- "Philippe Gomes, the former president of New Caledonia's government, told POLITICO the decision aimed to stop protesters from "organizing reunions and protests" through the app."
This is near-identical to the Arab Spring revolts and their leaders blocking Twitter, and with identical motives.
- "‘The people of Egypt have rights that are universal,’ Obama said. ‘That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights and the United States will stand up for them everywhere."
- "‘I also call upon the Egyptian government to reverse the actions that they’ve taken to interfere with access to the Internet, with cellphone service and to social networks that do so much to connect people in the 21st century.’"
(It's not as if "but violence" is some fundamental distinction here: Obama's same speech expressly addresses the problem of violence in the Egypt protests, and that article adds context that there were several deaths in the days preceding his remarks).
Comparing Twitter back when the "Arab Spring" occurred to TikTok feels somewhat unfair, in that the former was often a pathway for journalists and human rights activists, an the latter is a CCP propaganda outlet.
I'd also point out that the Arab Spring was a total failure, leading to nothing more or less than disruption, death, and either a return to the status quo ante, or something even worse.
I'm simply quoting the New Caledonian politician explaining his own motives in his own words, and he said it's "to stop protesters from "organizing reunions and protests"". So I think the parallel to 2011 is a solid one.
- "I'd also point out that the Arab Spring was a total failure"
I agree with Obama's well-chosen words: human rights are "universal", not consequentialist. "We should deny you freedom of political speech because your politics are a failure" is not a category of argumentation I can accept, if you see where I'm coming from here. That's a generic justification for any autocrat to silence their opponents—their politics are wrong (from my point of view), so, I shall crack down on them for the good of the public.
Seems like the US propaganda against TikTok successfully worked. What a sad day. We should never encourage censoring social media and free speech. If a self-proclaimed liberal democracy can only win by censoring it is neither liberal nor a democracy.
Pointing in the general direction of "communists" and shrieking like that guy at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers[0] has been an effective backdoor into the American zeitgeist for almost a century. It doesn't matter what rights need to be compromised, what morals undermined, what transgressions done, Americans will do anything, permit anything to quell the Red Menace, whatever form it takes. Only their collective fear of the Angry Black Man is more primal.
> Comparing Twitter back when the "Arab Spring" occurred to TikTok feels somewhat unfair, in that the former was often a pathway for journalists and human rights activists, an the latter is a CCP propaganda outlet.
Yeah, when social media helps the US regime change operations, it's 'free speech and democracy'. When it hurts them, it's 'CCP propaganda' - or whatever 'national enemy' that's being targeted at that point in time.
What's amazing is how there are still people who use the word 'CCP' as if it was a scare word that would have any effect on the people from the global south. And actually even Europe.
The Global South includes the entire ASEAN trading bloc and India. At least two of these countries have territorial disputes with China. The influence and actions of the Chinese government matter quite a lot.
I've found that "The Global South" is really just a phrase used by a certain kind of person, trying to legitimize the notion of solidarity where none exists. Poverty is not solidarity, it's just poverty.
> At least two of these countries have territorial disputes with China.
And the extent of those disputes is shooting water cannons at each other from ships. The worst thing that happens is the circus that India and China mount at the border by throwing stones to each other whenever Modi needs something to use for shoring up support in internal politics. At the exact same time they sign billions of dollars trade deals behind the doors...
The worst things that happened so far don't seem so bad because everyone involved is trying to avoid escalation. The worst thing that can happen is full-blown warfare involving China, Taiwan, the Phillippines, India, smaller countries in the region, and allied countries (along with all of the impacts to global trade).
> because everyone involved is trying to avoid escalation.
And that's why the worst case will never happen - behind all those circus, all of those countries (maybe except Taiwan) are doing immense amount of business with each other and increasing the amount of that business behind closed doors.
But its certain that circuses will continue whenever a local government needs to rile up domestic support for any reason.
No, this is China incited unrest. I wonder how long it takes to ban this crap in the EU after the US got its act together. EU officials are late to the party as usual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonia: “New Caledonia is one of the European Union's Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs), but is not part of the European Union.”
