Jade Podrasky 1

Race: A Global History

D Format

The Common Enemy: Race and

Authoritarianism
Authority and power are major players in our current world of politics. Those

with power and authority are allowed to do what they wish— and this comes with

responsibilities that, regrettably, many shrug off. In the conquest for the ultimate power,

some people demonize and target others to gain more votes: after all, it’s easier to blame

mistakes on a scapegoat than on uncontrollable forces. This tendency has led to many

marginalized groups being discriminated against, and even killed en masse; The

Rohingya, the Kurds, and the Bosniaks are only a few of these. To the general public, it

seems almost unimaginable as to how our societies could dwindle into genocide, and yet

we still see it on the rise, especially when it comes to race. This begs the question: how is

a common enemy constructed via these boundaries? And how is this racial distinction

used as a tool in authoritarian governments to criminalize those that go against them? To

understand this, it would be best to look at a modern-day example of such an act— the

one against the Uyghurs and other Kazakhs in China.

To start, it would be best to set up a working definition of genocide itself.

According to the United Nation’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the

Crime of Genocide (or CPPCG), Genocide is “any … acts committed with intent to

destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”1 This includes

1
UN General Assembly, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, 9 December 1948, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 78, pp. 277-278, available at:
https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3ac0.html [accessed 21 February 2022]
Jade Podrasky 2
Race: A Global History
D Format

5 ways that it is carried out— via mass killings, torture, relocation to uninhabitable areas,

forced sterilization, and the separation of families. However, no genocide starts off with

all of these at once; they layer on top of each other, one by one, until the result is

apparent. Oftentimes, this type of action starts as a series of smaller things meant to

convince the general public. These tools of discrimination, ultimately, are what cause

authoritarians to rise to overwhelming power.

The first tool of discrimination is propaganda. With indoctrination, the governing

party teaches its constituents, usually via mandatory schooling systems, posters, ads, and

other campaigns, that a certain group of people is lesser. Oftentimes, this propaganda

portrays a group of people as less than human or as dangers to society, as seen with anti-

terrorism claims in China as the reason behind the mass detainment of Uyghur and

Kazakh people. In classifying the Uyghurs as inhuman and dangerous, they provide a

scapegoat and common enemy for the public to think of. The next tool, hand in hand with

propaganda, is dehumanization.

With dehumanization, the most common route is teaching others via propaganda

that a group is less than human. This is also reinforced with the way that they are being

treated, from being denied service to being rejected in social spaces, usually violently.

Since these people have been defined as less than human and inherently evil, they are

discriminated against on a wide basis. Then these people are stripped of their rights and

forced into inhumane conditions. It is common for these people to be relocated and

categorized due to their “unfavorable” traits. Categorization usually occurs early on in

Jade Podrasky 3
Race: A Global History
D Format

defining who the enemy is, and it is exemplified in Nazi Germany, where Jews were

forced to wear the Star of David on their clothes at all times. In some cases, the

identification is actually via cultural symbols, like hijabs in China amongst the Uyghur

Muslim minority. This signals to the government and people that these are outsiders. It

also occurs via mandatory relocation of others, specifically into poorer, more desolate

areas (as seen via internment camps in the US). These places they are relocated to places

the atrocities committed later out of sight, effectively maintaining the status quo.

One example of the use of these tools is in China’s “re-education camps” in

Xinjiang. The camps are listed as an effort to counter Islamic extremism and to prevent

terrorist attacks: However, the truth is a much different story. The Uyghur and Kazakhs

that live in the outskirts of China, particularly in rural areas, are being arrested,

kidnapped, and relocated into facilities of torture. When some were trying to gain

citizenship to different countries, they were coerced into returning, due to threats on

family members and honeyed words, promising quick release.2 There are many counts of

systematic rape and electroshock torture against these people, and they are held for

interrogations that employ methods such as waterboarding and physical violence. These

people are then placed in unsuitable living conditions with very little food.

Since these people are moved out of the public eye, their suffering isn’t seen—

and security around reporters is strict. On top of this, several counts of forced sterilization
2
“‘They Ordered Me to Get an Abortion’: A Chinese Woman’s Ordeal in Xinjiang,” n.d:
NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/23/669203831/they-ordered-me-to-get-an-abortion-a-
chinese-womans-ordeal-in-xinjiang
Jade Podrasky 4
Race: A Global History
D Format

have been made; women have had IUDs placed inside of them unwillingly, or have been

forced to take birth control medicines against their will. Some people say that they are

forced to give up their religion: several others have said that they’ve lost their family

members in the process. Due to China’s seat on the U.N. Security Council, the atrocities

committed in these camps have yet to be fought against; little action can be carried out

when one group in power is not held in check. However, several subcommittees of the

U.N. have listed what is happening as genocide, and cited gross human rights violations.

Little is currently confirmed about exactly what is happening, and the Chinese

government is anything but forthright with the information that they have given. This

serves as a reminder that genocide is not a thing of the past, and is still happening in the

world today: all that we can do is safeguard against the ways that these authoritarian

governments form.
Jade Podrasky 5
Race: A Global History
D Format

Bibliography
BBC. 2021. “Who Are the Uyghurs and Why Is China Being Accused of Genocide?”
BBC News, June 21, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037.

“China: ‘like We Were Enemies in a War’: China’s Mass Internment, Torture, and
Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang.” n.d. Amnesty International.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa17/4137/2021/en/ .

CNN, Rebecca Wright, Ivan Watson, Zahid Mahmood and Tom Booth. n.d. “Chinese
Detective in Exile Reveals Torture Inflicted on Uyghurs.” CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/04/china/xinjiang-detective-torture-intl-hnk-dst/
index.html.

Edel, Charles. 2018. “How Democracies Slide into Authoritarianism.” Washington Post.
The Washington Post. December 7, 2018.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/07/how-democracies-slide-into-
authoritarianism/.

Keen, Sam. 2004. Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination. San
Francisco: Harper & Row.

Michael George Hanchard. 2020. Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western
Democracy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Sharp, Gene. 2000. Power and Struggle. Boston: P. Sargent.

Staub, Ervin. 2009. The Roots of Evil: the Origins of Genocide and Other Group
Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

“‘They Ordered Me to Get an Abortion’: A Chinese Woman’s Ordeal in Xinjiang.” n.d.

NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/23/669203831/they-ordered-me-to-get-
an-abortion-a-chinese-womans-ordeal-in-xinjiang .

UN General Assembly. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of

Genocide. 9 December, 1948: United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 78. available at:
https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3ac0.html [accessed 21 February 2022].