The new scandal about concentration camps for Uyghurs in China did not come as a shock to those who have long known and written about what is happening there. But it vividly reminded us all of what is happening to hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters in that country.
This refers to the hacking of the databases of just two police stations in occupied Uyghuristan, through which at least 2884 people passed after being «filtered» and then sent to these camps, as their photos were in the public part of the database. The photos were given to the media, some of which published them. Some of them, which allow us to understand the conditions of our brothers and sisters there, can be seen at the link below. It also contains some information about the repressive policies of the PRC against the Uyghurs.
What can be said about this? In the Russian-language information space, our website was one of the first among Muslim websites to begin covering the issue of the Uyghur genocide in Communist China, and continues to do so regularly. Therefore, as already noted, we did not see anything new in it, but rather an illustration of what was already known.
However, we want to take this opportunity to talk about how it affects Muslims (and not only Muslims!) living in Russia. For the fact that Putin’s Russia is turning into a satellite of Communist China has also been known for a long time and has been written about, including by us.
However, it must be understood that with the start of the war against Ukraine and the unprecedented retaliatory sanctions against Putin’s Russia, this «chinalization» of Russia has accelerated many times over in all respects. And this does not only apply to Russia’s even greater economic dependence on China.
Yesterday it became known that Russia will withdraw from the Bologna education system and replace it with its own, based on the Soviet experience. The Bologna system is not ideal, of course, and the Soviet education system also had its strengths. However, little remains of these advantages, while participation in the Bologna system allowed Russians to have their education recognized abroad and to continue it there. Now these doors are closing, and it is clear that Putin’s Russia fears a growing brain drain.
From the same series, the revival in a new form of the pioneer organization and the mandatory daily assemblies of schoolchildren to sing the national anthem, which is planned to be introduced in the fall and has already been introduced in some places. All this indicates that the Russian ruling elites are turning Russia not only into a political and economic satellite of China, but also into its analog, technologically and economically backward, not to mention demographically.
At the same time, many Russian Muslims seriously talk about the fact that only China and Russia stand in the way of global tyranny, and therefore the war that the latter is waging in Ukraine is almost a war for freedom. Well, look at the faces in these photos to judge what kind of «freedom» it is. And these are just a small fraction of what has been made public.
And these are people who are being thrown into camps for the slightest manifestations of Islamism in order to break them completely. And finally, something to think about. These camps did not always exist in China, even under the Communists. This whole camp-repressive system has grown rapidly in just a few years, during the rule of Xi Jinping. Will the same thing happen in Russia in the foreseeable future?