丹尼尔·邓布里尔：我不相信西方版的新疆故事，但我也想说……

加拿大博主丹尼尔·邓布里尔  视频截图

【采访/观察者网 白紫文】

观察者网：你在那次网络视频会议上就新疆棉花事件对西方的反驳被大陆媒体广泛报道。能分享一下你对那次在线视频会议的看法么？

**邓布里尔：**我参加的那个小组为我们提供了一个很好的合作机会，讨论我们对所谓新疆“种族灭绝”事件的看法。我没想过它会被如此广泛地分享，很高兴有这么多人看到它。对于西方那种高度存疑的叙事目前缺乏足够的反驳，而这种叙事则由地缘政治驱动、其始作俑者也并非真正关心维吾尔人。在利用普通人的同情心作为武器方面，西方做得很出色，使很多普通人相信了西方叙事、并真的以为西方为此制造噪音是在做正确的事情。

观察者网：视频会议播出后你收到了什么反馈？自那以后又有什么新的发现和体悟么？

**邓布里尔：**那些只相信中国的负面故事和观点的评论家永远不会改变他们的想法。他们没有听我说什么，而是调查了我的背景，发现我拥有一家公司。然后他们利用这一点表示：“我为什么要听一个开酒吧的家伙的话呢？”

他们发现了什么并不重要，如果我做其他行业，他们只会简单地将“酒吧”替换成他们发现的其他事情，以一个表面的借口掩盖深层次的认知失调。讽刺地是，那些通过兜售中国威胁故事进而贩卖武器获利的军工集团所资助的智囊团的意见，他们倒是愿意听。这些因为一个人拥有一家企业就不愿意聆听其意见的人，却也不介意倾听那些与其在工作中存在直接利益冲突的人的意见，这是一个值得见证的非凡现象。

从其他持观望态度的人那里，我得到了一些反馈，他们说，我让他们对西方叙事更加谨慎了，现在他们至少会更仔细地审视那些说法，而非过早地得出结论，特别是考虑到支持这类日益加剧的敌对行为可能造成的全球后果。我在视频中概述过会有怎样的后果。

观察者网：我们彼此可能都遇到过身边一些人，他们会“直觉”地相信西方宣传，“直觉”地质疑中国政府。你认为原因是什么？

**邓布里尔：**这很大程度上取决于西方宣传的“质量”。他们完全可以重复使用其已用过、并反复曝光过的老宣传故事，反正似乎也没有多少人变得更聪明了。而这类协调一致的宣传工作是非常复杂的，需要落实的部署体量如此之大，普通人很难有足够的时间对其进行有意义的甄别。常言说：“只要你谎撒得够大，并不断重复，终归会有人相信。”我已经发现，很多人都在被西方版的新疆故事狂轰滥炸，以至于已达成一种“懒惰的妥协”：“好吧，即便只有10%是真的，也仍然是个大问题了。”

观察者网：我相信西方不会就此放弃新疆议题。你认为中国应该为此做好哪些准备？

**邓布里尔：**不管中国做什么，即使明天新疆的故事被完全揭穿，美国也能找到些别的东西。这里的关键在于，美国不能接受一个同侪的竞争对手。即使中国转向他们一直声称中国人需要的美式自由民主，只要中国不服从维持美国霸权的一系列规则，美国仍将贯彻自己的一贯做法，干扰中国的选举和/或推翻现有政府，就像在世界各地发生的那样，这才是美国希望中国开放的真正原因。

**中国需要保持高度警惕，但也需要更好地向自己的人民解释为什么这么做是必须的。**许多中国人并不了解美国在世界各地做过哪些事情。与美国人经年身处在仇外气氛浓厚的社会环境不同，中国人了解的故事很多是关于美国有多好——当然八国联军那事除外——但他们并不了解美国的全球帝国实施残酷剥削的真相。知晓这一点不仅有助于理解美国当下企图对中国做什么，还有助于理解中国有时那“恼人”的过度反应和管控行为。

但凡中国是一个像美国一样的社会，我都不愿意提出这个建议，因为它将成为可怕的仇外心理来源，就像我们现在看到的针对亚裔美国人的暴力一样，那正是他们反华宣传所造成的后果。

