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Ooohhh this tweet is SUPER interesting.
Here comes a very long thread about the nexus between Chinese govt disinformation, China's genocide against the Uighurs, the US war on terror & American Islamophobia, and the bad blood between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Gulf states:
Here comes a very long thread about the nexus between Chinese govt disinformation, China's genocide against the Uighurs, the US war on terror & American Islamophobia, and the bad blood between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Gulf states:
First things first: CAIR is not a terrorist organization (more on that later), and Shen Shiwei is an employee of CGTN, which is a Chinese government propaganda outlet.
Here's my original tweet, for context. https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1295419375663579136
Here's my original tweet, for context. https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1295419375663579136
The basics: The Chinese government is currently engaged in a genocide of Muslim ethnic minority groups in its northwestern region of Xinjiang. It calls this genocide "counterterrorism." (It's not; it's genocide, with concentration camps and forced sterilization and everything).
One of Beijing's priorities has been to prevent governments of Muslim-majority countries from criticizing its genocide of Muslims. Because many of these govts are economically dependent on China, China has been largely successful at this.
Further reading: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-persuaded-one-muslim-nation-to-keep-silent-on-xinjiang-camps-11576090976
Further reading: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-persuaded-one-muslim-nation-to-keep-silent-on-xinjiang-camps-11576090976
Beijing has thus been able to claim that its genocide in Xinjiang is not a genocide because the "Muslim world" (oh how I despise that phrase) supports its policies in Xinjiang.
For example, Saudi Arabia, America's favorite absolute monarchy: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-saudi/saudi-arabia-defends-letter-backing-chinas-xinjiang-policy-idUSKCN1UD36J
For example, Saudi Arabia, America's favorite absolute monarchy: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-saudi/saudi-arabia-defends-letter-backing-chinas-xinjiang-policy-idUSKCN1UD36J
Thus you can see the motivation for a Chinese government propaganda worker to maintain the fiction that the "Muslim world" (grimace) supports its policies in Xinjiang.
Hence Mr. Shen's tweet
Hence Mr. Shen's tweet
But when Muslim organizations like CAIR start condemning China's Muslim genocide, what to do?
The answer is the obvious choice in the post 9/11 world: Delegitimize the dissenting Muslims by labeling them terrorists, of course!
The answer is the obvious choice in the post 9/11 world: Delegitimize the dissenting Muslims by labeling them terrorists, of course!
Here's where things start to get really interesting & really complicated.
If CAIR isn't a terrorist organization, why did the UAE label them one?
Because, my friends, Islam is not a country & the Middle East, like literally every region in the world, has complex geopolitics.
If CAIR isn't a terrorist organization, why did the UAE label them one?
Because, my friends, Islam is not a country & the Middle East, like literally every region in the world, has complex geopolitics.
Here's the super-duper dumbed-down cliffs notes version: There's a thing called the Muslim Brotherhood.
Gulf States like the UAE hate the Muslim Brotherhood -->
CAIR has some nebulous links to the Muslim Brotherhood -->
UAE says CAIR is a terrorist org
Ta-da!
Gulf States like the UAE hate the Muslim Brotherhood -->
CAIR has some nebulous links to the Muslim Brotherhood -->
UAE says CAIR is a terrorist org
Ta-da!
(Yes, I have just horrified every Middle East expert on the planet with this abominable oversimplification. Please accept my apologies, I'm just trying not to lose my China-centric audience).
Is the Muslim Brotherhood itself a terrorist organization?
To quote Brookings:
"There is not a single American expert on the Muslim Brotherhood who supports designating them as a Foreign Terrorist Organization." https://www.brookings.edu/blog/unpacked/2017/04/11/is-the-muslim-brotherhood-a-terrorist-organization/
To quote Brookings:
"There is not a single American expert on the Muslim Brotherhood who supports designating them as a Foreign Terrorist Organization." https://www.brookings.edu/blog/unpacked/2017/04/11/is-the-muslim-brotherhood-a-terrorist-organization/
So, yes, CAIR is known to have links of some sort to the Muslim Brotherhood (which is itself decentralized and diverse across different countries and regions).
