government calls&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Xinjiang\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Xinjiang<\/a>&nbsp;for Southern California, where they attended universities and stayed to raise their two sons. But Mamut always went back every few years to visit her six brothers and sisters and her large extended family that\u2019s stayed behind in the mostly Muslim region, despite increasing persecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last time she went was 2015, and she could see how China\u2019s totalitarian surveillance state was becoming increasingly intolerable, Mamut and her fellow Uighurs couldn\u2019t walk more than 100 yards or so down the streets of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yining\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ghulja<\/a>&nbsp;in far northwestern China without hitting&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2019\/04\/04\/world\/asia\/xinjiang-china-surveillance-prison.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a police checkpoint<\/a>&nbsp;where she was asked to produce ID. When she tried to drive with relatives to visit a tourist site on the Kazakhstan border, she endured an hour and a half of often hostile questioning before she finally got her U.S. passport back.RELATED STORIES<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/columnists\/attytood\/reconstruction-jim-crow-ku-klux-klan-terrorized-blacks-20190528.html\">Why the lies my teacher told me about race in America after the Civil War matter in 2019 | Will Bunch<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/opinion\/commentary\/trump-nancy-pelosi-impeachment-democrats-bullied-20190526.html\">Trump bullies Dems, other foes into cowardice. Without courage, America may be lost | Will Bunch<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/columnists\/attytood\/jay-inslee-climate-change-plan-2020-presidential-race-20190523.html\">Jay Inslee has a plan for saving Earth. So why is he at 0.8 percent in the polls? | Will Bunch<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Two years later, in early 2017, she stopped hearing from her relatives altogether. The popular Chinese messaging app, WeChat, no longer worked. Mamut tried calling her sister and the phone cut off after a few seconds. So she called her older brother\u2019s phone and his wife picked up to say she was at a police checkpoint and would call back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was her final contact. Friends tell Mamut that intercepted phone calls or messages from the United States could cause the ever-watching Chinese authorities to target her loved ones \u2014 at a time when&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/uighur-muslim-detention-camps-xinjiang-china-7d682095-4dcc-4b7b-8368-09e73ae7178a.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as many as 1 million Muslims<\/a>&nbsp;or more and other ethnic minorities have been rounded up and sent to what Beijing calls \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/12\/world\/asia\/china-xinjiang.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">education centers<\/a>\u201d and the rest of the world calls, justifiably,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-china-xinjiang-rights\/15-million-muslims-could-be-detained-in-chinas-xinjiang-academic-idUSKCN1QU2MQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">concentration camps<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/resizer\/OAadYOdBIHbvLEXuocv-8-7mDdI=\/1400x0\/center\/middle\/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/VKX3DZBILFAWRN6RJG4DACHOIA.jpg\" alt=\"In this Sept. 20, 2018, photo, an Uighur woman uses an electric-powered scooter to fetch schoolchildren as they ride past a picture showing China's President Xi Jinping joining hands with a group of Uighur elders at the Unity New Village in Hotan, in western China's Xinjiang region. \"\/><figcaption><strong>ANDY WONG \/ AP<\/strong>In this Sept. 20, 2018, photo, an Uighur woman uses an electric-powered scooter to fetch schoolchildren as they ride past a picture showing China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping joining hands with a group of Uighur elders at the Unity New Village in Hotan, in western China&#8217;s Xinjiang region.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just horrible,\u201d Mamut told me by phone from a Los Angeles suburb this week, more than two years since she\u2019s heard from her family. \u201cI read articles about \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/Diaspora\/Never-Again-From-a-Holocaust-phrase-to-a-universal-phrase-544666\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Never again<\/a>!\u2019&#8221; \u2014 the mantra that emerged from the Jewish Holocaust during World War II \u2014 \u201cand this is happening in the 21st century and nobody can do anything &#8230; How can we be not able to stop this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gulbahar Mamut is right. The irony is heartbreaking. It was just four months ago that hundreds of thousands of American schoolchildren observed the annual&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/International_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Holocaust Remembrance Day<\/a>&nbsp;intended to instill the message that the world can never again stand by idly and do nothing about such large-scale crimes against humanity. But the crisis in Xinjiang is showing a generation born long after the Nazi horrors of the 1930s and \u201940s that \u201cNever again!