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China has renamed hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns, say human rights groups
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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You know what the biggest cities in Xinjiang are? Urumqi, Korla, Aksu, Karamay. Those are some Chinese sounding names /s
Note that some towns have been switched to a Mandarin standard. This is especially true when Han populations dominate a particular city (e.g., Shihezi, set up by a Chinese general in 1951), or when a city relies on tourism from other provinces (e.g., Beitun, a ski towm). But... That's not what the article is discussing, really. The article is much more interested in Romanization of these names.
Officially, the Uyghur name shares equal right as the Chinese one, however, sometimes the Uyghur Romanization is a pain in the ass to pronounce while the Chinese one is far easier (Ürümqi vs. Wulumuqi). This is as true in Xizang as it is in Xinjiang (the name བོད་ is still used to refer to Xizang by official Chinese standards, but that doesn't phonetically map to Tibet). Of course, people are forgetting that English is neither the first nor second most common language in Xinjiang... In fact, given the number of ethnic minorities I doubt it's even on the list. The English name is selected for convenience rather than anything else because nobody except Western tourists will ever use it.
There's an interesting debate happening today in Canada as to whether this Romanization makes sense: while First Nations names like Squamish and Tsawwassen have been Romanized and are used colloquially, First Nations groups oppose Romanization because of its association with colonialism and instead would prefer names like "šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl'e7énḵ". The question is, which do you keep as the English public-facing name?
Of course, this is coming from the same The Guardian that reported that "the last major mosque in China lost its domes and minarets" when the Afaq Khoja and Id Kah exist and are widely known as holy sites in Uyghur Islam. The Guardian's reporting on China has consistently been sloppy because they don't have a correspondent in Xinjiang and their editorial teams don't speak Chinese or Uyghur.
Curious to see a deep and detailed explanation of current events get a moderate mix of love and hate, but a generic "lemmy.ml is pro-genocide" post get universal love.
Almost like folks are more interested in Lemmy internal politics than world events.
Nobody commenting on this has ever visited Xinjiang. Nobody writing these articles has ever visited Xinjiang. Can you blame people for listening to the media they have access to?
There's a funny thing about the notion of media literacy in China vs. the US: in China, media literacy is mostly "what is the media not telling me?" while in the US, media literacy is mostly "which media source is telling me the right thing?"
It's funny, because you absolutely can get first-person accounts of journalists visiting Xinjiang. And you can get information directly out of social media published in and around Xinjiang, particularly if you're fluent in their native languages. But sending journalists to China is expensive and travel logs from these regions don't make for explosive click-bait articles.
The privatization of US media means you can pay someone to tell you whatever you like. So you can get your own heavily polarized view of world events to reinforce your biases and cement your neuroses. But if we're talking reliability? Idk, man. Is CNN really more reliable than FOX or MSNBC because its "centrist" or does it just have a different set of sponsors?
The Chinese state media gives you the party line, which is fixated on whatever the Chinese state government considers the highest priority. Chinese social media is still rife with rumor and innuendo and agitprop. Its just not as slickly delivered or authoritatively presented as American corporate sponsored infotainment. Harder to sell people on Migrant Fentayl Caravan Killed 50 Israeli Babies when its just some Fwds From Grandma email, rather than a baby-faced news anchor delivering it on a professional set.
These institutions have two very different goals. Chinese media exists to sooth, while American media exists to agitate. But the theory that one of them tells only truths and the other tells only lies hinges on the theory that any of them have a vested interest in doing real journalism.