37 Signatures Are Worth a Thousand Words

 

On a letter of 37 states, including Muslim countries, sent to the United Nations defending China's treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang

 

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 16 July 2019, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

The governments of 37 states have written a remarkable letter to the United Nations. In this letter, the signatories express their support for the policies of China’s Stalinist-capitalist regime against its Muslim Uyghur minority.

 

“Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers. (...) We commend China's remarkable achievements in the field of human rights. (...) We take note that terrorism, separatism and religious extremism has caused enormous damage to people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. (...) Now safety and security has returned to Xinjiang." [1]

 

Such words could have been taken from Orwell’s dystopian novel ”1984”! The Muslim Uyghurs are a nationality of an estimated eleven to fifteen million people living in East Turkestan (or Xinjiang as the province is officially called by the Chinese authorities). They have endured long-standing, national oppression by the regime in Beijing. The Chinese ruling class has systematically suppressed the Uyghur population and their culture. It has also implemented a policy of colonizing the province by settling Han Chinese people in order to change the ethnic balance. Many Muslim Uyghurs have been thrown into concentration camps. Last year, the United Nations published a report with shocking details. Gay McDougall, a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited “estimates that upwards of a million people were being held in so-called counter-extremism centres and another two million had been forced into so-called “re-education camps” for political and cultural indoctrination.” [2]

 

It is with the utmost cynicism that the signatory states call such oppression “a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures” and even congratulate the regime for its “remarkable achievements in the field of human rights”!

 

There is an English language adage that makes the point that "A picture is worth a thousand words". In the case of the outrageous letter of sycophantic praise for the Stalinist-capitalist regime in Beijing you could amend that by saying that “37 signatures are worth a thousand words.”

 

It is highly revealing to look at the list of the signatory states. A number of them are traditional and close allies of Chinese imperialism such as Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Myanmar, and Belarus. These, mostly, authoritarian regimes are either Stalinist-capitalist governments or states that camouflage their capitalist policies with “socialist” phrases (North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela). [3] Or they have, themselves, a notorious record of genocidal oppression of their own Muslim minorities (Russia and Myanmar). [4]

 

Additional signatories of the letter are the reactionary governments of a number of African countries – from Nigeria to Zimbabwe – that have close economic and political relations with the imperialist “Middle Kingdom”. [5] This reflects, we must note parenthetically, the rise of China as the imperialist Great Power that has now emerged as a direct challenger to the traditional hegemon – the U.S. [6]

 

 

 

The “Muslim” traitors

 

 

 

However, what is particularly revealing is the fact that the list of states supporting this letter is complemented by a number of purportedly “Muslim” states. Among these are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, and Bahrain. In the case of Syria, this development is hardly surprising given the fact that the criminal Assad regime has slaughtered more than 600,000 people since the beginning of the Syrian Revolution in March 2011.

 

However, it is extremely revealing that the official guardians of the Kaaba and the self-proclaimed defenders of the global Muslim ummah have added their names to the list of signers. So, these supposed “defenders of the faith” now congratulate China for the suppression of its Muslim minority and the staunchly conservative and anti-communist states embrace the supposedly “communist” and “atheist” regime?

 

How can this stunning contradiction be explained? Very simply: money talks! In reality, the Chinese regime has nothing to do with authentic communism that, in contrast to Stalinism, is totally opposed to the persecution of religious minorities. And the so-called “Muslim” governments violate every single of the five pillars of Islam on a daily basis. Is it not illustrative that the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, is the “best buddy” of the crook, tax evader, and porn-star-fornicator, Donald Trump?! Their open or concealed support for the Assad tyranny, the barbarous war against the Yemeni people or the cold-blood murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi are straightforward proof of their completely villainous character!