According to the article, it looks like the EU had no role in this ban, but the DSA could be used for app bans under extreme circumstances in EU jurisdictions (which New Caledonia is not under).
There have been several independence referendum and all ended with a "no", and you're probably not very aware of all the subtleties of the situation, you should read about it before jumping to "imperialism"
It reminds me of redditors criticising France for sending their army to Mali but if they researched for not even 5 second they wouldn't have discovered that Mali explicitly asked for France to send troops on their territory....
As a bit of background, this was because the Kanak were mourning the people the lost to Covid at the time of the referndum. The pro independance party asked for the vote to be postponed, which was rejected.
The referendum was boycotted.
As such the vote is not recognised by a big chunk of the population.
This referendum was the last of three that were agreed on following violent events occuring in the 1990s.
I think this was a really stupid move from the government, now there will be tensions until a new referendum about independance is organised or insependance is obtained by force.
I’m not extremely familiar with the issue but it seems the independentists are a de-facto minority, which may also be the actual reason for the boycott of the last referendum, which was already heavily biased in their factor by excluding 20% of the population
I'm not sure what the outcome would have been, but having such an important vote happening during an exceptional context like the first 2 years of covid really doesn't seem like a good idea.
What about the other two ? See that's exactly what I'm talking about, people with hard opinions and strong words but a very superficial knowledge of the situation
Subtlety, shcmutlety, its literally French and half-french colonizers repressing indigenous islanders. What the colonists vote for does not make democracy.
> It reminds me of redditors criticising France for sending their army to Mali but if they researched for not even 5 second they wouldn't have discovered that Mali explicitly asked for France to send troops on their territory....
Yeah, the former French-backed governments, 'asking' France to please send troops to Mali. If the enemies of 'the West' do it, its bad and its imperialism. But if 'the West' does it, its magically 'okay'.
Hell yeah it is. Its a French-backed organization.
> Is it ok to let countries fall to Islamists because helping them even if they explicitly ask is "imperialism"?
Funny how the people who criticize other countries for imperialism when they do it try, to use it for themselves when they need to justify something. Russia helped the UN-recognized government of Syria clean up the Islamists that - ironically - the US was funding and training. They were called imperialists.
> I doubt you even have surface level of the topic
Calling out doublespeak does not require much. Just like the one above.
> "west bad"?
Yeah. Precisely that. As of this very moment its still trying to cling on to a world order it set up for exploiting everyone on the planet - including its own people.
It murdered ~1 million Iraqis for their oil, it backed head-cutting Islamists for controlling the oil just recently. It even kills its own people when they cant pay for healthcare, and it exports that system to everywhere for profit.
But its still blabbering about 'democracy' and 'values'. Just like you.
The one that's happening in New Caledonia is not the kind of genocidal settler-colonialism that happened 100-200 years ago. It is happening here and now. There is no comparison.
"More democratic" so that the French colonists can vote. Yeah, that sounds good.
> The independentist never wanted democracy
It doesn't matter what the independists want. They are the original owners of the land. Colonialism is illegitimate even if the locals want to set up a fascist, Islamist, monarchical or feudal system after throwing the colonists out of their country.
There's people who lived there all their life and can't vote because a bunch of racists decided that their life is worth less than themselves. No thanks, this isn't how any of it works in a modern country.
The independentist aren't better than the apartheid and if there's anything colonial left in there, it's the backward ethnic laws set up by the independentists.
> There's no colony, NC is a full part of France with the same rights as everywhere else
Yeaaah. With the same level of wealth/income for the locals of New Caledonia as the average French has in France, right...
Of course not. The locals are much poorer, they can only move to France as low cost labour if they can afford it and find a job. Whereas the French can easily go there and establish themselves as the ruling elite like they are doing.
These are asymmetrical relationships that implement the colonial setup through economic means.
NC isn't that bad compared to its peers, the territory is highly subsidised by France and had lower taxes as well to help development. The locals are all French anyways, there's no citizenship.
But that's true that there's some asymmetrical setups, the nickel mines would have died 20 years ago if it wasn't financed to keep the independentist happy. Not sure how long the French state is going to keep pouring money into that hole though.
