China has approved a sweeping new law which claims to help promote “ethnic unity” - but critics say it will further erode the rights of minority groups.

On paper, it aims to promote integration among the 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, dominated by the Han Chinese, through education and housing. But critics say it cuts people off from their language and culture.

It mandates that all children should be taught Mandarin before kindergarten and up until the end of high school. Previously students could study most of the curriculum in their native language such as Tibetan, Uyghur or Mongolian.

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    2 hours ago

    Yeah, I have huge doubt that this law won’t be used to crush any cultural diversity to make a mono culture.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system

    Despite current views that might define the system of residential schools as racist or genocidal, many scholars contend that they were seen as progressive at the time, a form of state intervention.

    The school system was created as a civilizing mission to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Euro-Canadian culture.

    During their stay many students were forced to assimilate to Euro-Canadian culture, losing their Indigenous identities and struggling to fit into both their own communities as well as Canadian society.

    These acts assumed the inherent superiority of French and British ways, and the need for Indigenous peoples to become French or English speakers, Christians, and farmers.

    In 1894, amendments to the Indian Act made attendance at a day school, if there was a day school on the reserve on which the child resided, compulsory for status Indian children between 7 and 16 years of age. The changes included a series of exemptions regarding school location, the health of the children and their prior completion of school examinations.[

    The introduction of the Family Allowance Act in 1945 stipulated that school-aged children had to be enrolled in school for families to qualify for the “baby bonus”, further coercing Indigenous parents into having their children attend.

    The Truth and Reconciliation Commission list three reasons behind the federal government’s decision to establish residential schools.

    • Provide Aboriginal people with skills to participate in a market-based economy.
    • Further political assimilation, in hope that educated students would give up their status and not return to their reserves or families.
    • Schools were “engines of cultural and spiritual change” where “‘savages’ were to emerge as Christian ‘white men’”.
    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 hour ago

      It’s China. The ethnostate. The country known for acting solely in the interest of the ethnostate.

      You should just assume it will be used to crush cultural diversity.