Day 1: Is COVID19 News Hiding More Crucial Topics?

Good afternoon to my Professor Andrew Mair, and Andrew Mair only.

When I first approached this project this morning, I thought "Lets try to do an interesting video-diary". Let's just say it was a bad idea, at least for me. I'm not really a person that the camera agrees with.

As you can see, after many takes I decided to stick with what I know and love, which is writing. Writing is my safe space where I can express exactly how I feel.

So, this is how I'm feeling today. I could go on and on all day long talking about COVID19 news, but today I just think the world deserves better. The fact is that for the past year our ears have been filled with whats going on during the pandemic. When more critical things that are happening around the world are being put on the back burner.

Today, I want to talk about the Uighur Muslims that are being brought into concentration camps in order to strip them of their religion and everything they know.

Since 2017, at least 1 million Uighur Muslims have been detained, taken to these camps. There are more than 85 camps in Xinjiang, China. The torture that goes on in these camps are extremely inhumane. The fact that this is something that isn't constantly spoken of in order to bring attention to the subject is extremely disheartening. What's more disheartening is the fact that these camps have been open for four years and nothing has been done to shut them down. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/uighurs/

The first time I heard about this was probably two years ago when my friends that are Muslim informed me about it. Before then, I had never known that this was something that could still happen in our world. I remember sitting with these women numerous times listening to them as they spoke about how scary it is to be a Muslim woman, even in Canada. My one friend went on to say that she is afraid for her three daughters to leave the house, to walk to school. That just the fact that they wear hijabs could make them a target alone.

I saw a post on Instagram today https://www.instagram.com/p/CL_3hyGMIQG/ which was what drove me to bring up this topic today. It is not something that just happened, but it is something that re-sparked that anger in me today. Mihrigul Tursun is a former detainee from an Uighur camp. This is her testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsd1NkCKaNg

The video highlights what she went though in the camp. At the end of the speech it says that she was brought to the camp because the crime she committed was that of her religion. Mihrigul was tortured so much within the three times she was brought to the camp, that she begged for them to kill her. Imagine being so fearful everyday, so fearful of living.

This is the kind of issue that we must never stop talking about, until complete justice is brought to this community. They are humans, they deserve to live their life within their own beliefs just like white Christians do. Everyone has differences. If we cannot shut down these camps, then maybe we can start with ourselves. As John F. Kennedy once said:

Enjoy your day, and try and think of ways you can better yourself, to better the world.

x

Kailee