Full disclosure, I live in Africa and don’t have a dog in this fight. I like proper discourse and it’s alright if I and another person disagree on something, what is important is that we communicate and understand where the other is coming from. The ultimate goal is the satiation of needless and avoidable suffering for all minds.
I’ve only been on Lemmy for a few days but across any sub I’ve noticed any criticism of China or the CCP is met with immediate downvotes and anything remotely positive of the US or really any western country whatsoever meets a similar fate.
Anything pro-African is mostly neutral but in essence ignored, no upvotes, no downvotes, no comments.
Has anyone else noticed this? Am I completely off base here? And is there anything else here that seemingly gets downvoted automatically. It would be sad to see the fediverse and Lemmy be nothing more than just another echo chamber on the web.
Finally, I am posting this assuming it will also be downvoted to hell based on the title alone and that itself will be some monochrome of truth of the situation here.
I love that you think Africa’s dog in the fight is because China is strategically investing in Africa and chasing mineral and strategic resources when nearly every single African country’s borders were defined by the West, when entire countries were created and colonized by the West, when the US is actively bombing multiple countries in Africa and has been for decades, when the West was literally torturing, raping, kidnapping, murdering, and mass murdering Africans all over the content for centuries, when many African countries are economically subjugated by Western countries to this day by control over currency, predatory loans and structural adjustment programs designed to create dependencies, etc.
Africa’s dog in the fight between the West and Asia comes primarily from the West’s total subjugation of the continent.
The west decimating Africa shouldn’t mean China gets to, too.
And there’s the tankie whataboutism I have been expecting. Everything you said is true, but my point is that China is strategically investing and they don’t care about Africa, only China. African countries very much need to be aware of that.
Yes, sure, it’s not altruistic. But there’s a huge difference between non-violent trade relationships which benefit one party more, and also benefit the other party, just less, and purposefully ensuring that an entire continent is in a constant state of civil war and desperate poverty so you can extract the maximum amount of resources through slavery. China’s foreign policy is absolutely for its own benefit but they’re taking a “rising tide lifts all boats” approach there and while there are some specific things which are fair to criticise it’s way better than what other major powers are doing.
As a westerner, is it really true that all Chinese investors in Africa really don’t care in the continent? It might be true but I have seen no stories showing positive relationships. That may be by design in western media?
Also, what the hell would it mean to you for one country to “care about” a continent? You’re basically doing the meme:
Holy shit? You think this history is whataboutism? The OP said “I don’t have a dog in this fight [because I am from Africa]” and you said “[you should have a dog in the fight because of China’s behavior]”
Hello? Reading comprehension? How does establishing that OP should have a dog in the fight because of Western history in Africa become “whataboutism”?
This is thought termination at its finest
We have a winner
Found the tankie!
See, this is the issue. Someone doesn’t absolutely obliterate China and the .world liberals all wake up and spout their state department talking points. “China BAD! Leftists tankies!”
What about any of that was untrue? Where’s the tankie part? Cite examples.
Who’s the tankie? The person saying that China hasn’t bombed anyone in over 35 years or the person saying “I don’t know why they hate the US so much” when the US attacked over 15 countries with tanks, bombs, drones, and missiles over the exact same time period. Might need to check yourself
Ok tankie.
This is irrelevant to OP’s point about Lemmy being pro-CCP.
Are you literally just going to ignore the entire other half of the post asking about why people are anti-western and saying they don’t have a dog in the fight because they are from Africa? Are you that committed to attacking your political opponents that you can’t even see the words that aren’t about your desired debate position?