Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration: Saturday, January 28th 2017

The text of my HMD presentation to the Wellingborough commemorative event held on Saturday January 28th 2017 at the Wellingborough Museum

Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to give this presentation to you today. It’s an honour and privilege and I hope that you find it interesting, but also challenging – for which I don’t apologise!

Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day which is commemorated on 27 January every year in commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland by Russian/Soviet troops in 1945 towards the end of the Second World War.

What was the Holocaust?

Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis attempted to kill all of Europe’s Jews. This systematic and planned attempt to murder all Jewish people in Europe is known as the Holocaust (The Shoah in Hebrew) and it is unique in Human history. The first time an attempt was made to eliminate a whole group of people based on their religion/race/ethnicity using the whole apparatus of a modern state and society.

The holocaust also resulted in the murder of millions more as a result of prejudice and hatred: homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, disabled people, Black people and other ethnic minorities, and political opponents of the Nazis.

From the time they assumed power in 1933, the Nazis used propaganda, persecution, and legislation to deny human and civil rights to Jews and other groups. They used centuries of antisemitism (hatred of Jewish people) as their foundation and new pseudo-scientific ideas of eugenics and the notation iof creating a “perfect human being”. By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children had either perished in ghettos or through mass-shootings, in concentration camps and by gassing in extermination camps, such as Auschwitz.

Can you imagine what six million people looks like? It’s hard. That’s at least 200+ football stadiums (with 30,000 capacities each) or 100 towns the size of Wellingborough: women, men, children and older people, all murdered.

Ivor Perl

Today we are going to watch a short film clip, in which this man, Ivor Perl, who was born in Hungary, tells us his experiences during the Holocaust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxSlCzOB1IY

Watching Ivor’s film tells us about the stories beyond those statistics which are too huge for us to comprehend. It tells us that the Holocaust was the story of Jewish people being forced to move from their own homes to ghettos and camps. Of families being forced apart. Of the diseases like typhus which were allowed to spread as people were forced to live in appalling conditions. And his story tells us that half of Hungary’s Jewish population were killed in only four months in 1944, and that Ivor himself lost all but one of his 8 brothers and sisters, and both of his parents.

Ivor’s testimony also tells us that, for Ivor, the legacy of the Holocaust continues. He tells us that he fears people more than he fears God; it was people who played with him as friends one week and on the second week herded him and his family into a ghetto. He speaks of his daily reminders of things which happened to him in the past.

But he also speaks of his delight at moving to the UK and beginning to set up a life here, displaying so proudly in his home the pictures of his children and grandchildren. He tells us about his talks in schools and community groups, and that he feels if only one person hears his story and makes a difference, it was worth his while.

There are hundreds of us here today. On Holocaust Memorial Day we can reflect on the ways in which we can make a difference after hearing Ivor’s testimony. We can reflect on the particular questions that Ivor asked in the film.

What has it helped?

He asks ’What has the world learned since 1945?’ and, sadly, since the end of World War Two, there have been genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur where millions of people have been murdered simply because of who they are. This suggests the world has not learnt much. So what can we learn?

Our understanding of social psychology – how our brains work within a social context - might have some of the answers. This tells us that all human beings (you, me, and others) are all capable, given the wrong/right circumstances, of committing great crimes and horrors. Genocides and human rights abuses are not committed by evil people, but by people, just like you and me, doing evil thinks to other human beings.

• Playing the “us”/“them” game of stigmatising groups in society who we don’t like or blaming for all our problems. Or holding prejudicial or stereotyped views of such groups. We do this easily and almost automatically, without thought. We are easily seduced by the lies and misrepresentations of unprincipled politicians hungry for votes and power who tell us such groups are to blame. And what groups are in the frame in today’s world for such demonisation and hatred?  Mexicans (in the US), Muslims, refugees, immigrants, migrants from the European Union, asylum-seekers, benefit scroungers... you can add your own favourites if you like as more are added on an almost daily basis as we split up into our own clans and comfortable zones of exclusion behind walls, borders and fences – physical structures - but possibly even more damaging divisions in our minds and thoughts. Us and them... it’s an easy game to play, but with disastrous consequences.
  