在中国，人们从小到大都在看抗日电视节目，但在中国大街上的日本人都受到尊重。当我环游中国，人们问我来自哪里时，他们不会因为我说自己来自加拿大，就提到政治局势紧张或者孟晚舟，他们会追溯到半个世纪以前去寻找积极的说法，甚至提起诺尔曼·白求恩的名字。**不幸的是，美国将中国置于的处境，需要中国更多地教导其人民美国都有哪些肮脏的小秘密，知晓发生过什么并更好地准备应对和保护自己，确实很重要。**我相信中国不会任其转变成我们在美国看到的那种仇外问题。

中国应该做的另一件事，是继续以给予他人尊严的方式与世界合作。第三世界那些资源丰富的国家已经遭西方剥削太久，他们无法像中国一样在经历一个世纪的屈辱后摆脱外国的影响。现在，中国为这些国家提供了更多人道的伙伴关系选择。当然，中国是在寻求一些利益，但从我们迄今观察到的情况来看，中国项目更多地是带来互利。中国并没有给这些国家开出国际货币基金组织那样严苛的条款与条件，中国已经证明他们愿意灵活地处理债务，并且目前中国也在建设更有意义的基础设施，而非仅仅为了把矿物从矿山运到港口而已。中国也不曾为实现地缘政治利益而推翻政府或资助叛乱分子。要保持这种做法，永远不要放弃这些价值观。

西方媒体在负面地描述中国方面会做得非常出色，但真相也只能隐藏到这个地步了。正如常言所说：“你可以一时欺骗所有人，或永远欺骗某些人，但不可能永远欺骗所有人。”只不过在短期内，讲故事的能力和实际行动一样重要，而就此而言，中国的讲故事能力非常差。这是需要改进的地方。

观察者网：你对真实的新疆有什么个人看法？

**邓布里尔：**你当然已经知道，我不相信西方讲的新疆故事。但说实话，我也不相信中国自己讲的故事，至少从中国媒体发布的英语内容来看，新疆看起来就像个完美的天堂，人们整天在那里跳舞、欢笑和玩耍。我确实相信，事情的真相与中国的说法更接近，但我不相信有什么完美的方法可以既打击恐怖主义，同时毫不影响人们的生活。

请注意，我现在要讲一些基于轶事证据的、纯粹的个人观点。在这世界的任何地方，只要你生活在政府之下，就会遇到“压制”，这一点无疑。有时是浅层的日常限制，有时则是更严重的事项，比如美国过去曾武断地把可疑人士列入禁飞名单，亦或他们曾派卧底的FBI探员进入清真寺。虽然我不相信新疆的“压制”程度和西方媒体描述的一样，但我相信“压制”是存在的，但显然不如美国在非美国本土对恐怖分子所施加的力道——那不仅包括任意扣留和酷刑，还包括滥杀无辜民众的无人机袭击，正如丹尼尔·黑尔（Daniel Hale）所披露的，而黑尔本人则正因揭露这些秘密而遭受惩罚。对于那些“嫌疑人”和无辜的旁观者来说，这意味着他们的孩子会被美国人的子弹射穿头部。请原谅我如此描述，但我真的为美国人的虚伪和毫无羞耻之心而感到可耻。

3月31日美国司法部公告，前情报分析员丹尼尔·黑尔就“非法获取并公开国防机密信息”认罪  网站截图

回到新疆话题，我无法想象会有人会想生活在恐怖主义的威胁下，但我也相信，一些人肯定对警力的增加和对其生活与行为的监督感到不满。我非常怀疑生活在新疆的人们是否充分了解了中国正在应对的情况。我也高度怀疑他们现在是否明白，在美国撤销对“东突厥斯坦伊斯兰运动”（ETIM）的恐怖组织定性之后，中国将必须处在高度警戒的状态之下，而且现在美国针对新疆地区动员恐怖分子的可能性增加了，因为美国一贯的行事方式已遭到中国的质疑。

