Holocaust Memorial Day: West Scotland MSP Warns Against Accepting Hate
Green MSP for the West of Scotland Ross Greer has warned against accepting growing far-right views as legitimate in a Holyrood debate to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. In remembering humanity’s worst crime, when six million Jewish people and 5 million others, including the disabled were murdered by a hateful regime, Ross reminded the parliament that the Holocaust was the result of a long process of dehumanisation and propaganda. He further highlighted the genocides the world has witnessed since the Holocaust, including in Cambodia and Rwanda.
In closing, he urged careful thought on how to ensure such atrocities can never happen again.
Speaking in the debate, West of Scotland MSP, Ross said:
“The actual mass murders of the Holocaust took place between 1941 and 1945. But before that could happen, there was a longer process of dehumanisation, of propaganda targeted against Jews in particular, in order to set the political context that would permit mass murder. This propaganda was not rational, it was not true, it was premised instead on lies.
Whilst we must be careful – and it is rarely appropriate to do so – there are comparisons to be drawn with political events happening today in the world around us. Across Europe and America, we once again see lies and propaganda dominating news coverage, fuelling far-right and Neo-Nazi movements. Views that were once peripheral, unacceptable to mainstream society and politics have come back.
When you treat fascism as simply another political view, you have conceded legitimacy to that point of view. It becomes acceptable to discuss in the mainstream. Genocide is not an acceptable point of view. Anti-Semitism is not an acceptable point of view.”