this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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Lefty Memes
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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
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Maybe, I think it's an older carry-over from days when people would say the admittedly yikes sounding "German race" or "Anglo-Saxon race" or "Gaelic race". ("Hhmong race", "Han race", "Amazigh race", "Mexica race" all sound less yikes.) I think that makes it clear enough to understand, and according to the OED it can mean a whole raft of genetically linked people, from the clear genetics and culture of direct family upto fictional and orientalistly imposed ideas of unity of people who live in other parts of the world.
Possibly it comes from translating, especially East Asian languages, into English. Maybe just from being less immersed in precise Anglophone Leftist thought? I'm figuring you're university educated European.
May I circle back to asking you (this and) the reworded question? Do you accept/believe that ethnic cleansing of the Uyghur ethnicity is taking place in Xinjiang?
Yes, I'm perfectly aware of how Anglophones have used the term "race" in the past - the concept of "race" just had to be conflated with nearly everything, including, but not limited to, nationality, ethnicity, religion and even geography. It is quite strange to see people still using it in that way, though - even from Anglophones.
Lol! Nope.
No, I don't. There does seem to be a lot of forced cultural assimilation going on, which is not the same thing as ethnic cleansing. According to the original meaning of the term "genocide," enforced cultural assimilation most definitely does count as genocidal, though. What the scale of China's actions against the Uygher people are, though, I can't say. Right-wingers don't do themselves any favour by calling this or that a genocide - just look at the (supposed) "genocide" they invented out of whole cloth (supposedly) occuring in South Africa.
You're right, I should've gone with genocide here, I've been to used to swapping it for ethnic cleansing when talking about Israel and wasn't switched on enough to properly look at the differences.
Fully agree. White farmers having to finally pay recompense for decades of oppression and undo the dark deal where the ANC gave up it's economic policies in return for a peaceful handover of power is not a genocide, ethnic cleansing, or even cultural oppression.
Scientific racism has a lot to answer for. I get that the word "race" has a lot of baggage these days, and do try not to use it myself, but I also recognise that there are plenty of not necessarily problematic uses of it, especially amongst the wide range of dialects and variants English comes in. So if it's clear it's just being used as it often has been and still is as a synonym for ethnicity, I don't think it's a huge problem. On the other hand, if someone brings up race as linked to skin tone or some other racist rubbish, I'm very quick to point out the lack of science and falsitity of it.
What is your mother tongue, if I may ask? I'm intrigued to how it differs across the words used for the topic.
Lol! Nope. They're not paying squat - except for the poverty wages they've always paid their workers (if even that). And there's very little chance of that changing any time soon.
People have some weird ideas how things really work here in ole' South Africa - and that includes most South Africans, I'm afraid.
My mother tongue is Afrikaans - I'm one of those people Trump says is being "genocided" here in South Africa.
Not even finally having to maybe give something back? Wow... Even more of a nothingburger than I'd thought. I am quite ignorant of the reality of South Africa, and the whole southern hemisphere I think. (I can however imagine Trump claiming, if it had passed, that the Australian Aboriginal Rights law was an act of genocide on European Australians.)
Did hear that the ANC is continuing to have a lot of internal strife with Rhamposa and the previous leader who was removed for corruption. Is Rhamposa any better? And does the nation as a whole feel like it's able to try to move to better things? (Can't imagine it does from you saying it doesn't look like white land owners will have to pay out any more than poverty wages on the near future.)
No, they didn't remove Zuma because of corruption - our entire political establishment is about as rancid as a defunded sewer system. He was removed because his faction lost the internecine infighting endemic to the ANC.
Ramaphosa is an interesting case. My dad actually knew him when he was just a junior union guy in the mines - that was, of course, before he became a mining boss (a very politically charged term here in South Africa) himself and betrayed the mineworkers and (literally) sicced murder-pig on them back in 2012 in front of the world's cameras.
Sooo...
...no. We're just headed deeper into crushing neoliberal dystopia - and our entire political establishment (which includes the ANC and all the so-called "opposition") thinks that's just fine and dandy. Even our (supposed) public infrastructure is now "run like a business" - and I mean that literally. South Africa is a reactionary time-bomb - and throwing poor immigrants under the bus (like they've been doing since 2008) will only work to keep "business as usual" going for so long.
Oh, that's rubbish (to put it mildly).
I had assumed Ramaphosa (thanks for correct spelling) was akin to Starmer or Nick Clegg in British terms - didn't realise he was such a traitor and as well as scab. Thanks for the insights in to the South African situation.
Sure thing.