Does that make it a terrorist organization? Nope.
Does that make it a terrorist organization? Nope.
So...what is CAIR then anyway? It's the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to my knowledge the largest American Muslim advocacy group in the United States. They have branches in numerous cities across the country and advocate for Muslim civil rights here.
I promised you a nexus b/t Shen's tweet and the US war on terror, so here we go:
You may have forgotten amidst all the recent, ah, STUFF we have been going through as a country, but America has a pretty bad Islamophobia problem.
You may have forgotten amidst all the recent, ah, STUFF we have been going through as a country, but America has a pretty bad Islamophobia problem.
In fact, our current president ran on a platform of "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."
The election of Trump marked the triumph of an extreme right-wing brand of Islamophobia that had been gaining traction for years.
The election of Trump marked the triumph of an extreme right-wing brand of Islamophobia that had been gaining traction for years.
One obsession of this extreme Islamophobia, promoted by the likes of Frank Gaffney and Pamela Gellar, was the Muslim Brotherhood. People became totally obsessed with the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated everything -- mosques, schools, even the US govt.
Here's some further reading on that: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/how-a-series-of-fringe-anti-muslim-conspiracy-theories-went-mainstream--via-donald-trump/2016/11/05/7c366af6-8bf0-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html
Which is why, in its early days, the Trump administration explored the possibility of labeling the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization. They never did, though, for a variety of reasons. For further reading, same link from above: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/unpacked/2017/04/11/is-the-muslim-brotherhood-a-terrorist-organization/
Soooo, back to Mr. CGTN tweeting about how "shocking" it is for me to "advocate" for a "terrorist organization" — perhaps you're starting to see why this whole thing is so fascinating to me!
When I tweeted out a link from CAIR, I honestly DID expect to be criticized for doing so —but I was expecting that criticism to come from a member of America's homegrown Islamophia Inc. Because I've written about Islamophobic conspiracy theorists before: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/16/the-making-of-islamophobia-inc/
To my surprise, this line of attack came from a Chinese propaganda outlet instead.
WHICH IS SO INTERESTING!!
Among other reasons, because America's Islamophobes have all now jumped on the China Bad! train.
WHICH IS SO INTERESTING!!
Among other reasons, because America's Islamophobes have all now jumped on the China Bad! train.
Frank Gaffney, for example, is now a member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China. https://presentdangerchina.org/tag/frank-gaffney/
So, knowingly or unknowingly, my friend Mr. CGTN just dipped his toes into a whole line of conspiratorial Islamophobia first promulgated by the same people who now support the Trump administration's efforts to regulate/ban Chinese propaganda outlets like CGTN.
The irony would be delicious if everything weren't just total shit.
But I'm not done yet! I told you this would be a long thread.
Let me further explore the nexus between the US war on terror, and how that helped enable the Chinese government's genocidal repression of its own Muslims:
Let me further explore the nexus between the US war on terror, and how that helped enable the Chinese government's genocidal repression of its own Muslims:
In the early days after 9/11, the US was eager to develop international partners in its war on terror. Multiple authoritarian governments, including China's, saw this as a golden opportunity to get their own domestic pet peeves labeled as "terrorist organizations."
China told the US that something called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), run by Uighurs, was a Very Very Bad Terrorist Organization. The US, very busy bombing the Middle East, was like "never heard of 'em, but sure!"
ETIM was tiny, & maybe, once, did a terrorist thing
ETIM was tiny, & maybe, once, did a terrorist thing
Here's more info on ETIM being labeled a terrorist organization.
https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sanctions/1267/aq_sanctions_list/summaries/entity/eastern-turkistan-islamic-movement
https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sanctions/1267/aq_sanctions_list/summaries/entity/eastern-turkistan-islamic-movement
Oops, broke the thread. I continue here: https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1295831009959829505
