So there is such a thing as Occidentalism but it's not the yin to the yang of Orientalism as some may think. Most often, it takes the form of irrational hostility towards the West. Things like rejecting well researched truths presented by Western academia solely on the basis that it's Western. I've been highly critical of this in my videos, as it obfuscates "anti-colonialism," with anti-Western bigotry in order to get away with it. Occidentalism as a stereotypical view of the West, however, doesn't really exist as a perfectly symettrical counterpart to Orientalism.
The reason why it's mostly a one way street, and non-Westerners are generally better at representing the West than the other way around is because the West is currently the hegemon of this planet, in terms of cultural soft power. Therefore everyone around the world is intimately familiar with the generalities of Western culture because everyone is exposed to it.
The average Iranian who lived in Tehran all their life can tell a British accent is distinct from Scottish, and we do associate Received Pronunciation British with "posh." They do know the organ is a church instrument. Typical Western associations are well known to the average Iranian in Tehran.
At the beginning of the video, my uncle and I mention Mozart and Ketèlbey, Western Classical composers, and the musical form of "alla turcas," and "Baroque music". That's because every musician in the world knows Western music and its genres, styles, composers, etc. But it may take you months to find a single Classical Western musician who knows the names of Sheydā, Dimitrie Cantemir, or who know what the terms "peşrev" or "kalofonía" mean, and what musical forms they refer to.
All musicians around the world can play Western music. We all do chords, harmony, play the piano and guitar; we all know and are familiar with Western music theory. Only a tiny fraction of Western musicians learn any music theory outside of their own. There's a reason why Western musicians are the only ones who call their form of ethnic music "Music Theory," whilst everywhere else, even between them, people preface their music theory with the cultural specifier like "Iranian music theory," "Japanese music theory," etc.
I'm aware that this presents a rather unflattering picture of the West, but please understand that this is not a consequence of us non-Westerners being oh so wiser. Not trying to portray Westerners as inherently bad or evil. If we were the current cultural hegemons of the planet, we'd be just like that. In 500 years, if China or Brazil become the next superpower, they'll be the ones generally ignorant about other cultures whilst everyone else knows about them. Average Westerners aren't ignorant by default, they simply naturally embody the traits of a region with hegemonic global cultural influence, and we non-Westerners are simply luckier than them because unlike them, we all grow up listening to both our music, and Western music.
TLDR: everyone in the world knows that Madonna exists. Most Westerners have no idea who Fairuz or Shajarian are. That's just how it is due to the current geopolitical context. But that's just this context. In 500 years, if Central Asia becomes the next cultural hegemon, they'll be the exact same.
Pretty normal (and necessary) to have a national language lol. 96% of Tibetans can speak their local language since it's part of the curriculum, and Tibetan, Uyghur and other local cultures are highly promoted in Chinese media as mandated by the CPC.
promote social harmony
True and good.
cultural erasure [...] homogeneity
Do you watch Chunwan? It's the most watched media in China and its national television, where every year there are displays of traditional Uyghur culture in Xinjiang — dresses, dances, music, etc. Dilraba Dilmurat, the most popular celebrity in China, is of Uyghur descent and performs in those traditional garbs.
Claiming China is "suppressing Uyghur/Tibet culture" or other bs like that is hilarious nonsense to anyone who knows even a little about the country lmfao. If you don't know about the country you're speaking about, you should ask questions and look into it instead of parroting imperial core narratives.
Didn’t think this would be a hot take
You're not on Reddit full of western liberals. Lemmy is a bit more lefty in comparison.
It's literally the most watched television program on the planet lmao.
What about the limits on children under 18 from participating in religious activities?
Preventing child abuse and indoctrination is very cool and good actually. Wish I wasn't exposed to it as a kid.
The demolition of religious sites?
What? Xinjiang has some of the largest mosques in the world lol. And a pretty high ratio of mosques to Muslims (about as high as my own Muslim country's actually).
The requirement for religious leaders to register with the state?
Good. If the capitalist Russian Federation also continued to suppress the church and its leaders like the USSR did and China does, so much of the population would not have become so religious and reactionary.
What's with this obsession with relating Uyghur culture to religion? Sure, so long as it's only adults exposed to religions and it's consensual, fine, but Xinjiang's culture is much more than that, as are those of any region where religions are unfortunately still prevalent.
Religions are generally in decline in every place that's progressing economically, and Xinjiang is no exception. That's a good thing.
Israel was founded with the Nakba, a series of atrocities that ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland. Today we are witnessing Israel engage in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza on an even larger, more violent scale....
The UN general assembly has voted overwhelmingly to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership, in a move that signalled Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage amid global alarm over the war in Gaza and the extent of the humanitarian crisis in the strip. The move drew an immediate rebuke from Israel. Its envoy to...
