askchapo

I've confronted this one guy a few years ago when he started to indirectly accuse me of shirk/takfiri because I openly state that I'm a communist and hold pro-China/CPC views. He very quickly went for the "Uyghur genocide" and got angry at me refuting it. My rationale was the high-sped rail connecting Xinjiang to the rest of China, the improving trends of quality-of-life statistics among Uyghurs (increased pay, employment, literacy rate, electrification, clean water, mechanized agriculture, dropping of infant mortality, reduction of poverty, etc.), videos of Xinjiang's culture, both from people who actually visited and from GCTN, the fact that Uyghurs are also Chinese citizens, multiple other sources refuting claims of anything resembling a genocide and of course, literally that the claims originated from a certain German preacher who's also a Nazi sympathizer. Or simply enough that I'm from a country whose former and current heads of state have very openly stated that "Western powers have no right to make claims of the rest of the world". South Africa and Namibia have also praised China's efforts in Xinjiang as recently as early 2024.

I also did a little thought exercise and asked if it is "also" colonization for anyone to move from Berlin to Frankfurt, or from Tallinn to Narva. Easily answered no. Then of course the person in question still considers it colonization for someone to move from Guangzhou or Shanghai to Urumqi. The last question I asked if it is colonization for a person to move from say, Johannesburg to Cape Town - This was "difficult to answer". Obviously it's only "difficult" or "too political" because South Africa is no longer a West-aligned country.

Also he supposedly delegitimized much of the Palestinian solidarity movements solely because it was spearheaded by the South African Communist Party over 20 years and many pro-Palestinian groups and individuals in South Africa of all faiths and backgrounds are active members of the SACP, or at least supportive of them. Oh, he definitely agrees that Shitrael is committing a genocide against Palestine, but presumably doesn't like it when communists (especially South Africans) wave Palestinian flags in the streets.

Funny that no one in South Africa ever called me "political" or "takfiri".