以我私下与一个藏族朋友交谈的经验为例，他从来不知道达赖喇嘛的哥哥在书中写过，他一生中最后悔的，就是与美国中央情报局（CIA）合作，他意识到自己只是在被利用，写道“毫无疑问，今天如果没有中国政府的强大力量，这片大陆早就如同伊拉克、利比亚、叙利亚等中东国家以及非洲一样，沦为血淋淋的炼狱了。”而知道这些之后，让我的朋友对西藏的情况有了些新看法，也让他比以前更能同情政府了。（中国）需要提供足够的机会让人们充分了解这些背景。

但就目前而言，我个人很难相信新疆普通民众在这次反恐行动中完全没有受到影响。可他们显然没有像美国军事行动中的那样被杀死，而是被送到了职业培训中心。根据我对中国政府工作方式的观察，其与西方有所区别。在西方，指令在从高层传下来的过程中会变得越来越不被重视，最终落到一些懒惰的基层公务员手中；而在中国，指令越往下传，那些真正想要为国家和社会做贡献的人就会将其放得越大。我的一个中国朋友说，如果中国的中央政府说“剪头发”，那么地方政府出门就会说，好的，那“砍头”吧……这当然只是个比喻，但值得让那些对中国怀有非常扭曲和阴暗印象的外国读者了解。我之所以提到这一点，是因为我相信，北京方面的初衷是好的。

在美国发生（9·11）恐怖袭击后，人们对穆斯林的敌视情绪大幅上升，甚至对所有棕皮肤的人都敌视。穆斯林遭到了公开的种族歧视，也遭受了暴民的暴力对待。一名锡克教徒在加油站被误认为是穆斯林而被人捅死，清真寺被烧毁，对美国的穆斯林而言那是一段艰难的时期。中国也面临过风险，但与美国的情况不同，在美国他们让穆斯林欢庆9·11袭击的虚假故事大行其道，而在中国发生恐怖袭击后，中国开始使用“审查工具”保护中国的穆斯林人口，包括从互联网上删除过度仇视伊斯兰的内容，只不过现状仍不完美。我真心希望我们不要为反驳西方极度扭曲的主张而分神，从而忽视了一些需要解决的、真实存在的小问题。

我希望这些问题能够得到解决，而不是被掩盖起来，不仅是因为这么做是正确的，而且是因为如果忽视了这些问题，则可能成为被西方或分裂势力利用的弱点。我担心，如果一些少数民族面临的真实问题和担忧得不到切实解决，可能会导致中国一些原本爱国的、随时准备为国家服务、与国家并肩的公民容易受到外部力量的影响，而这些外部势力从不懈于利用哪怕是最小的不满，并将其用作破坏他国的工具。

这是他们用过很多次的战术，包括在我母国圭亚那。解密文件显示，美国和英国在50年代煽动了非洲裔和印度裔之间的野蛮种族骚乱，目的是推翻一个他们不喜欢的民选社会主义倾向的政府。了解历史，看看美国当前的恐惧和目标，非常明显的是，负责美国外交政策的真正掌权的人，在被其自己的地缘政治利益所引导，他们更感兴趣的是盘剥中国的少数民族，而不是以任何有意义的方式真正帮助他们。

如果西方真的怀揣真诚与关怀，那本可以有诸多好处。在西方确实有真正关心种族问题和少数民族权利的学者，但这些优秀的学者通常只关注自己本国的问题。如果西方的领导人不那么拼命地将少数民族问题变成地缘政治问题，并发表如此明显会令人感到不安的虚假声明，可以想象，中国还能与这些善意的人合作。如果西方没有如此复杂的优越感问题，甚至这么做可能会产生巨大的互惠互利。

我想到了加拿大努纳武特地区的因努伊特人议员Mumilaaq Qaqqaq，她曾站在议会前绝望地要求改善住房和基本人权，她呼吁并等待了超过30年，却只得到空头支票。住房、清洁水、基础设施和对偏远社区的普遍改善正是中国所擅长的，并已经以史诗般的规模完成了。想象一下，如果西方真能以诚恳的合作方式与中国打交道，那么中国、加拿大、美国、澳大利亚以及世界各地的少数民族和当地人的生活都将得到改善。

但请原谅我的悲观，唯一比证明西方对中国少数民族的宣传是错误的更糟心的，恐怕就是推动西方为其自己的少数民族人口真正做些事情了。对于那些想要以德示人、却从不付出任何实际努力去改善自己人民生活的普遍西方政治家而言，这样的要求大概更加难以容忍。

英文采访原稿：

**Guancha：**Your Xinjiang video “The Xinjiang Genocide-an excerpt from the ‘Genocide’ panel is” has been widely reported by mainland media. Could you share your feelings about that online video conference?

