​International Holocaust Remembrance Day – What Lessons Can We All Learn?

27th January represents the  International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The anniversary has been marked each year since 2005, to coincide with the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland by the Russian army on 27th January 1945. ​ It was selected by United Nations to remember the victims of the Nazi Holocaust during World War II where Six million Jews plus were killed on an industrial scale by Germany’s fascist regime led by Adolf Hitler.

What is less known is that in addition to the targeting of Jews, upto 5 million non-Jews who were also killed. Indeed, anybody that was seen to be a threat to the racist ideology of the regime was a potential victim, including disabled people, Gypsies, Gay people, black people amongst others. But tragically, the majority of the German people apparently felt unable or unwilling to intervene. And this the shameful act of self interest was captured so powerfully in a poem by the Protestant pastor and social activist, Fr Martin Niemöller: 

First they came for the Jews. I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists. I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists. I did not speak because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

The reality is that when innocent people are killed in such a systematic way, everybody is a loser as it is our common humanity that becomes compromised. We are told that what distinguishes humans from all other species is our capacity to think and feel, to be reflective and passionate, indeed, the Latin term ‘homo sapien’ to describe the human species, actually mean ‘thinking animal’. Though all these things are no doubt true,​ it is also the case that humans have the capacity to display degrees of stupidity which we would find difficult to recognise, let alone accept. As the moral philosopher and student of the Nazi Holocaust, Hannah Arendt in her book Life of the Mind (1971) notes, “One judges always as a member of a community, guided by one’s community sense… But in the last analysis, one is a member of a world community by the sheer fact of being human… of being a world citizen.”  

So, ultimately the only way human beings will be able to see the inhumanity they are practicing against other human beings is to resist see the world as a place of divided nations, ethnicities, religions, tribes and so on, but as a place inhabited by people who essentially have the same needs, dreams, aspirations and innate abilities.  Only then can we realise the true potential of every human being and ultimately of humanity as a whole. It is only when we reach this universal consciousness will we realize the absolute absurdity of racial classification, of the stupidity in conflating spirituality with identity, of the irrationality of putting value on somebody based solely on phenotypical characteristics such as skin color or body shape and size.

Today humanity is being increasingly connected by social media and the compression of time and space continues apace. Therefore, the struggle for human rights must be borderless and today we must let our consciousness move beyond the nation state conception of humanity and we must all become and be allowed to become Global Citizens. The consequences of not doing so, as we are seeing in the unfolding tragedies across the borders of Europe and the US, in the Middle East and Indian sub-continent are too horrific to even contemplate

In his prize winning book Modernity and the Holocaust Zygmunt Bauman, who was himself a survivor, provides us with both an analysis of the conditions under which ones moral imperative (which he defines as essentially about having feelings if care and compassion towards the other) becomes compromised, eroded and ultimately immobilised.

His first warning was to not to be seduced by technical rationality. Historically genocides rarely the work of the mob though mobs are often unleashed, co-opted or simply employed to do the dirty work.

The Nov 1984 Sikh genocide, where over 5,000 innocent men, women and children were systematically killed, raped and ‘disappeared’ at the hands of the ruling Congress government is a more recent  of the way  the machinery if the state can be deployed at ease. All the investigations into this holocaust point the finger towards not only the failure of the Indian state to protect innocent Sikhs but widespread collusion in the violence; it was a well-organised pogrom or in the modern jargon attempt to ‘ethnically cleanse a whole people. Here is an extract from 2005 Nanavati commission which investigated the violence that took place over a three day period following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 31 Oct 1984.

‘The attacks were made in a systematic manner and without much fear of the police; almost suggesting that they were assured that they would not be harmed while committing those acts and even thereafter. Male members of the Sikh community were taken out of their houses. They were beaten first and then burnt alive in a systematic manner. In some cases tires were put around their necks and then they were set on fire by pouring kerosene or petrol over them. In some cases white inflammable powder was thrown on them which immediately caught fire thereafter. This was a common pattern which was followed by the big mobs which had played havoc in certain areas. The shops were identified, looted and then burnt. Thus what had initially started, as an angry outburst became an organized carnage.’

One of the criticisms of the UN  international holocaust day is the primacy given to the experience of European Jews in late 30’s and 40’s. No doubt we must never forget the horrors of that period, but we shouldn’t allow this to blind ourselves to other holocausts, historical and contemporary. Today tragically we continue to see millions of innocent men women and children being killed and maimed by drones and aerial bombing by Western powers and the tyrants they support around the world, people like Assad in Syria and Erdogan in Turkey, Putin in Crimea and Ukraine. Modi in Gujrat, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Bosnia ….and many other places.

So genocides are often funded/sponsored if not executed by those in power, but they cannot happen unless the people are co-opted into the project.  Zygmunt Bauman, the German Jewish philosopher and holocaust survivor said there were three requirements which,  if all met, produced the ideal condition for genocidal state violence against minorities:

Dehumanization- this is when through propaganda were reduce the targeted group to the status of an inferior and/or dangerous category of ‘Other’.

Routinization – this is to normalize the attacks so that hatred becomes a rational choice, the ‘right’ thing to do, or something that requires no thought or reflection.

Authorization – as Stanley Milgram, the US social psychologist demonstrated in his research on obedience at Yale University in the aftermath of the nazi holocaust, human beings, under certain circumstances, seem to be readily and universally willing to hand over their moral duty to people who seem to have authority and power. 

Put in simple terms, we seem to be pre-programmed to follow orders.

And so as we commemorate all holocausts it is incumbent on humanity not only to remember but to provide reparations to the survivors and ultimately to prevent such inhumanity taking place.  The solution is simple, we must disrupt these three mechanisms described above;

We must challenge any ideology that seeks to place human beings in some kinds of hierarchy of worth – we are all equal or as Guru Gobind SIngh ji said “Recognise the Human race as one”

We need to question everything and any policy – which means an education system that is not simply about teaching conformity.In other words, following the teachings of Guru Nanak, we must become ‘Khoji’ (Scholars) and seek to nurture the power of  ‘budh’ (intellect) and ‘bibeik’ (ethical and critical reasoning).

We need to become activists and never give power and authority a free hand. Here we follow in the footsteps of Guru Teg Bhadur ji and we realise our mission is to represent and protect the people not to kill them. As Guru Arjan Dev Ji said, “Na ko beiri nahi begana, sagal sang hum ko ban ayee” – “there is no enemy, there is no stranger, I belong to all and all belong to me”