MUSLIM “RE-EDUCATION” CAMPS?

by with One Comment Diversity & InclusionFeaturedGlobalRace Relations

Think about a group of people who were persecuted, tortured, and put into internment camps for no other reason besides their religion. The first thing that probably comes to mind is the Jews during the Holocaust – something that happened in history and will never occur again. However, there are people in 2018 who are being subjected to some of the same horrors that those people faced during World War II.

The Uyghur Muslims are a group of Muslims who live in a territory occupied by China. They have their own flag, culture, and language that separates them from the rest of China. Over the past several years, they have been persecuted by China’s government for their religion (China’s Muslim population is approximately 1.7%). Most recently, the Chinese government has detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghur Muslims and held them in internment camps, or as they call to them, “re-education” camps. They justify their actions by claiming that it is an effort to prevent terrorism fueled by religious extremism. Muslims in these camps are being brainwashed and forced to watch propaganda. They’re also being forced to participate in activities and renounce their faith and culture and pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. They’re children are often separated from their parents and put into state-run orphanages. These camps have also been referred to as “hospitals” since China views religious beliefs as a form of mental illness that must be cured. 

We have seen this happen before. When the colonizers came to North America, they forced the native people into camps in an attempt to “re-educated” them by stripping away their language, culture, and customs in an effort to control them. The Nazis forced Jews into concentration camps where they tortured an entire group for no reason other than their religion. Today, we see it happening again, and it is clear that the world’s promise of “never again” has once again been broken. 

One can only imagine the outcry if this was happening again similar to the atrocities during World War II. It seems that the same heinous behavior taking place towards Muslims in an age of readily accessible information cannot even get basic media coverage. This isn’t the first time a massacre towards Muslims has been largely ignored. The 1995 genocide in Srebrenica is still unbeknownst to most people, where more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered for their religion and the rest of the world stood by in silence (the UN declared the city a safe haven for Muslims before the massacre occurred). 

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” 

“1995: 8,000 Muslims Killed in U.N. Safe Haven”

by with No Comment FeaturedGlobalInternational

This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the genocide in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where 8,372 Muslim men were killed in an area that was designated as a U.N. “safe haven.” Most of their bodies were thrown into mass graves, and some of their bodies are still being discovered today. Countless women, many of whom were the wives and mothers of the men killed, were tortured and raped by Serbian soldiers. This genocide has been called the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.

My grandfather was born and raised in Bosnia, so as you can imagine, I heard about this massacre at a very young age. I recall learning about the Srebrenica massacre in high school, but it wasn’t called a massacre. My history textbook devoted just two sentences in a sidebar mentioning the massacre, and they referred to it as an “ethnic cleansing.” The word “cleansing” implies that the killing of 8,372 Muslims made Bosnia purer. I couldn’t help but think that if the victims were a group other than Muslims, the coverage and the historic context of this massacre may have been dramatically different.

Winston Churchill said, “History is written by the victors.” This was obvious to me considering that our history textbook devoted multiple sections to other genocides, notably the Holocaust. Are the numbers between the Holocaust and the Srebrenica genocide comparable? No. But both involved large groups of people being killed for no other reason besides their religion. The Holocaust is a well-known historic occurrence that almost everyone can recall learning about in school; yet, the Srebrenica genocide is something obscure-sounding that most people have never even heard of before.

Let’s switch gears and fast-forward to 2017. ISIS (or ISIL) is in the Middle East systematically massacring a minority religious group called the Yazidis (ISIS is responsible for killing many other people and groups of people, but their massacre of the Yazidis is the only one officially classified as a genocide by the U.N.). A minority group is being systematically killed for no other reason besides their religion. After the Holocaust, the world said, “NEVER AGAIN.” Fifty years later, the genocide at Srebrenica happened, and much of the world didn’t even know, let alone bat an eye. Twenty-two years later, in a world abundant with media outlets and 24-hour news cycles, much of the world doesn’t know about a genocide happening right in front of them. If we don’t know enough about our history to learn from it, how can we prevent it from happening again?