**Dumbrill：**The panel I took part in was a great opportunity to collaborate and discuss our concerns with the Xinjiang Genocide narrative. I had no idea it would be shared so widely and am really pleased that so many people saw it. There isn’t enough pushback against this highly problematic narrative which is geopolitically driven by people who I don’t believe really actually care for the Uyghur people. They have done a good job to weaponize the compassion of ordinary people who really do think they’re doing the right thing by believing this narrative and making noise about it.

**Guancha：**What feedback have you received since the video aired？Any new discoveries and feelings since then？

**Dumbrill：**Critics who are only going to believe negative stories and perspectives on China will never change their mind. Instead of listening to what I said, they looked into my background and found that I own a business. They then used that to say “why am I going to listen to a guy who owns a bar”.

It wouldn’t have mattered what they found and if I did something else, they’d simply replace “bar” with whatever else it is they found in order to use a superficial excuse to sink back into their content state of deep cognitive dissonance. Ironically, they’re willing to listen to people who work for think tanks that are funded by the military industrial complex who profit from selling China threat stories and weapons thereafter. These same people who don’t want to listen to someone just because they own a business have no problem listening to people whose line of work have an actual directly connected conflict of interest. It’s a remarkable phenomenon to witness.

From other people who were on the fence, I got some feedback from them, saying I put them into a position to be a more wary of the narrative, where now they’ll at least examine the claims with a bit more scrutiny rather than prematurely forming a conclusion, especially considering the possible global consequences of supporting this increased aggression, which I outlined in my video.

**Guancha：**I believe you and I both have encountered some people around us who would “intuitively” believe western propaganda and “intuitively” question the Chinese government. What do you think is the cause of that？

**Dumbrill：**A lot of it just comes down to the quality of propaganda from the West. They can literally recycle an old propaganda story that they’ve used and been exposed on over and over again and not many people seem to be any wiser. Coordinated propaganda campaigns like this are highly sophisticated and is deployed in such great volumes, the ordinary person doesn’t have enough time to think about it in any meaningful way. As people like to say “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”.  I’ve found a lot of people have been so bombarded with this story, that they’ve come to a lazy compromise and say things like “well, even if only 10% of it is true, we still have a big problem here”.

**Guancha：**We believe that the West will not give up the “Xinjiang issue”. What do you think Chinese people should do to prepare for that？

**Dumbrill：**It doesn’t matter what China does, even if the Xinjiang story was totally debunked tomorrow, America would find something else. The critical issue here is that America can not accept a peer competitor.  Even if China changed to America’s type of liberal democracy, something they keep saying China’s people need, as long as China didn’t submit to a set of rules that would allow America to stay on top, they’d just do what they always do, they’d interfere with China’s elections and/or overthrow the government just like they do all over the world, this is the REAL reason America wants China to open up.

China needs to remain on high alert, but it also needs to better explain to its own people why they need to do this. Many Chinese people lack the context of what America has done around the world. Unlike in America where people are surrounded in an environment that produces a troubling amount of xenophobia in their society, Chinese people learnt about how great America is, with the exception of the Eight-Nation Alliance incident of course, but they don’t learn about the brutal truths of America’s global empire of exploitation. Learning about this would give more context to understand not only what America is trying to do to China now, but to also understand the sometimes annoying over-reactions and controls that are in place in China.

Had China been a society like America’s, I’d be more reluctant to make this recommendation, because it would be the source of terrible xenophobia, just like with what we’re seeing with the violence against Asian Americans now, which is corresponding with their anti-China propaganda.

