By Joel Freedman
March-June 2020 will be remembered by those of us in the UK as when our lives completely changed. During lockdown, I, along with all my fellow students were sent home suddenly in the middle of term. Along with the rest of society we spent upwards of 8 weeks almost entirely inside our own houses, leaving only for brief periods of exercise. Relationships, work, travel and much more were put on hold as we came together to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Whilst we were facing an unprecedented threat that had the potential to impact any one of us at any time, millions of people across Myanmar, China, Sudan and several other countries faced an all too familiar threat. Genocide has been taking place in Myanmar against Rohingya’s at least since 2016; in China against the Uyghur’s at least since 2014 and in Sudan against Darfuri’s since 2003. Unfortunately, for these groups of people and many others, coronavirus has not alleviated their suffering.
Since the start of lockdown, there have been a number of causes that have caught public attention. Two of these cases are, the Black Lives Matter movement and the suffering that the people of Yemen continue to experience. Students have been at the forefront of campaigning. My social media feed was flooded with calls to sign a petition, make a small donation, or even a plea to just engage in general education. From a personal perspective I highly commend any campaign that intends to increase awareness, education or help a discriminated against group in any positive way. However, whilst I wholeheartedly support these campaigns, they alone are not enough.
The only way in which we, as a human race, will prevent future hate, discrimination and persecution based on identity is through a change of collective and individual attitudes. Until we, as individuals, truly embody the attitude of caring about hate directed at another group of people as much as we care about hate directed at our own group, genocide and general baseless hatred will continue. As more and more individuals commit to actively trying to live by this attitude, slowly the institutions that make up our society will be filled with people who are determined to fight all baseless hatred, not just hate directed at certain groups. The campaigns and conversations that took place during lockdown show that as long as we do not slip into old attitudes as the world goes back to normal this idyllic society can be a reality.
Living by this attitude is not easy. It is not something that any of us have accomplished and therefore no longer need to think about. It is an ongoing battle to fight our own prejudices. Whether it is educating ourselves in order to dispel misinformation and stereotypes. Ensuring that we get our news and ‘information’ from as diverse an array of sources as possible or learning about and commemorating other group’s tragedies in the same way we do our own. We must all make a conscious effort to constantly check our preconceived attitudes.
This is especially important in the face of growing genocide denial. Holocaust denial is rampant across Europe and with the last of the survivors passing away this is becoming an even more acute problem. Denial of other genocides such as the genocide against the Tutsi and the Bosnian genocide show that this form of revisionist history is something we need to tackle head on through education. Whilst most people (if not everyone) reading this article do not hold these views it is crucial to understand their prevalence so that we can be united as a society in combating them when we encounter denial of any groups suffering.
Myself and others are using digital mediums to educate about genocide. I have started a podcast with my friend Adam Grossman called ‘The Good Neighbour’ which will be released on December 9th. As part of this podcast we will be having conversations with diverse guests about issues related to baseless hatred. We do not approach these conversations as so-called ‘experts’ but as people who believe that having the discussion is valuable and therefore our hope is to provoke thoughts and conversations on these topics.
How can any group of people expect to lessen and prevent baseless hatred against their own group without significantly focusing on baseless hatred generally, against all groups?