The Uyghurs: time to take matters into our own hands - The Jewish Chronicle

It was the clarion call of the 1970s and 80s. We lobbied with fervour on behalf of Soviet Jewry. We demonstrated outside the Russian Embassy, along with those glorious women dressed in black, the 35’s. The demonstrations’ impact, attested to by Natan Sharansky’s account of how Russian authorities would complain to him of ‘those irritating women’, was not only on the Refusniks but was also a powerful show of Jewish communal unity. Now again, we have an unequivocal moral duty to coalesce and make our voices and our organising capacity heard.

When we turn our ears to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, we hear loud echoes of our painful past. When we hear about destroyed mosques and forced pork-eating of the Muslim population, we remember the Greeks placing a pig in the sacred ruins of our Temple. When we hear about the forced sterilisation of the fertile and the organ-harvesting of the healthy, we think of the bodily mutilation which our oppressors subjected us to. When we hear about the rape, torture, concentration camps and forced labour at the hands of the Chinese government, we have far too raw a living memory of the absolute worst of humanity.

Sometimes, when faced with this painful list of transgressions, we feel powerless to act. It feels like we are so removed, and up against a power so great, that our agency as individuals is miniscule. This has to be put in context. One Uyghur woman living in London we spoke to this week described the intolerable dilemma of activism within the Uyghur community. Even those outside of China know that if they speak out, their relatives in China will face the consequences as retribution. We as British Jews have the ability to speak truth to power without these kinds of repercussions.

And we have stepped up. That same Uyghur woman described the UK Uyghur community’s “amazement and surprise” at our Jewish community activism against genocide of the Uyghurs. The awareness raised in, and by, Jewish communities is owed in part to Jewish human rights organisations like Rene Cassin and coalitions built across communities. But now is the time for further steps.

Next week, in close proximity to Holocaust Memorial Day, a transformational trade amendment will be tabled in the House of Commons. Passed by a thumping majority in the Lords, the amendment proposes two things. First, it will allow the UK High Court to rule whether a country has committed genocide, a privilege currently exclusively held by international courts. A combination of quirks about the international legal system means that, unless turkeys vote for Christmas, China’s status as a veto-holding member of the UN Security Council will ensure that a ruling of genocide will never be upheld against them. Since the Genocide Convention of 1948, the UK has never recognised an ongoing genocide, making us unable to fulfil our obligation to ‘prevent and punish’ genocide that we signed at that same convention. We need to take matters into our own hands.

Second, the amendment will give the High Court the power to revoke a trade deal with a state designated as genocidal, aligning our walk with our ‘human rights over trade’ talk. The parliamentary arithmetic means that it is absolutely crucial that we lobby our MP’s to vote for it. We must all take 30 seconds (no, it doesn’t take any longer) to email our MPs asking them to do so*.

In light of the unveiling that the Xinjiang region’s 20% share of global cotton produce is tainted by forced Uyghur labour, communities are organising to hold fashion and industry accountable. The global Call to Action has called on massive brands to cut ties with Xinjiang suppliers implicated in forced labour. It's campaigns such as the regular ‘Jews for Uyghurs’ demonstrations outside Volkswagen London showrooms which raise the awareness of tens of thousands of passers-by, even when Covid-19 dictates strict social distancing rules. What started as a one-man show has resulted in a committed and organised protest against a company with a history already rooted in genocide. Volkswagen denies its plant in Xinjiang uses forced labour.

It’s the noise these campaigns make which causes public shame, and leads to firms like Adidas, M&S and H&M promising to pull their supply chains from Xinjiang. These campaigns are the kind which lead to the Government’s (just announced at the time of writing) proposed pressure on firms complicit in Uyghur forced labour, including refusal of public sector contracts. These government actions, however, while being progress in themselves, are fundamentally muted concessions which do not address genocide, and do not go far enough to root out forced labour from UK supply chains. We must campaign, and demand, more.

Raphael Lemkin, the pioneering Jew who coined the term ‘genocide’, stressed genocide as being not only a physical, but also cultural, destruction of a people. We know what it is to have our language, our religion and our traditions banned. We know what it is to have our peoplehood repressed and our number scattered among other nations. To fight against a genocide of the Uyghur people means appreciating their 4,000 year history and their distinctive heritage. Supporting Uyghur cultural institutions (such as restaurants and musicians) should not be shirked.

This is the new moral imperative, we have no choice but to act.

*Pre-formatted letters are available at websites such as genocideresponse.org.