Here in China, people have grown up watching non-stop TV shows about fighting the imperial Japanese soldiers, but Japanese people are treated with respect on the streets here. When I’m traveling around China and people ask where I’m from, they don’t mention the political tensions or the Meng Wanzhou case when I tell them I’m from Canada, they go back to OVER half a century ago to find something positive to say, and instead will bring up Norman Bethune’s name. It’s unfortunate that America has put China in a position where it needs to teach it’s people more about America’s dirty little secrets, but it’s going to be important to understand what’s going on and to be better equipped to respond and protect yourself against it. I trust that China wouldn’t allow this to turn into a problematic xenophobia problem like with what we’re seeing in America.

The other thing China should do, is to simply continue cooperating with the world in a way that brings dignity to others. Third world resource rich countries have been terribly exploited by the west for so long, they weren’t able to break themselves free from foreign influence like China did after the century of humiliation. China has now come to the table with more humanistic partnership options for these countries. Of course, China is looking for some benefit, but from what we’ve seen so far, there’s far more mutual benefit with China’s programs. China isn’t putting the same crippling terms and conditions on these countries that the IMF has, they’ve shown they’re willing to be flexible on debt, and thus far, it looks like they’re building meaningful infrastructure that goes beyond just enough stuff to get minerals from the mines to the ports. China isn’t overthrowing governments or funding rebels to accomplish their geopolitical interests either. Remain this way, don’t ever abandon these values.

Western media will do an incredible job to paint whatever China does in a negative light, but you can only hide the truth for so long. As they say “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” In the short term though, it seems that story telling abilities are just as important as actual action, and in that regard, China has very poor story telling abilities. This is something it should find a way to improve.

**Guancha：**What are your thoughts about what’s really going on in Xinjiang？

Dumbrill: As you of course already know, I don’t believe the West’s story on Xinjiang. I’ll be honest with you here, I don’t believe China’s story either, at least in terms of the media’s English content making it look like it’s a perfect paradise where people dance, laugh and play in harmony all day long. I do believe that the truth about what’s going on is far closer to China’s version of the story, but I do not believe there is a perfect way to fight terrorism where people’s lives aren’t going to be affected.

I’m going to say a few things that’s pure opinion and based on anecdotal evidence, so just keep that in mind from this point forward. There is oppression everywhere in this world when you live under a government, this part is true. Sometimes they are superficial day to day restrictions, and sometimes are more serious things, like how America used to arbitrarily put suspicious people on no-fly lists or how they’d send undercover FBI agents into mosques. While I don’t believe the levels of oppression in Xinjiang match what Western media would like people to believe, I believe there is oppression, and probably more so than in the US. Not however more than the oppression experienced by terrorists addressed by America in lands that don’t even belong to them. For those people, it involves not only arbitrary detention and torture, but drone attacks that kill innocent people, as we learned in more detail from Daniel Hale who is now being punished for exposing these secrets. For those suspects and innocent bystanders, it involves their children receiving American bullets through the head. Pardon my graphic descriptions, but I really do find American hypocrisy and lack of shame really truly disgraceful.

Back onto Xinjiang, I can’t imagine that anyone would want to live under the threat of terrorism, but I also believe some people must be unhappy with the increased police presence and scrutiny on peoples lives and actions. I highly doubt that the people living in Xinjiang have been sufficiently briefed about what China is dealing with. I also highly doubt that they understand that China will now have to be under high alert after America delisted ETIM as a terrorist organization, and now that there’s a increased likelihood America will want to mobilize terrorists against the region, especially when you judge America by how they typically operate.

Based on my experience speaking in private with a Tibetan friend for example, he never knew that the Dalai Lama’s brother wrote in his book that the biggest regret of his life was cooperating with the CIA and that he realizes he was just being used, writing “There is no doubt that today, if it were not for the great strength and power of the Chinese Government, the entire continent would have already become the blood-soaked purgatory as has happened to the Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, Libya, Syria as well as Africa”. This gave my friend a bit of perspective on the situation in Tibet and gave him an ability to empathise with the government a bit more than he did before. There needs to be sufficient opportunity for people to learn about this context.