  
• Inflicting harm on “others”, especially those who are stigmatised: being blind to their suffering or actively creating the conditions in which harm is done: harassment and hate crimes; our indifference or even hostility to hundreds of thousands of refugees, some of whom are dying in the Mediterranean or freezing to death in Serbia or Greece, or living in dire conditions in concentrations camps at the borders of Hungary; our indifference to disabled people who are dying or committing suicide because of the dehumanising nature of our benefit system; physical attacks on Polish people, or Muslims, or indeed anyone who stands up for minorities and the vulnerable – such as MP Jo Cox.
  
  
•  But I hear you say: “we wouldn’t do that, we wouldn’t do harm to others”. But what would you do I ask?

How would I have behaved?

·        Ivor Perl asks us to reflect on our own actions or inactions. Do we/you stand by and watch, or do you say “no, this is wrong, it must stop!”? Do you actively get involved in challenging prejudice and injustices? Would you stand up or would you remain silent?

Ivor asked ‘how would I have behaved if I had been the gentile (the person who was not Jewish)?’ We can also ask ourselves ‘what would I have done if I had seen my neighbours forced out of their homes and onto trains or into ghettoes simply for who they were? Would I have stood by? Or would I have spoken out?’ The Holocaust was allowed to happen because the people with the power and the knowledge to stop it stood by and did nothing.

So in the contemporary world we need to ask: what am I doing?

Elie Wiesel

At the end of Ivor’s film he says ‘the only thing we can do is not answer hate with hate.’ Perhaps we can challenge ourselves to go even further.

As Elie Wiesel, another Holocaust survivor, wrote:

‘I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.’

Don’t stand by

With the words of Ivor Perl and Elie Wiesel in mind, with our understanding of human psychology in mind, I would ask you today to commit to not standing by.

When we see acts of injustice, don’t stand by. When we hear of intolerance, don’t stand by. When we see people being picked on because of who they are, don’t stand by. And when we see others act on their hatred, don’t stand by. And, if and when we see others “not standing by” and challenging, support them too – especially if we don’t have the courage to do it ourselves.

If we can all make the commitment today that we will not stand by when others face prejudice, perhaps we can help the world learn lessons from the past to create a better, safer future.

HMD 2017 Film

I would like to finish with another short film that has been produced for HMD 2017. It challenges us to think about how we can support those who face hostility today and create a safer society together.

http://hmd.org.uk/news/we-launch-our-film-hmd-2017

Anti-Racism in Social Work Practice: New book now out

Anti-Racism in Social Work Practice is a new book which I have have had the privilege of contributing a chapter to (on 'Critical Race Theory and exploring 'whiteness'). The book was published in April 2013 by Critical Publishing  edited by Angie Bartoli. All the contributors are either based in the Social Work Division at the University of Northampton or have historically been linked to it (as I was when I was the Equality and Diversity Advisor at the university for seven years until 2012).

The publishers describe the books in the following way:

Anti-racism has a long history within the profession of social work and its education. Despite an agenda within higher education which promotes internationalization and practice which recognises diversity, little has been written to address the question of why black African students have a different experience from others on their social work educational journey.  

This book is based upon the authors’ experience as educators and their own research about and with black students’ experience of racism and ‘otherness’ within social work practice and education. Radical and honest in nature, it re-visits anti-racism within social work practice and education from a student focused and informed perspective based on lived experience and conversations. 

This book will be of interest to all social work students, educators and policy makers with an interest in anti-racism and diversity. It includes practical models and tried and tested tools to help the reader work through these issues.

The chapter headings in the book and the authors of each chapter are as follows:

Introduction. Angie Bartoli

1. Backlash blues: racialisation and citizenship. Bernadette Curran

2. Anti-racist social work education. Sukhwinder Singh

3. Developing Cultural Competence. Prospera Tedam

4. Padare: a meeting around a tree. Angie Bartoli

5. White women listening. Sue Kennedy

6. Critical Race Theory and exploring 'whiteness'. Paul Crofts

7. View from the workplace: practitioners speak out. Charity Chukwuemeka

Conclusion: a forward looking journey. Angie Bartoli and Prospera Tedum

*****

The Crisis of Capitalism Explained - simply and to the point!

Great cartoon explanation of the current crisis of capitalism by David Harvey. A must see!




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No right to offend others?

 A great article by Gary Young of The Guardian. I reproduce it in full because it reflects my own thoughts and feelings on this issue.

Thanks Gary for writing this for me.

