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Hey ML, justify this.
I'm not ML by any means, but I don't really see the problem here? Schools are for learning useful life skills, etc. Surely learning the official language of your nation is a very useful life skill to have? Mandating that kids be taught a language does not mean forcing them to unlearn their native language.
I’m not sure how the Uyghurs and Mongols came under Chinese power, but Tibetian people were captured by force. They have autonomous states each, where they could decide to just collectively learn Mandarin if they thought it was something they wanted.
If the autonomy of these states are being infringed by this law, then that is a problem. In that case, I think the reduction of autonomy is far more concerning than the particular curriculum change.
It’s not like they are separate problems, but both part of the same push where minority nations are being assimilated and stripped of indentity.
Do you condemn China’s treatment of the Uyghurs… or can you not even pronounce it?
Bold move, criticizing someone you never heard's pronunciation of a language whose people you've never met.
If you wanted to change that, anybody can go to xinjiang or kazakhstan and talk to the people. Its really easy unlike Tibet, you can just go there.
I’m suggesting they have never heard of them, being the reason they are so quick to side with the destroying a culture. I suppose you would have agreed with forcing the Native Americans to learn English and participate in the white society. I also suppose you agree with forcing The Australian aboriginal people to learn English.
You are making some wild jumps in logic.
Learning another language is not "destroying a culture", this is a dog whistle of hardcore conservatives who are afraid of diversity. What would be destroying a culture, would be forcefully restricting the use of the native languages, such as forbidding the use of the native languages in schools. But I am not aware of this happening, nor was I arguing in support of that in any way.
Also, justifying a curriculum choice in schools is a far leap from justification of colonialism. I am very much against the forced subjugation of native peoples, but that is not the topic.
overall good points, but I'd like to expand on the one about forbidding languages at educational institutions:
a ban isn't even necessary to expediate the decline of a language; it's often enough to simply defund it.
teachers need funding, and simply not giving any to other languages or other cultural curriculum is effectively the same as a ban.
few schools and administrations would shoulder the costs of "extra" curriculum, because few have the funds to do so, particularly when it comes to minorities...
source: am part of such a minority (in central europe though) and our state actually sponsors extra language classes, courses, and cultural clubs, activities, and events in order to preserve our unique identity and culture.
it's still trending towards extinction though, as such minorities tend to do...
tl;dr: no need for a ban, just withhold a bit of funding and it will die out within a few generations...
That's fair, but it assumes that mandating one language means that the other language will be defunded. Is that happening here? I think ideally both languages (national language, native language) would be funded and studied
You know nothing of what is going on, admittedly, and yet you somehow want to support it.
I suppose it was cool for the English to force the Aboriginal Australians to assimilate? Or, are you going to say that’s fake? Western Propaganda?
Did you read my messages at all? As stated, I very much oppose the colonisation and forced subjugation and assimilation of native peoples, including in Australia. But I do not think that English being a mandatory subject in Australia is a bad thing.
Is the idea of someone knowing more than one language, so foreign to you?
So at a certain point, after all the subjugation has eliminated most of the native people, the remaining natives should probably learn the language of their oppressors?
You’re amazing.
The actual struggles of the uhigurs is entirely alien to either what western media makes up or just imagining China is copying western imperialism despite having different material pressures.
Uhigurs? Yeah, you can’t even respect them enough to spell it right. I’m not taking your advice.
Here are the alternate spellings. Earn that fifty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs
Its not an english word lmao would you rather I spell it using the alphabet they use?
bold move for you to criticize me for assuming someone can’t pronounce it when you can’t even spell it.
You lost all credibility. Better luck next time.
The person who lived in Urumqi is more credible.
Cool story bro. 🐸🤡
I have pictures
I don’t click links to random photos that you can’t prove are real. Stop embarrassing yourself.
My god… you really like to embarrass yourself in public. Is this a kink?
Continue closing your eyes and covering your ears lmao
Like you? No thanks.
"No u" doesnt really make sense when you're talking to someone who saw with their own eyes
Your biased opinion means nothing when your criticism was my assumption they know very little, which they admitted to later. And then, you showed you knew even less because you cannot even spell it—and let’s be real, you don’t give a shit how it’s spelled.
Bye
In the US, all children are required to take English classes from kindergarten and up until the end of high school. There are no alternatives offered, if a student can't speak English, then they are at the very least offered ESL classes in addition to their regular English courses, but they still must take those courses and pass in order to get a diploma
While I don't actually think that mandating the official national language as a class in schools is at all a problem (or a new idea), your argument is blatant whataboutism. Something cannot be justified merely by comparing it to somewhere else (especially the US, I might add).
It’s not whataboutism when there’s a clear bias in terms of what country the BBC is criticizing. Having a national language and requiring it to be taught in schools is incredibly common for many states including the UK. Why is China singled out so often for things almost every state does?
So call out the journalistic bias, or hypocritical behaviour of the BBC. But if the topic in general is brought up in conversation, just pointing to the US as some kind of justification, is definitely whataboutism. It sidesteps actual critical thinking by playing to familiarity: "well if this country does it, then it must be fine!", which is clearly a logical fallacy.
All countries actions should be criticized equally. No countries actions should be justified by being the same as another country.
Bringing all your alts out eh?
That's your best comeback?
To this alt account? Yes.
Everyone being able to speak a common language is good actually.
Which is a false equivalency to a state forcing a minority group to learn the majority language.
all minority groups in the us have to speak english. most states have a variation of this for that matter?
Whatabout nope! Let's not race to the bottom, eh?
sure. do ethnical minorities born in, say, spain not have to learn spanish?
tell me of states where this isn't true.
I don't know where it isn't true. I know it isn't right - anywhere.
Forcing? Do you think parents should be allowed to remove the kid from those classes? Just send them out in the world unable to communicate with anyone outside their hometown?
Is that what yours did?
Ask the indigenous people how much they liked learning to speak the common tongue
Yes, teaching english is what's wrong with what was/is being done to indigenous communities. Absolutely nothing else.
Yeah ....notice I said "learning", not "being taught". Maybe the rest of it that I left implied is what happens when you force people to learn your language? Didn't think I'd have to spell out what the schools did to those poor children to make them learn English for you to understand an implied point, but here we are.
How do you think they're going to make these people learn Mandarin? Do you think they're going to ask nicely? Or are they going to do the same thing every dominant colonial culture tries to do to its minorites?
That is precisely why I referred to it that way, so you'd have to spell it out the dumb implication you're making.
Same way they teach math and science lmao.
It would be nice if we could speak a common language, yes. Then you'd be able to use it to read the article that was linked instead of a single paragraph excerpt and realize the new law is not just about the language.
It would be nice if you could read Mandarin. Then you’d be able to realize that the BBC is deliberately mistranslating whats in the law. How arrogant do you have to be to criticize someone for not reading an article when you can’t even read the document the article claims to describe?