Genreal post

[Amir Osterweil]

I find this graph problematic in that it lumps China in with Genocide. How do we explain this to our students.?

[Lynne Szczepanek]

Can you explain what is problematic? I am trying to understand this process too. Mao murdered those that did not support communism, the murdering of Muslims and Christians. I am confused my Mao's actions would be classified as genocide unless they are classifying the non-conformists as ethnic cleansing.

[Kevin Bailey]

I know we spent a lot of time monitoring the coronavirus and how the Chinese government dealt with the situation. Now that we have seen confirmed cases in 49 states, it has just been this past week that we have begun to see closures and cancellations. I am curious as to the opinions of those in the course on how the U.S. handled the outbreak. I know we often like to criticize China, but it seems as though they mobilized fairly quickly and if their numbers are to be believed, they have a good handle on the situation. Whereas the U.S. had time to prepare for this and yet it seems that we are playing from behind. Are the “draconian” measures taken by the Chinese governments justified if they are able to get the disease under control? I might note that Idaho is fairly behind on this situation and we are telling people to avoid large gathers and yet they refuse to cancel schools, which I believe is a large gather.

 

Anyways, I am interested in your thoughts.

 

[Kevin Bailey]

I think I understand where you are coming from, the term genocide isn't usually tied to Mao's rule. However, I think Lynne is right and that the deaths under Mao ought to be thought of as genocide. 

I saved the graph because I thought it was super helpful, thanks.

 

 

[Amir Osterweil]

Lynn my understanding of genocide means that it is deliberate and targeted against the specific group of people. as far as I know the deaths under Mao happened during the great leap forward which can be attributed to mismanagement. So I think that I might be problematic to lump it in with the term genocide. What do you think?

[Lynne Szczepanek]

See I think that it was targeted against those that did not support Mao or his policies. I am sure there was a lot of collatral damage with a multitude of deaths. Maybe that is a thing in history that needs to be re-visited. How do we classify genocide when totalitarian leaders have no regard to human life. Just my thoughts. Thanks for explaining what you meant.

~ Lynne

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