But I am not sure if cultural erasure is called genocide by most people. I also do not think that complete cultural erasure is what China is doing. It erases only religious portion.
In USSR religion was forcefully removed. But nobody called that genocide.
I think religion is a package with multiple components. Core components are certainly contentious: belief you might not share, philosophy to which you might not adhere, myths and stories where you might value historical truth, rituals that might be harmful, and often the most problematic, power structures.
But there’s also aspects linked to religion that can be considered valuable (or at least harmless): clothing, names, architecture, various art forms, sometimes language, etc. So, even if only religion is targeted, there’s a lot of baggage linked to that. I don’t know enough about the situation to say how China is handling this intertwine between religion and culture.
But I am not sure if cultural erasure is called genocide by most people. I also do not think that complete cultural erasure is what China is doing. It erases only religious portion.
In USSR religion was forcefully removed. But nobody called that genocide.
I think religion is a package with multiple components. Core components are certainly contentious: belief you might not share, philosophy to which you might not adhere, myths and stories where you might value historical truth, rituals that might be harmful, and often the most problematic, power structures.
But there’s also aspects linked to religion that can be considered valuable (or at least harmless): clothing, names, architecture, various art forms, sometimes language, etc. So, even if only religion is targeted, there’s a lot of baggage linked to that. I don’t know enough about the situation to say how China is handling this intertwine between religion and culture.