To this I say, no. As a community, we do not deny proven genocides, like the holocaust, or the genocide against indigenous Americans by various European colonizers, or the genocide against the Congolese by Belgium, or the Bengal famine that was carried out by the British empire. In fact, denying those genocides will get you banned, here. However: we are also aware of a tendency of nations to project their crimes onto others, and to manufacture atrocity propaganda to justify overthrowing or destroying rival governments... like Libya in 2011:
From Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad (a great book I highly recommend)
A post from Michael Parenti regarding the destruction of Libya by NATO-backed reactionaries
A headline shortly after Libya's destruction by NATO-backed reactionaries
The US government has been reenacting the fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, and has been cynically leveraging the very serious accusation of genocide against its geopolitical enemies. This is the source of skepticism on Xinjiang. And this is not a new strategy, yes, the Holodomor, which everyone in the US has been taught to take seriously lately, is a nazi fabrication first spread to the United States in the works of Robert Conquest. Why would the USSR deliberately starve a fellow socialist Republic? Why would Stalin, a Georgian, have some kind of Russian chauvinist grudge against Ukrainians? Why would Lenin (Donbass), Stalin (Lviv), and Khruschev (Crimea) all expand the territory of the Ukrainian SSR while also trying to kill off the people inside of it? Why would the USSR ethnically cleanse Ukrainains while simultaneously sending food aid to the starving British colony in Bengal? Natural famines and crop failures were spun by the nazis into atrocity propaganda. Also, a state does not have to be perfect to be defended against false accuations. I think China is far from perfect, but the burden of proof is on the United States to prove its accusations (which have changed in scope several times) regarding Xinjiang. Delegations from Muslim majority nations visiting Xinjiang do not agree with the United States that there is a genocide of the Uyghur people. There is however an attempt to reeducate extremist groups like ETIM. Reeducating extremists might seem a harsh government policy, but I assure you it is a better way of dealing with religious fundamentalism than drone striking weddings or air striking hospitals like the USA did in Afghanistan.
No one is denying those things, but hexbear IS denying communist genocides. That's the difference. On sh.itjust.works you can say - 'White colonizers can suck my dick' but saying that for stalin,pol pot etc. who are obviously the murders of millions of innocents here will get you people who have a confirmation bias. White colonizers committing atrocities doesn't mean they can't call out your bullshit.
edit : Life's too short to argue with genocide deniers on lemmy
i explained very carefully in my post how capitalist and imperialist nations leverage false accustions of genocide against socialists in order to manufacture consent for military action and justify destroying rival economic systems. but if you have already internalized those lies as the truth, then we will remain "genocide deniers."
If I say "spez@sh.itjust.works did a genocide yesterday," and you say "no I didn't" does that make you a genocide denier?
Regarding Xinjiang, which is a major contemporary accusation, the burden of proof is on those leveraging this accusation (NATO countries) to prove that accusation, which they have consistently failed to
I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti, Killing Hope by William Blum, and Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad
Well yes, of course I deny communist genocides. You don't? What about the claim made by Nazi conspiracy theorists that communism is a Jewish plot to genocide the white race? Are you a genocide denying tankie like us who believe that's bullshit, or do you accept the Nazi claims about white genocide?
Maybe some allegations of genocide are actually just made up bullshit to serve a political agenda and maybe we should reserve labeling people as "genocide deniers" to cases with clear, well documented evidence.
READ THE REPORT. READ THE REPORT. READ THE FUCKING REPORT. READ THE REPORT OF THE UN INVESTIGATORS SENT TO XINJIANG. FUCKING READ IT. IT'S RIGHT THERE. IT'S PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. IT'S NOT VERY LONG. IT'S WRITTEN IN PLAIN LANGUAGE. READ THE REPORT. READ THE FUCKING REPORT. READ THE FUCKING REPORT. READ THE FUCKING REPORT. READ THE FUCKING REPORT. READ THE FUCKING REPORT!
Serious human rights violations have been committed in XUAR in the context of the Government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-“extremism” strategies. The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights
Page 48. Section VIII, Point 143
These patterns of intimidations, threats and reprisals are generally credible and are likely to have caused, and continue to cause, a serious chilling effect on these communities’ rights to freedom of expression, privacy, physical integrity and family life, and in consequence inhibit the flow of information on the situation inside XUAR
Page 44, Point 141.
Intimidations and threats were also reported by former detainees, some of whom were forced to sign a document ahead of their release, pledging not to speak about their experience in the VETCs.303 In the words of one interviewee: “We had to sign a document to remain silent about the camp. Otherwise, we would be kept for longer and there would be punishment for the whole family
A lot of these people sound like they were just picked up at random. The program was certainly more humane that just dropping hellfire missiles on random civilians, and the program as a whole does seem to have worked, but I imagine the working parts were probably more the cultural education and building mosques for mainline Sunni's, not the kidnapping people without clear reason and making them sing patriotic songs. Given the way western counter-insurgency "works", ie building up networks of contacts and then just randomly murdering people who are flagged as connected to a lot of people of interest, I doubt China's method of identifying potential insurgents or people vulnerable to Wahhabism is any less prone to false positives. It's just that there false positives live because they didn't default to murdering weddings.
Like, it seems to have worked, and as far as anyone knows it seems like they didn't focus on killing people, but it still has problems, or at least is negatively effected people caught up in the dragnet. Balanced views and nuance
"Well if you read this bit it says they were kinda actually assholes"
They will walk back whatever they say until they are saying nothing at all. You'd think through this process they'd come to realize how little evidence they have and self-evaluate, but...
Those conditions are better than the average us prison, so if that's your bar then there's a much bigger enemy to focus on first. Go kill a corrections officer if you think that is so horrible.
What supposed communist genocides are we denying? Give me sources showing credible evidence that these genocides happened, and links to a Hexbear users denying them, please. Back up your wild fucking claims.
You know damn well that making up genocides and then accusing anyone who doesn't unquestioningly believe you of being a genocide denier is a cynical act of bad faith rhetoric. I and I know you know that, because I'll bet my left kidney that you don't lend it credence when neo-nazis try to do it with their "white genocide", so why in the world would you expect us to lend it credence when you do it?
Do you deny the white genocide? (Which, BTW, I also don't believe in. If you don't deny it, conversation over. If you do, then you'd have to come to terms with the sources, nature of genocide, scale, and whether a genocide is actually happening or is being created to serve some powerful interest.)