丹尼爾·鄧布里爾：我不相信西方版的新疆故事，但我也想説……

加拿大博主丹尼爾·鄧布里爾  視頻截圖

【採訪/觀察者網 白紫文】

觀察者網：你在那次網絡視頻會議上就新疆棉花事件對西方的反駁被大陸媒體廣泛報道。能分享一下你對那次在線視頻會議的看法麼？

**鄧布里爾：**我參加的那個小組為我們提供了一個很好的合作機會，討論我們對所謂新疆“種族滅絕”事件的看法。我沒想過它會被如此廣泛地分享，很高興有這麼多人看到它。對於西方那種高度存疑的敍事目前缺乏足夠的反駁，而這種敍事則由地緣政治驅動、其始作俑者也並非真正關心維吾爾人。在利用普通人的同情心作為武器方面，西方做得很出色，使很多普通人相信了西方敍事、並真的以為西方為此製造噪音是在做正確的事情。

觀察者網：視頻會議播出後你收到了什麼反饋？自那以後又有什麼新的發現和體悟麼？

**鄧布里爾：**那些只相信中國的負面故事和觀點的評論家永遠不會改變他們的想法。他們沒有聽我説什麼，而是調查了我的背景，發現我擁有一家公司。然後他們利用這一點表示：“我為什麼要聽一個開酒吧的傢伙的話呢？”

他們發現了什麼並不重要，如果我做其他行業，他們只會簡單地將“酒吧”替換成他們發現的其他事情，以一個表面的藉口掩蓋深層次的認知失調。諷刺地是，那些通過兜售中國威脅故事進而販賣武器獲利的軍工集團所資助的智囊團的意見，他們倒是願意聽。這些因為一個人擁有一家企業就不願意聆聽其意見的人，卻也不介意傾聽那些與其在工作中存在直接利益衝突的人的意見，這是一個值得見證的非凡現象。

從其他持觀望態度的人那裏，我得到了一些反饋，他們説，我讓他們對西方敍事更加謹慎了，現在他們至少會更仔細地審視那些説法，而非過早地得出結論，特別是考慮到支持這類日益加劇的敵對行為可能造成的全球后果。我在視頻中概述過會有怎樣的後果。

觀察者網：我們彼此可能都遇到過身邊一些人，他們會“直覺”地相信西方宣傳，“直覺”地質疑中國政府。你認為原因是什麼？

**鄧布里爾：**這很大程度上取決於西方宣傳的“質量”。他們完全可以重複使用其已用過、並反覆曝光過的老宣傳故事，反正似乎也沒有多少人變得更聰明瞭。而這類協調一致的宣傳工作是非常複雜的，需要落實的部署體量如此之大，普通人很難有足夠的時間對其進行有意義的甄別。常言説：“只要你謊撒得夠大，並不斷重複，終歸會有人相信。”我已經發現，很多人都在被西方版的新疆故事狂轟濫炸，以至於已達成一種“懶惰的妥協”：“好吧，即便只有10%是真的，也仍然是個大問題了。”

觀察者網：我相信西方不會就此放棄新疆議題。你認為中國應該為此做好哪些準備？

**鄧布里爾：**不管中國做什麼，即使明天新疆的故事被完全揭穿，美國也能找到些別的東西。這裏的關鍵在於，美國不能接受一個同儕的競爭對手。即使中國轉向他們一直聲稱中國人需要的美式自由民主，只要中國不服從維持美國霸權的一系列規則，美國仍將貫徹自己的一貫做法，干擾中國的選舉和/或推翻現有政府，就像在世界各地發生的那樣，這才是美國希望中國開放的真正原因。

**中國需要保持高度警惕，但也需要更好地向自己的人民解釋為什麼這麼做是必須的。**許多中國人並不瞭解美國在世界各地做過哪些事情。與美國人經年身處在仇外氣氛濃厚的社會環境不同，中國人瞭解的故事很多是關於美國有多好——當然八國聯軍那事除外——但他們並不瞭解美國的全球帝國實施殘酷剝削的真相。知曉這一點不僅有助於理解美國當下企圖對中國做什麼，還有助於理解中國有時那“惱人”的過度反應和管控行為。

但凡中國是一個像美國一樣的社會，我都不願意提出這個建議，因為它將成為可怕的仇外心理來源，就像我們現在看到的針對亞裔美國人的暴力一樣，那正是他們反華宣傳所造成的後果。

