Hatred and intolerance is learned, not innate behaviour

Julian's View • Published 19 Jan 2012 09:30 0 Comments

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Next Friday the world will mark Holocaust Memorial Day as it does each year. It is my belief that every child and every adult must have a basic understanding of the holocaust, not just so they know some history, but so they can learn what intolerance, ignorance and hatred can do, if left to go too far.

We all have different ideas regarding culture, politics, religion and heritage. We can segregate and separate ourselves from those of whom we have a different ideology or belief, however history has shown time and time again that segregation leads to intolerance and often results in hatred. Finally in Northern Ireland we have come to the realisation that a society without integration is a divided society. Gone are the days of the them and us mentality, the generations of violence and hatred in Northern Ireland have achieved nothing but hurt and pain.

Like Northern Ireland, Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was a mixed society. Although mainly Christian, or at least people who claimed to be Christian, Germany had a significant Jewish population. When Hitler came to power in 1933, it was his vision to wipe out all Germanys Jews. Even at the early stages of the Nazi regime, one could see quite clearly the intolerance that was growing in Germany. Children were being taught to pick out the Jewish children in the classroom. The Jewish child would then be brought to the front of the class and the children would point out all the things that were different about the Jew. This seems appalling in today's society that children would be taught how to discriminate, yet it still happens across the world.

If you left 30 children of all different religions, races and cultures in a playground, what would happen? Well they would all start playing together. Now bring an adult into the playground. Imagine that adult starts to divide the children based on their different religions, races and cultures, and explains to the children why they are different, what happens? The children stop playing. They begin to form their own groups, and you end up with a divided playground. The moral of the story here is we are not born with hatred and intolerance of others. It is only when others teach us these things that we become this way.

Children in Nazi Germany were taught how to be ignorant of the Jews, they like the adults were segregated to the most extreme, and this led to a hatred of one another which paved the way towards the holocaust. After 30 years of violence and bloodshed in Northern Ireland, surely we can learn lessons from the holocaust? I wonder during the 30 years of violence, did any of the "extremists" on both sides ever think about the holocaust and what happened there. Thank God that Northern Ireland never ended up like that, but the lesson to be learned is any society can end up like Nazi Germany if segregation, intolerance and hatred are drummed into its people. I am afraid that human beings are like sheep, some will go their own way, but most will follow. All a country needs is an extremist fanatical leader, and people will follow them. It still happens in countries around the world.

I don't know if many of you have seen the series Band of Brothers before, but it's a piece of television gold that I recommend that everyone must see. There is one particular scene in the penultimate episode, where American soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, liberate a Nazi concentration camp. Even if you haven't seen the series, I still recommend you watch this scene. These 10 minutes of footage are among the most powerful I have ever watched. You can watch it online if you go to YouTube and type "Band of Brothers HD - Abandoned Nazi Concentration Camp". This video brings your right down and shows you exactly how cruel human beings can be, you will feel shocked and saddened as you watch the Americans discover the horror of the camp, yet strangely the video lifts you again with a feeling of hope and a better tomorrow.

In 1945 American, Russian and British troops started to liberate concentration camps in Germany, Austria and Poland. If you watch the video you will see the horrors that the soldiers had to deal with upon entering these camps. It is hard to believe that human beings could treat other human beings in this way. The Nazis would use Jews and others who they classed as "non-desirables" for manual work until they became exhausted, they would barely feed them, and certainly provided no medical care. When they had no further use for them, they would have them shot. Millions didn't even get the chance to work in the camps, they were brought straight to places like Auschwitz and squashed into the gas chambers, they were told they were taking a shower, however no water came through the pipes. Instead a lethal chemical known as Zyklon B was released, which would kill a thousand people in a matter of minutes. The major lesson we must learn from the holocaust is that it must never happen again. Thankfully there has been nothing on the scale of the holocaust since but there have been genocides like North Korea 1948-94, Cambodia, 1975-79, Vietnam 1969-1974, Rwanda 1994, Bosnia 1992-1995, and many more.

We in Northern Ireland must learn about these things, we must also look at our own past and realise that we can never let things get as bad as they did in the 1970s and 1980s. The period known to us as the "troubles" have left nothing but a legacy of destruction, murder and tears. I pray that the victims of terrorism get the justice they deserve. I pray that the new and future generations can sort out their problems without resorting to violence. What the new generation must do is learn to respect one another. Yet I encourage everyone to embrace their own culture, enjoy it, be proud of your heritage and do your best to promote it. We must also embrace other people's cultures, educate ourselves on the things we do not understand, but ultimately have respect for one another.

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Feb 9, 08:04
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