The Pope and the Uighurs

 “I think often of persecuted peoples,” Francis said in one passage. “The Rohingya, the poor Uighurs, the Yazidi — what ISIS did to them was truly cruel — or Christians in Egypt and Pakistan killed by bombs that went off while they prayed in church.” Any degree of persecution is unacceptable and there is debate on the left about what is actually going on in China re those parts of the Uighur population thought to be susceptible to recruitment to extreme Islamic fascist movements. However there is a qualitative difference between China's actions and those of the others mentioned in the Pope's passage. The Rohingya, the Yazidi, Egyptian Christians and Pakistani religious (the Pope only prayed for the Christians but all minority religious groups including Muslim groups are being terrorized) are being subjected to mass murder by groups who want to physically exterminate them-- the Rohingya by the government, the Yazidis by the Islamic fascist ISIS, and the suffering of the Egyptian and Pakistani victims due to their governments failure to take robust action to protect them and, as both depend on both financial and political support from United States imperialism, the latters failure to demand that they do more to protect those victims and is itself inflicting deadly persecution and mass killings on peoples around the world. The worse that has been actually shown being done to the Uighurs is that a significant number are being forced to take re-education courses and job training instruction by the Chinese government. Whether using force in this manner is the best way to prevent the resurgence of the terrorist attacks that were occuring and the spreading of violent Islamic groups in Sichuan, which called forth this reaction from the Chinese government, is a legitimate cause of concern but it is not legitimate to classify it with what has befallen the Rohingya and the Yazidi. In fact, if Egypt and Pakistan were not run by imperialist sponsored reactionary fascist regimes, the Chinese model might even be recommended.

NYTIMES.COM

Pope Calls Uighurs ‘Persecuted,’ Prompting Pushback From China