在中國，人們從小到大都在看抗日電視節目，但在中國大街上的日本人都受到尊重。當我環遊中國，人們問我來自哪裏時，他們不會因為我説自己來自加拿大，就提到政治局勢緊張或者孟晚舟，他們會追溯到半個世紀以前去尋找積極的説法，甚至提起諾爾曼·白求恩的名字。**不幸的是，美國將中國置於的處境，需要中國更多地教導其人民美國都有哪些骯髒的小秘密，知曉發生過什麼並更好地準備應對和保護自己，確實很重要。**我相信中國不會任其轉變成我們在美國看到的那種仇外問題。

中國應該做的另一件事，是繼續以給予他人尊嚴的方式與世界合作。第三世界那些資源豐富的國家已經遭西方剝削太久，他們無法像中國一樣在經歷一個世紀的屈辱後襬脱外國的影響。現在，中國為這些國家提供了更多人道的夥伴關係選擇。當然，中國是在尋求一些利益，但從我們迄今觀察到的情況來看，中國項目更多地是帶來互利。中國並沒有給這些國家開出國際貨幣基金組織那樣嚴苛的條款與條件，中國已經證明他們願意靈活地處理債務，並且目前中國也在建設更有意義的基礎設施，而非僅僅為了把礦物從礦山運到港口而已。中國也不曾為實現地緣政治利益而推翻政府或資助叛亂分子。要保持這種做法，永遠不要放棄這些價值觀。

西方媒體在負面地描述中國方面會做得非常出色，但真相也只能隱藏到這個地步了。正如常言所説：“你可以一時欺騙所有人，或永遠欺騙某些人，但不可能永遠欺騙所有人。”只不過在短期內，講故事的能力和實際行動一樣重要，而就此而言，中國的講故事能力非常差。這是需要改進的地方。

觀察者網：你對真實的新疆有什麼個人看法？

**鄧布里爾：**你當然已經知道，我不相信西方講的新疆故事。但説實話，我也不相信中國自己講的故事，至少從中國媒體發佈的英語內容來看，新疆看起來就像個完美的天堂，人們整天在那裏跳舞、歡笑和玩耍。我確實相信，事情的真相與中國的説法更接近，但我不相信有什麼完美的方法可以既打擊恐怖主義，同時毫不影響人們的生活。

請注意，我現在要講一些基於軼事證據的、純粹的個人觀點。在這世界的任何地方，只要你生活在政府之下，就會遇到“壓制”，這一點無疑。有時是淺層的日常限制，有時則是更嚴重的事項，比如美國過去曾武斷地把可疑人士列入禁飛名單，亦或他們曾派卧底的FBI探員進入清真寺。雖然我不相信新疆的“壓制”程度和西方媒體描述的一樣，但我相信“壓制”是存在的，但顯然不如美國在非美國本土對恐怖分子所施加的力道——那不僅包括任意扣留和酷刑，還包括濫殺無辜民眾的無人機襲擊，正如丹尼爾·黑爾（Daniel Hale）所披露的，而黑爾本人則正因揭露這些秘密而遭受懲罰。對於那些“嫌疑人”和無辜的旁觀者來説，這意味着他們的孩子會被美國人的子彈射穿頭部。請原諒我如此描述，但我真的為美國人的虛偽和毫無羞恥之心而感到可恥。

3月31日美國司法部公告，前情報分析員丹尼爾·黑爾就“非法獲取並公開國防機密信息”認罪  網站截圖

回到新疆話題，我無法想象會有人會想生活在恐怖主義的威脅下，但我也相信，一些人肯定對警力的增加和對其生活與行為的監督感到不滿。我非常懷疑生活在新疆的人們是否充分了解了中國正在應對的情況。我也高度懷疑他們現在是否明白，在美國撤銷對“東突厥斯坦伊斯蘭運動”（ETIM）的恐怖組織定性之後，中國將必須處在高度警戒的狀態之下，而且現在美國針對新疆地區動員恐怖分子的可能性增加了，因為美國一貫的行事方式已遭到中國的質疑。

以我私下與一個藏族朋友交談的經驗為例，他從來不知道達賴喇嘛的哥哥在書中寫過，他一生中最後悔的，就是與美國中央情報局（CIA）合作，他意識到自己只是在被利用，寫道“毫無疑問，今天如果沒有中國政府的強大力量，這片大陸早就如同伊拉克、利比亞、敍利亞等中東國家以及非洲一樣，淪為血淋淋的煉獄了。”而知道這些之後，讓我的朋友對西藏的情況有了些新看法，也讓他比以前更能同情政府了。（中國）需要提供足夠的機會讓人們充分了解這些背景。