Bigoted commentators often resort to a 'free speech' defence. But they rarely consider the effects their words have on others. In a world where few would deny the existence of racism but even fewer would ever admit to propagating it, there will always be the problem of agency. We have racism but no racists – a noun without a subject, a consequence that nobody caused, a system that nobody operates creating victims without perpetrators.

On the web people have the added cover of anonymity, creating an environment where individual writers and entire groups of people are abused because of their race or religion but few have the courage to stand openly behind their statements. On these pages I have been slated as the Guardian's "affirmative action hire", told I was "raising my son to hate white people" and asked to entertain black people's genetic propensity to crime, idiocy, violence and sloth. As I don't know of a single black writer, here or elsewhere, who doesn't deal with this, I know this is not about my work per se.

But what is truly frustrating is the rarity with which those who peddle this intolerance will take responsibility for their own actions and the climate it engenders. When called on their bigotry, usually by other commentators, people usually either escalate their attacks or bristle at the accusation and insist upon their free speech.

As a means of avoiding conversations about what they have done, they instead insist on what they are not. Instead of taking responsibility for what they do they insist instead on their right to do it. Faced with the concrete fact of their actions they retreat into the abstract notion of their entitlements.
The internet did not create this situation. When I started my column, before it was possible to comment online, one journalist wrote a letter in response to a piece I'd done about Britishness: "You clearly know nothing about your country," he wrote. "This piece may set you on the road towards partial knowledge." The piece, written by the reactionary historian Paul Johnson, was also sent to me by another reader who made personal threats. That one, I was told by the paper, I had to take to the police. It turned out the sender had links to organised racists with a track record of violence.

But the internet has certainly exacerbated it, because people feel empowered to be far more insulting when communicating anonymously through a modem than they do in person.

So let us take these instigators of racial animus at their word and assume, since we cannot prove otherwise, that they are trying to engage in good faith. Let's imagine for a moment that no racists comment on the Guardian site or anywhere else and acknowledge that (within legal limits) everyone has the right to say anything they want. You have the right to disparage whole races, ethnicities, faiths and faith itself; you have the right to abuse people on the grounds of their race and religion; you have the right to offend people; you have the right to ignore what the writer is actually arguing and attack them instead for what you imagine they are arguing because of their race and religion; you have the right to be rude, obnoxious, dismissive, ignorant and aggressive. Let us also acknowledge that these rights are important and should be defended.

Even that utopia of absolutisms comes with at least one caveat and two consequences. The caveat is that the right to offend is not the same as an obligation to be offensive or a duty to disparage. We have the right to sleep with our in-laws and fart loudly in lifts. Why, generally, don't we? Because to do so would be antisocial, diminish us in the eyes of others (including those we don't know) and eventually leave us isolated. "I tend to think some things are off-limits,"the eminent academic Stuart Hall once argued. "Not in the sense that you should not say them, but you need some care about how and when you go into them. If you wanted to make a joke about concentration camps, you should think twice. At least twice."

But some people not only seem to never think at all, they actively resent the idea that they should have to think about the effect their words have on others.

Those who cry censorship should understand that this is a shared space and like all shared spaces it has rules and standards. If you don't like them, the internet is a big place.
Sensitivity is not a sign of weakness – it is how we all get through the day. The trouble is that not everybody is deemed worthy of it. People feel comfortable saying things about Muslims or black people, as a group, that they would never say about white people or Christians, as a group. Similarly they feel comfortable saying things about Muslim and non-white writers they would never say about other writers.

Which brings us to the first consequence. That what you write has an effect. If you write something racially offensive then those you have offended will be less likely to participate. The hostile environment to which you have contributed will also become, by definition, a limited and limiting one. What you end up with is a community, where people are excluded because of who they are that then shrinks to a fetid ecosystem including only people who are just like you.

It certainly has an effect on me. When Comment is free started I regularly came in below the line. After a few months of abuse I mostly gave up. As much as I believe in open journalism I don't believe it's my job to wade through racist filth in search of the many gems that undoubtedly may lurk beneath. If I can get into a thread early enough I respond. Otherwise I only do so when moderators have the time to point me to engaging comments worthy of a response.

Second, the right to offend is a two-way street. It means nothing if it is not accompanied by the right to be offended. Those who believe racism is fair game should at the very least understand that calling them on their racism is no less so. You don't have to accept the accusation but if you want to be taken seriously then you have to take the accusation seriously and engage with it. To hide behind your right to free speech is little short of pathetic.