\u201d is easier said than done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The escalating campaign of ethnic cleansing that China\u2019s totalitarian government has been waging against the Uighur Muslims \u2014 not just&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/22\/world\/asia\/china-surveillance-xinjiang.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a frightening level of surveillance<\/a>, including dozens of cameras on every street and massive phone and internet monitoring, but now the growing numbers rounded up, detained and indoctrinated at a gulag of concentration camps \u2014 isn\u2019t getting nearly the attention it deserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/resizer\/qvxL016Zy69bc8j7aaeKPPMTFbo=\/1400x0\/center\/middle\/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/DBDB7XRABBHKBNM5NYDXJ3X6SE.jpg\" alt=\"In this Sept. 26, 2018 file photo, Pakistani businessman Mirza Imran Baig shows a picture with his Uighur wife, Malika Mamiti, outside the Pakistani embassy in Beijing, China. Mamiti, was sent to a political indoctrination camp after returning to China\u2019s far west Xinjiang region in May 2017, Baig said. Scores of Pakistani men whose Muslim Uighur wives have disappeared into internment camps in China feel helpless, fighting a wall of silence as they struggle to reunite their families. \"\/><figcaption><strong>ANDY WONG \/ AP<\/strong>In this Sept. 26, 2018 file photo, Pakistani businessman Mirza Imran Baig shows a picture with his Uighur wife, Malika Mamiti, outside the Pakistani embassy in Beijing, China. Mamiti, was sent to a political indoctrination camp after returning to China\u2019s far west Xinjiang region in May 2017, Baig said. Scores of Pakistani men whose Muslim Uighur wives have disappeared into internment camps in China feel helpless, fighting a wall of silence as they struggle to reunite their families.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. government hasn\u2019t minced words in calling out the mass detention centers as \u201cconcentration camps,&#8221; with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying the facilities \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/may\/04\/us-accuses-china-of-using-concentration-camps-uighur-muslim-minority\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">are reminiscent of the 1930s<\/a>.\u201d But the Trump administration\u2019s deeds haven\u2019t been nearly as tough as its language. President Trump&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/04\/world\/asia\/trump-china-uighurs-trade-deal.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">decided against bringing up the plight of China\u2019s Muslims<\/a>&nbsp;in his talks seeking a massive trade deal with his counterpart President Xi Jinping, and aides deep-sixed suggestions for economic sanctions against officials involved in the concentration camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Does the flow of cheap Chinese goods really trump wholesale humanitarian crimes? Some Jewish-American groups that are committed to preventing a 21st century holocaust \u2014 not just for the Uighurs but in other global crises like&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/International\/American-Jewish-groups-call-out-to-end-genocide-against-the-Rohingya-581941\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Myanmar\u2019s crimes against its Rohingya<\/a>people \u2014 are&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/forward.com\/opinion\/424071\/jews-are-speaking-out-against-chinas-ethnic-cleansing-of-muslims-will-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">starting to make more overt comparisons<\/a>&nbsp;to what once happened under Adolf Hitler, in the hope that more people will pay attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFor us, it is a \u2018Never Again!\u2019 moment, and we are seeking to educate and activate Jews nationwide,\u201d Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub of The Jewish Board of Family and Children\u2019s Services, told me by email. He said Chinese actions such as crackdowns on reading the Quran or speaking their native Turkic are \u2014for American Jews following the story \u2014 \u201ca painful echo of the murderous persecution by the Nazis just 75 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ann Strimov Durbin, director of advocacy and grant making for the California-based&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jww.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jewish World Watch,<\/a>&nbsp;has called China\u2019s crackdown on its Muslims a form of cultural genocide and is working with U.S.