 

“Ideological” pronouncements aside, these capitalist “Muslim” governments and Chinese imperialism jointly enjoy a plethora of commercial and geostrategic interests. And this is what counts in a world dominated by capitalism and the rule of profit! In order to improve their business opportunities, the “Muslim” capitalists have no problem in selling out their Uyghur brothers and sisters.

 

 

 

Erdoğan joins the list of whitewashers

 

 

 

While Turkey, home of a sizeable Uyghur Diaspora, did not sign the letter of shame, one must point out that Erdoğan has also joined the list of whitewashers of China’s policy of oppression against the Uyghur people. In 2009, the Turkish President condemned China’s crackdown on the Uygurs as a “kind of genocide”. However, by 2019 he had changed his tune. Today, Turkey is stuck in a deep financial crisis and wants to join the main global project of Chinese imperialism – the so-called Belt and Road Initiative. [7]

 

As a result, Erdoğan is now praising the Beijing regime’s policy in East Turkestan. "Turkey stays committed to the one-China policy, Erdogan said, "stressing that residents of various ethnicities living happily in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region thanks to China's prosperity is a hard fact, and Turkey will not allow anyone to drive a wedge in its relations with China," Xinhua reported.” [8]

 

So, we see, the Uyghurs have been unceremoniously dumped by Erdoğan for better prospects on the auction block of global capitalism. Shame is evidently a word missing from the man’s vocabulary.

 

There is an additional ancient and famous English proverb asserting that “blood is thicker than water.” Inverting this, we are compelled to update the shifting sentiment by observing that for these types “religious beliefs (and principles) are great but money… is even better”. Better yet, the pursuit of money is their underlying, baseline principle and nothing else even comes close.

 

 

 

Lessons

 

 

 

As sad as this letter of shame is, it also contains crucial lessons. Most importantly, it demonstrates once more what the RCIT has emphasized again and again: one must not judge political forces by their self-proclaimed ideologies and religious beliefs. Stalin claimed to be a communist but oppressed the people, killed hundreds of thousands of oppositional communists, and deported ethnic minorities like the Crimean Tatars and Chechens. China is headed by a “Communist” party and, at the same time, is home to the largest number of capitalist corporations and billionaires in the world. Shamefully, this regime continues to be hailed by numerous Stalinists and Castro-Chavistas globally. [9]

 

Likewise, Saudi Arabia is allegedly based on the conservative moral doctrines of Wahhabism and, at the same time, is headed by an utterly decadent and corrupt monarchy that counts among its friends Trump, Putin, and Israel.

 

No, one must not judge any regime or political force by their words but by their deeds, by their concrete positions in the liberation struggles of workers and oppressed people. And here, we see that these “socialist” and “Muslim” regimes are uniformly on the side of the exploiters and oppressors!

 

We conclude by repeating that the RCIT has always denounced the Stalinist-capitalist regime in China and its national oppression of the Muslim Uyghur people. [10] Contrary to the cynical denunciations of the Stalinists, the Muslim Uyghurs are waging a just struggle against Han Chinese chauvinism originating in Beijing. We stand in unconditional solidarity with the Muslim Uyghurs and their struggle for national self-determination. We support the struggle of all oppressed nations in China for freedom including the right to form their own nation state. [11]

 

We also repeat our warning against any illusions in Western imperialism. Washington and Brussels want to exploit China’s domestic problems – similar to attempts of Moscow and Beijing to interfere in the domestic issues of rival Western countries. But the Western Great Powers, equally, have blood on their collective hands – just remember their brutal occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq or Israel’s ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people!

 

The workers and oppressed around the world must fight for liberation without relying on any of these Great Powers! All Great Powers are complicit as they strive to oppress and exploit the working people – both domestically as well as abroad.

 

The only way forward is to organize all liberation fighters in a revolutionary party based on a program of independent and international class struggle. Such a struggle must aim for the revolutionary overthrow of all ruling classes and for the creation of a world without classes, without oppression, and without exploitation. We call such a world “socialism”. Join us in the struggle for that just and honest future!