• redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    That’s not quite what orientalism means. It’s not just ‘concerning China/Chinese’, even negatively. Orientalism would be saying that this protestor had a right to play his music because Chinese people are naturally musical. Or something like that.

    The case itself raises some interesting issues, such as the internal contradictions within liberal rights and the contradiction of relying on those rights in a place that sits between liberalism and anti-liberalism. The problems arising from the latter might lead to orientalist statements as the result (whatever the result) may be confused for something arising from ethnicity rather than politics.

    • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      It should also raise the interesting issue of what it means for Hong Kong to have glory. Hong Kong’s long illustrious history is through its participation in China. This protest song is about Hong Kong separatism, which is based in the very short and terrible history of British domination and occupation which was predicated entirely on selling opium to China and then invading them when they outlawed the drug due to 40% of the population becoming addicted. These are far more interesting questions, in my opinion, than whether or not playing a song is a universal human right that cannot be truncated by a state in its attempts to manage the peaceful transition away from barbaric European domination.

    • astral_avocado@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Honestly I used it sarcastically, because IIRC one of the Lemmy devs/.ml admins used that as an excuse to censor news articles about the Uighur genocide

      • Blursty@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        I think we can all agree that absurd conspiracy theories for idiots should be removed.