As I wrote in my most recent book, insensitivity never achieved much. Baiting, ridiculing and humiliating are poor substitutes for satire, irony and humour, although they often masquerade as such. But oversensitivity never achieved very much either. Not every nuance, challenge, wordplay or display of ignorance is a slight; not every slight is worth of being escalated into an incident; not every provocation need be indulged. We all have a duty to help create the "safe spaces" for people to both engage in self-criticism and accept criticism from others. But we have no less a duty to engage in an honest and open manner that makes difficult discussions possible.

That's not censorship, its common sense. There's nothing inevitable about the prevalence on the internet. People have made it so, which means people can make it otherwise. Just because comment is free that doesn't make bigotry permissible.

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"We have the right to sleep with our in-laws and fart loudly in lifts...".

 A great article by Gary Young of The Guardian. I reproduce it in full because it reflects my own thoughts and feelings on this issue. Thanks Gary for writing it.

"Bigoted commenters often resort to a 'free speech' defence. But they rarely consider the effects their words have on others. In a world where few would deny the existence of racism but even fewer would ever admit to propagating it, there will always be the problem of agency. We have racism but no racists – a noun without a subject, a consequence that nobody caused, a system that nobody operates creating victims without perpetrators.

On the web people have the added cover of anonymity, creating an environment where individual writers and entire groups of people are abused because of their race or religion but few have the courage to stand openly behind their statements. On these pages I have been slated as the Guardian's "affirmative action hire", told I was "raising my son to hate white people" and asked to entertain black people's genetic propensity to crime, idiocy, violence and sloth. As I don't know of a single black writer, here or elsewhere, who doesn't deal with this, I know this is not about my work per se.

But what is truly frustrating is the rarity with which those who peddle this intolerance will take responsibility for their own actions and the climate it engenders. When called on their bigotry, usually by other commenters, people usually either escalate their attacks or bristle at the accusation and insist upon their free speech.

As a means of avoiding conversations about what they have done, they instead insist on what they are not. Instead of taking responsibility for what they do they insist instead on their right to do it. Faced with the concrete fact of their actions they retreat into the abstract notion of their entitlements.

The internet did not create this situation. When I started my column, before it was possible to comment online, one journalist wrote a letter in response to a piece I'd done about Britishness: "You clearly know nothing about your country," he wrote. "This piece may set you on the road towards partial knowledge." The piece, written by the reactionary historian Paul Johnson, was also sent to me by another reader who made personal threats. That one, I was told by the paper, I had to take to the police. It turned out the sender had links to organised racists with a track record of violence.
But the internet has certainly exacerbated it, because people feel empowered to be far more insulting when communicating anonymously through a modem than they do in person.

So let us take these instigators of racial animus at their word and assume, since we cannot prove otherwise, that they are trying to engage in good faith. Let's imagine for a moment that no racists comment on the Guardian site or anywhere else and acknowledge that (within legal limits) everyone has the right to say anything they want. You have the right to disparage whole races, ethnicities, faiths and faith itself; you have the right to abuse people on the grounds of their race and religion; you have the right to offend people; you have the right to ignore what the writer is actually arguing and attack them instead for what you imagine they are arguing because of their race and religion; you have the right to be rude, obnoxious, dismissive, ignorant and aggressive. Let us also acknowledge that these rights are important and should be defended.

Even that utopia of absolutisms comes with at least one caveat and two consequences. The caveat is that the right to offend is not the same as an obligation to be offensive or a duty to disparage. We have the right to sleep with our in-laws and fart loudly in lifts. Why, generally, don't we? Because to do so would be antisocial, diminish us in the eyes of others (including those we don't know) and eventually leave us isolated. "I tend to think some things are off-limits,"the eminent academic Stuart Hall once argued. "Not in the sense that you should not say them, but you need some care about how and when you go into them. If you wanted to make a joke about concentration camps, you should think twice. At least twice."
But some people not only seem to never think at all, they actively resent the idea that they should have to think about the effect their words have on others.

Those who cry censorship should understand that this is a shared space and like all shared spaces it has rules and standards. If you don't like them, the internet is a big place.

Sensitivity is not a sign of weakness – it is how we all get through the day. The trouble is that not everybody is deemed worthy of it. People feel comfortable saying things about Muslims or black people, as a group, that they would never say about white people or Christians, as a group. Similarly they feel comfortable saying things about Muslim and non-white writers they would never say about other writers.