Can all countries do this, or is it only limited to Europeans? Ship enough people half-way across the world and hold referendums to assert your position.
Anyone who can do it, can do it. The strong do what they wish and the weak suffer what they must. This is the way the world really works.
Throughout history, countries around the world have taken other territories as their own. How many of them have ever been courteous enough to allow referendums to break off again? It is that courtesy that is remarkable, simply taking territory is normal.
> Throughout history, countries around the world have taken other territories as their own. How many of them have ever been courteous enough to allow referendums to break off again? It is that courtesy that is remarkable, simply taking territory is normal.
Usually neighboring states, which were peer competitors. And even then it's always been seen as an aberration and not the norm. Modern European imperialism was unique in it's global scope and barbarity. Offering a token referendum after you've wiped out the natives or destroyed a society's cultural, economic, religious nature is not the noble gesture you think it is.
The moral difference between conquering your neighbor's territory and going around the world to conquer territory is insignificant. In either case you are taking by force land which other people consider their own; how far your technology permitted you to travel doesn't make you any less or more of a scoundrel.
As an Assyrian[1] from Mesopotamia, Assyria has been colonized by Arab, Kurdish, and Turkish colonialists[2]. This colonialism has been going on for at least 400 years including but not limited to, taking all our lands, mass killing and raping, mass settling, forced homogenization (Kurdification[3], Turkification and Arabazation[4]).
Not many nations fought three colonialist - whos aim was and still is to exterminate us - survived to tell their tale.
Last time we fought Arabs and Kurdish Colonialists was in 1933, it ended up in massacre of 3,000+ dead, and tens of thousands forced out[5]
Just like many Assyrians, I was told at school that I was an Arab Christian and taught that "Muslims"(Arabs) from Arabian peninsula came to civilize our land. We(Modern Assyrians) are not even mentioned in school books. My community still cannot speak up, let alone call Kurdish and Arabs "colonialists". We have been slowly losing our language, because it was illegal to teach Assyrian in school.
We got recognized in 2004(before there was no such thing as Assyrians) and language was made legal to be taught in school. This so far(since 2004) has come at the cost of losing 80%+ of my nation, mostly forced out at the threat of getting killed, which many got killed. Kurdification, Arabization still continue though and ancient and religious sites are frequently desecrated.
I'm not even scratching the surface about what we go through. It's not just us, within the region there are Chaldean, Mandaeans, Yazidis, Jews (who spoke my mother tongue, have been completely exiled) and Aramaic whom we usually shared the same genocides committed by Kurdish, Arab and Turkish colonialists. Each of these have their own stories to tell.
My nation still demands independence[6] from our "progressive" Kurdish and Arab brutal regimes. These regimes are heavy western supported. We have no nation that support us, this is one of the reasons that you don't hear what we go through.
Have a read of the history of my Nation and the ones that I have mentioned, if you can't find maybe wait a few decades for researchers to siff through the documents.
I can relate to your questions because our Kurdish and Arab colonists also teach me that European colonist are very very evil, however our Kurdish and Arab colonists do not view themselves as one. This is the other reason why you do hear about colonialism in Western Asia.
You don't need to cross an ocean to be a bloody colonialist, and European colonialism isn't unique at all.
There are plenty of indigenous nations in Africa and Asia that have gone through the same and just like Assyria are still going through as I write this comment. I can name a several ones that still lives in the Arab colonized world.
This is near-identical to the Arab Spring revolts and their leaders blocking Twitter, and with identical motives.
- "‘The people of Egypt have rights that are universal,’ Obama said. ‘That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights and the United States will stand up for them everywhere."
- "‘I also call upon the Egyptian government to reverse the actions that they’ve taken to interfere with access to the Internet, with cellphone service and to social networks that do so much to connect people in the 21st century.’"
https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story... (2011)
(It's not as if "but violence" is some fundamental distinction here: Obama's same speech expressly addresses the problem of violence in the Egypt protests, and that article adds context that there were several deaths in the days preceding his remarks).