但就目前而言，我個人很難相信新疆普通民眾在這次反恐行動中完全沒有受到影響。可他們顯然沒有像美國軍事行動中的那樣被殺死，而是被送到了職業培訓中心。根據我對中國政府工作方式的觀察，其與西方有所區別。在西方，指令在從高層傳下來的過程中會變得越來越不被重視，最終落到一些懶惰的基層公務員手中；而在中國，指令越往下傳，那些真正想要為國家和社會做貢獻的人就會將其放得越大。我的一箇中國朋友説，如果中國的中央政府説“剪頭髮”，那麼地方政府出門就會説，好的，那“砍頭”吧……這當然只是個比喻，但值得讓那些對中國懷有非常扭曲和陰暗印象的外國讀者瞭解。我之所以提到這一點，是因為我相信，北京方面的初衷是好的。

在美國發生（9·11）恐怖襲擊後，人們對穆斯林的敵視情緒大幅上升，甚至對所有棕皮膚的人都敵視。穆斯林遭到了公開的種族歧視，也遭受了暴民的暴力對待。一名錫克教徒在加油站被誤認為是穆斯林而被人捅死，清真寺被燒燬，對美國的穆斯林而言那是一段艱難的時期。中國也面臨過風險，但與美國的情況不同，在美國他們讓穆斯林歡慶9·11襲擊的虛假故事大行其道，而在中國發生恐怖襲擊後，中國開始使用“審查工具”保護中國的穆斯林人口，包括從互聯網上刪除過度仇視伊斯蘭的內容，只不過現狀仍不完美。我真心希望我們不要為反駁西方極度扭曲的主張而分神，從而忽視了一些需要解決的、真實存在的小問題。

我希望這些問題能夠得到解決，而不是被掩蓋起來，不僅是因為這麼做是正確的，而且是因為如果忽視了這些問題，則可能成為被西方或分裂勢力利用的弱點。我擔心，如果一些少數民族面臨的真實問題和擔憂得不到切實解決，可能會導致中國一些原本愛國的、隨時準備為國家服務、與國家並肩的公民容易受到外部力量的影響，而這些外部勢力從不懈於利用哪怕是最小的不滿，並將其用作破壞他國的工具。

這是他們用過很多次的戰術，包括在我母國圭亞那。解密文件顯示，美國和英國在50年代煽動了非洲裔和印度裔之間的野蠻種族騷亂，目的是推翻一個他們不喜歡的民選社會主義傾向的政府。瞭解歷史，看看美國當前的恐懼和目標，非常明顯的是，負責美國外交政策的真正掌權的人，在被其自己的地緣政治利益所引導，他們更感興趣的是盤剝中國的少數民族，而不是以任何有意義的方式真正幫助他們。

如果西方真的懷揣真誠與關懷，那本可以有諸多好處。在西方確實有真正關心種族問題和少數民族權利的學者，但這些優秀的學者通常只關注自己本國的問題。如果西方的領導人不那麼拼命地將少數民族問題變成地緣政治問題，並發表如此明顯會令人感到不安的虛假聲明，可以想象，中國還能與這些善意的人合作。如果西方沒有如此複雜的優越感問題，甚至這麼做可能會產生巨大的互惠互利。

我想到了加拿大努納武特地區的因努伊特人議員Mumilaaq Qaqqaq，她曾站在議會前絕望地要求改善住房和基本人權，她呼籲並等待了超過30年，卻只得到空頭支票。住房、清潔水、基礎設施和對偏遠社區的普遍改善正是中國所擅長的，並已經以史詩般的規模完成了。想象一下，如果西方真能以誠懇的合作方式與中國打交道，那麼中國、加拿大、美國、澳大利亞以及世界各地的少數民族和當地人的生活都將得到改善。

但請原諒我的悲觀，唯一比證明西方對中國少數民族的宣傳是錯誤的更糟心的，恐怕就是推動西方為其自己的少數民族人口真正做些事情了。對於那些想要以德示人、卻從不付出任何實際努力去改善自己人民生活的普遍西方政治家而言，這樣的要求大概更加難以容忍。

英文采訪原稿：

**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.

本文系觀察者網獨家稿件，文章內容純屬作者個人觀點，不代表平台觀點，未經授權，不得轉載，否則將追究法律責任。關注觀察者網微信guanchacn，每日閲讀趣味文章。