Liberals also don't seem to realize Hamas's strategies of taking hostages, using tunnels and guerilla warfare etc are identical to the Viet Cong's, and so are their goals of driving out the occupation to reunite their country.
Also, "israel" has had — and continues to have — thousands of Palestinians hostage in its prisons for the entire 75 years that this colony has existed.
The native people have every right to use whatever means necessary to resist an occupation. Decolonization is violent; if you don't like it, don't colonize in the first place.
With the USSR overthrown, virtually all mainstream media now is capitalist propaganda. And the capitalist class obviously would not want the working class to prefer a system where workers are in power.
I mean yeah, any successful socialist revolution will naturally seek good relations with the most powerful socialist state of all. Doesn't really answer their question though.
Vocal participation in a genocidal system is endorsement of it. You can't tell people to vote for one of the parties of Capital one year and then suddenly tell people that actually it needs to be overthrown and think that's going to happen 5 years later.
At some point you have to commit to it being "broken" (actually working as intended of course) and organize based entirely on the fact that it is and can not be supported in any way whatsoever. We're long past that point with the "lesser evil" party currently committing genocide.
Successful revolutions in the past have used elections primarily as a way to show the size of the movement, never by endorsing a party of Capital.
Organize. Endorsing a genocidal party won't stop them from committing genocide.
Hexbear is a leftist-unity instance of mostly socialists, communists, and anarchists.
Most people on Reddit are liberals (just look at how pro-israel Reddit is right now), so naturally alot of people migrating from Reddit didn't like it.
Conservatives are liberals too, i.e they support private property and capitalism, even if western conservatives like calling anyone not far-right liberals.
The liberals that don't support israel are left-leaning radlibs, and those are clearly not the majority of Reddit users as the last few months have made clear.
Someone who knows little about politics should probably be asking questions rather than saying shit like "vote blue no matter who" when they're committing a genocide
Hexbear is a strictly leftist instance; I think it's reasonable for them expect someone saying shit like that to at least think they're politically literate.
Conservatives are conservatives because they're completely politically illiterate lol; of course they won't use terms like "liberals" and "socialists" correctly.
It's why liberals always passively "tolerate" the decay of capitalism into fascism as is what happened in Germany and Italy, and seems to be happening in the US. They oppose socialist revolution against the capitalist state, because fascism does not harm Capital.
"...the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ ”
- MLK
USB tunneling ( lemmy.ml )
Orientalism: Desert Level Music vs Actual Middle-Eastern Music ( youtu.be )
Bo Burnham: How The World Works ( youtu.be )
We had an r/place at my engineering school ( jlai.lu )
Why You'll Never Achieve The American Dream ( youtu.be )
Biden's 5 year plan ( hexbear.net )
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2543543...
China is burning all its bridges with Israel ( asia.nikkei.com )
Putin and Xi pledge a new era and condemn the United States ( www.reuters.com )
Germany: Court says far-right AfD is suspected of extremism ( www.bbc.com )
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Never Ended ( jacobin.com )
Israel was founded with the Nakba, a series of atrocities that ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland. Today we are witnessing Israel engage in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza on an even larger, more violent scale....
Gladys orcas sink another sailboat in the Strait of Gibraltar: ‘They don’t go like a battering ram’ ( english.elpais.com )
Nearly 75% of Climate Experts Blame ‘Lack of Political Will’ for High Chance of Future Warming ( www.ecowatch.com )
UN votes to back Palestinian membership, prompting Israeli envoy to shred charter ( www.theguardian.com )
The UN general assembly has voted overwhelmingly to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership, in a move that signalled Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage amid global alarm over the war in Gaza and the extent of the humanitarian crisis in the strip. The move drew an immediate rebuke from Israel. Its envoy to...
Biden’s $7.5 billion investment in EV charging has only produced 7 stations in two years ( www.washingtonpost.com )
Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center | CNN ( edition.cnn.com )
The liberal international order is slowly coming apart. Its collapse could be sudden and irreversible. ( www.economist.com )
https://archive.ph/jWnLI
Why are socialist and communist countries usually considered more authoritarian than capitalist countries?
Chinese reunification with Taiwan to devastate US, Commerce Sec. says ( english.almayadeen.net )
MACKLEMORE - HIND'S HALL ( youtu.be )
Weapons manufacturers are terrorist organizations ( lemmy.ml )
Israel Accuses Al Jazeera Of Being Mouthpiece For Journalism ( www.theonion.com )
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Sony backs down regarding Helldivers PSN account linking on PC ( twitter.com )
China's representative points out at the ICJ that armed resistance against occupation is enshrined in international law and is not terrorism. ( media.mas.to )
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/112/386/280/617/135/463/original/1740b068eeaf7aff.mp4
Yemeni people are demanding that their government puts a formal proposal to host leaders of the Resistance Hamas in the country and their official headquarters to be in capital Sanaa ( hexbear.net )