But onto the current issues, I personally find it hard to believe that innocent people in Xinjiang weren’t unfairly targeted by this anti-terrorism campaign. Of course, instead of being killed in an American military operation, they’re being sent to vocational training centres.  It doesn’t make it right, but that’s some valuable perspective nonetheless. Based on my own observation on how the government works here, it’s a bit different from the West, where a directive comes down from the top and seems to become more and more diluted by time it reaches the ground and lands in the hand of some lazy civil servant. In China, it seems like objectives get amplified the further it travels down, by people who really want to contribute towards their country and society. As one of my friends in China says, the central government says “cut the hair”, then the local government walks off and says, ok, “cut the head”… I of course mean this metaphorically, which is worth mentioning to foreign readers who have a unusually skewed and dark image of China in their minds. My purpose of mentioning this is that I think Beijing is well intentioned, but I suspect they aren’t always aware when local governments are perhaps taking things a bit too far.

After the terrorist attacks in America, there was a massive rise in xenophobia against not only Muslims, but even people who just had brown skin. They were racially profiled but also subjected to mob violence. A Sikh man was stabbed to death in a gas station when he was mistaken as a Muslim, mosques were burned down and it was generally a rough time for Muslims in America. China had a real risk of this getting out of hand as well, but it looks like unlike in America, where they let fake stories of Muslims cheering the 9/11 attacks run wild, after the terror attacks in China, China started using it’s censorship tools to protect the Muslim populations in China, including by removing overly Islamophobic content from the internet. However, it’s still not perfect, if someone from Beijing could convince an ethnic minority to speak with them honestly, I think you’ll find that they still face discrimination and difficulties when they travel, try to rent homes or hotel rooms and so on. I really hope that we’re not so distracted by needing to refute the extraordinarily exaugurated claims of the West, that we lose sight of real smaller issues that really should be addressed somehow.

I hope they are addressed and not just swept under the rug, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because this is a vulnerability that could be exploited by either the West or separatist forces. I worry that if the real issues and concerns some ethnic minorities face aren’t honestly addressed, China will risk turning people who are otherwise patriotic citizens, ready to serve their country and stand by its side into people vulnerable to outside influences and forces who are eager to exploit even the smallest grievances in order to use them as a tool of destruction against their own country.

This is a playbook they’ve used many times, including in my mother’s country of Guyana. Declassified documents show that the US and the UK instigated brutal race riots in the 50s between the African descent and Indian descent populations for the purpose of overthrowing an elected socialist leaning government they didn’t like. Understanding history, looking at America’s current fears & goals, it’s exceedingly obvious that the true people in power responsible for America’s foreign policy, are guided by their own geopolitical interests, and have a far greater interest in exploiting the ethnic groups of China more than they do to actually truly help them in any meaningful way.

If the West was really coming from a place of true care and concern, there could have been so much potential benefit. There are real scholars in the West who truly care about racial issues and minority rights, but the good ones are usually focusing on their own issues at home. Imagine if China could collaborate with these well intentioned people, if only their leaders weren’t so hellbent on making it into a geopolitical issue with such obviously exaugurated false claims, maybe it could have been possible. If the West didn’t have such a superiority complex issue, there could even have been great mutual benefits.

I think of the Native/Inuit Member of Canadian Parliament from Nunavut, Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, who got up in front of parliament and desperately pleaded for the housing improvements and basic human rights that she’s been waiting for and have been promised for over 30 years. The housing, clean water, infrastructure and general improvements to remote communities like Mumilaaq’s is EXACTLY what China has excelled at and done on an epic scale. Imagine how many ethnic minorities and natives in China, Canada, America, Australia and all over the world could have their lives improved if the West was really engaging China in an honest collaborative way.

However, now you’ll need to excuse my pessimism, but the only thing worse than proving the West’s exaugurated propaganda against China’s ethnic minorities as false, is pushing the West to actually do something for their own minority populations, that, is perhaps far less tolerable to the average Western politician who wants to virtue signal others and not actually put any hard work in to improve the lives of their OWN people.

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