This documentary was incredibly eye-opening on many fronts, most of them heartbreaking, with one fact in particular sticking in my mind: that the mass incarceration of the Uyghur ethnic group currently taking place in China is on a scale unprecedented since the incarceration of Jewish people during the Holocaust. While such a comparison may not be perfect for several reasons, it made me deeply upset to realize that hundreds of thousands of Uyghur people (some say the estimate is as high as 1.5 million) are being held in concentration camps, which I’m sure violate many human rights standards, and that there is very little anyone can do about it beyond getting the word out, given China’s status as the emerging world superpower. Even America has had its brush with concentration camps (perhaps the surprise isn’t warranted), during World War II when Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor, and were not released until after the war, to say nothing of much-needed reparations. Taken together, it is a sick reminder of the evil things powerful countries/people have always done and will continue to do and get away with, regardless of the values they pretend to espouse.
Returning to the documentary, however, it made me incredibly sad to watch those who had lost multiple family members to the concentration camps desperately search for traces of them. I can’t imagine the uncertainty and fear of not knowing where your loved ones are, or if they are even alive. It really breaks my heart to think of the pain these families are going through right now. One of the most shocking, and downright dystopian, features of Chinese society I learned from the documentary was the government’s use of a point-system in reference to a person’s level of “goodness” or “safety.” An individual starts off with 100 points – meaning they are “safe” – however ten points can be deducted per undesirable category the individual fits into. One of the categories which will get you deducted ten points is if you are a Uyghur, or a Muslim of any kind, and the more points which are deducted the closer you are to being taken to a concentration camp. Overall, I was outraged to learn about the obvious, state-mandated discrimination taking place within China, and it made me realize that there is a lot going on internationally that is not covered by the main news outlets in America. I couldn’t believe I had never truly heard about the Uyghur persecution before, and from now on I will try to pay closer attention to the major news in other countries.