-based Uighurs like Mamut to aggressively lobby members of U.S. Congress to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/africa\/us-senate-revives-bill-that-could-sanction-china-over-treatment-of-its-muslims\/2019\/01\/18\/9c3ee14c-1af6-11e9-a804-c35766b9f234_story.html?utm_term=.21874b4757c4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">back pending bill<\/a>s that could lead to economic and travel sanctions against Chinese officials and companies linked to the camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChina is a difficult adversary to go up against,\u201d said Durbin, expressing her alarm at reports of offenses from razing mosques to forcing Uighurs to eat pork to even diluting the gene pool by pressuring Muslim women to mate with the growing number of ethnic Han Chinese who are moving into Xinjiang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/resizer\/z86iQNPFrgDsQVokWQFmAi1mVvo=\/1400x0\/center\/middle\/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/ZH72NRVI4FDDRH3AZYXQKSRHYU.jpg\" alt=\"In this June 5, 1989 file photo, a Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Changan Boulevard in Tiananmen Square. The man, calling for an end to the recent violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. Over seven weeks in 1989, student-led pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing\u2019s Tiananmen Square became China\u2019s greatest political upheaval since the end of the Cultural Revolution more than a decade earlier.\"\/><figcaption><strong>JEFF WIDENER \/ AP<\/strong>In this June 5, 1989 file photo, a Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing&#8217;s Changan Boulevard in Tiananmen Square. The man, calling for an end to the recent violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. Over seven weeks in 1989, student-led pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing\u2019s Tiananmen Square became China\u2019s greatest political upheaval since the end of the Cultural Revolution more than a decade earlier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After all, it took nothing less than a devastating world war to stop Nazi genocide in 1945. China is an economic and, increasingly, a military superpower that\u2019s resistant to outside leverage, especially when it\u2019s a major trading partner of most developed nations. Coincidentally, this week will&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/28\/world\/asia\/china-tiananmen-square-massacre.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mark the 30th anniversary<\/a>&nbsp;of China\u2019s massacre of political dissidents in and around Tiananmen Square \u2014 a horrific event met largely with a collective shrug. In the case of the Uighurs, it\u2019s been appalling that the world\u2019s largest Muslim nations \u2014 led, of course, by their own murderous dictators \u2014 have made it clear&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/asia_pacific\/china-wages-relentless-crackdowns-on-its-muslims-but-saudi-arabia-stays-quiet-as-it-bolsters-ties-with-beijing\/2019\/05\/24\/66b52b44-7320-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html?utm_term=.ec791d419c1e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">they\u2019d rather do business with Beijing<\/a>&nbsp;than stand up for people of their own faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Activists like Durbin refuse to believe that the Uighurs are a lost cause. She\u2019s busy lobbying lawmakers and arranging for California-based Uighurs like Mamut to meet with top aides to their Sen. Kamala Harris, now a leading presidential contender. She told me \u201ca lot of it is about expressing solidarity and amplifying their voices\u201d \u2014 adding that action by Congress on the sanctions bill would also send a powerful message of America standing with the Uighurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mamut told me she\u2019d like to see everyday Americans organize to boycott Chinese products in response to the crackdown and the concentration camps. \u201cThere are very few people fighting this fight right now,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need everybody\u2019s help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We shouldn\u2019t let things like the vast distance between the United States and East Turkestan, the unyielding behavior of China\u2019s dictators or worries about whether prices will keep falling at Walmart to so demoralize us to keep us from speaking out against human rights abuses. We can, and should, pressure Congress and the Trump administration to do a lot more. Never again? \u201cAgain\u201d is happening right now, on our watch. What are we going to do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated:\u00a0May 30, 2019 &#8211; 12:49 PM https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/columnists\/attytood\/china-concentration-camps-uighur-muslims-holocaust-american-jews-20190530.html?fbclid=IwAR2rRTGnuZmnEGKr-vgkPXeKyyf2Q6GffzphMvThs9E4iS9r1TPQ2KqbQ5g It\u2019s been more than three decades since Gulbahar Mamut and her husband left the remote corner of Earth &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":550,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions\/550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}