Which brings us to the first consequence. That what you write has an effect. If you write something racially offensive then those you have offended will be less likely to participate. The hostile environment to which you have contributed will also become, by definition, a limited and limiting one. What you end up with is a community, where people are excluded because of who they are that then shrinks to a fetid ecosystem including only people who are just like you.

It certainly has an effect on me. When Comment is free started I regularly came in below the line. After a few months of abuse I mostly gave up. As much as I believe in open journalism I don't believe it's my job to wade through racist filth in search of the many gems that undoubtedly may lurk beneath. If I can get into a thread early enough I respond. Otherwise I only do so when moderators have the time to point me to engaging comments worthy of a response.

Second, the right to offend is a two-way street. It means nothing if it is not accompanied by the right to be offended. Those who believe racism is fair game should at the very least understand that calling them on their racism is no less so. You don't have to accept the accusation but if you want to be taken seriously then you have to take the accusation seriously and engage with it. To hide behind your right to free speech is little short of pathetic. 

As I wrote in my most recent book, insensitivity never achieved much. Baiting, ridiculing and humiliating are poor substitutes for satire, irony and humour, although they often masquerade as such. But oversensitivity never achieved very much either. Not every nuance, challenge, wordplay or display of ignorance is a slight; not every slight is worth of being escalated into an incident; not every provocation need be indulged. We all have a duty to help create the "safe spaces" for people to both engage in self-criticism and accept criticism from others. But we have no less a duty to engage in an honest and open manner that makes difficult discussions possible.
That's not censorship, its common sense. There's nothing inevitable about the prevalence on the internet. People have made it so, which means people can make it otherwise. Just because comment is free that doesn't make bigotry permissible.

*********

Guest Poem: Dear Mr. Cameron.....

I was sent this poem by a friend and I thought it worth putting on my blog. I am not sure who the author is, but would like to congratulate them for summing up so eloquently how so many people feel.

Dear Mr. Cameron, you say we're broken and sick
But we're just sick of being broke and putting up with this shit.
Its not pockets of society, it’s about society's pockets
This country eats its young, it’s up to us to stop it
Our Tuition fees tripled and EMA axed
20% V.A.T. and even more and more tax

Tell us Mr. Cameron, how are we supposed to cope?
Growing up with no future, no voice and no hope.
Born into a greedy, materialistic world
Money loving capitalistic little boys and girls

We looted JD and Argos, you say its 'criminal and senseless'
But MPs can take kickbacks disguised as 'expenses'
'Do as I say not as I do' is the governments call
As Banks take the piss and we ALL take the fall
Police and Parliament call us rioters and ‘moral lacking’ vandals
Whilst the Chief Commissioner AND Assistant resign over 'Hacking' scandals

Where do we find good, honest role models to follow?
When our so called should-be leaders are so shallow and hollow
So we're left jaded, misguided and ultimately lost
As we rage against the machine you're just counting the cost
Instead of examining the problem to get to the root
You ignore all the signs and turn a blind eye to truth

Please Mr Cameron don't just react to save face
Don't play Mr. Tough to make the public feel safe
Your 'Fightback' campaign and the 'all nighter' courts
May have sent out a 'message' but justice fell short

BBC and SKY News distorting the facts
Subtlety pitching the whites against blacks
But this ain't about colour, race, or aggression
It's about the corruption that caused the recession

Violence is not acceptable Mr Cameron we agree
But if it wasn't for the riots would you even see me?
Would you see the gangs or the deprived neighbourhoods
Or the fact the property ladder is off bounds for good
We regret loss of life, we regret we caused harm
R.I.P. Shazad Ali, Abdul Musavir and Haroon Jahan

Mark Duggan’s death was not the cause of the riot.
His family's protest was peaceful and quiet.
Still 333 deaths since 1998
By the hands of Police but not ONE prosecution to date
There's only so much a young nation can take.
But you squeeze and you push, and you bend ‘til we break
Then we blow leaving anarchy and chaos in our wake
So learn a lesson Mr Cameron don't repeat the mistake
You have choice wrong or right but which will you choose?
Signed: A generation with nothing to lose.

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Liar Liar

Captain SKA - Liar Liar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFwxw57NBI

Paul O'Grady tells it how it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE88U5CocpM&NR=1


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Capitalism doesn't work - official!

So, Vince Cable has let the cat out of the bag and has highlighted something most (?) of us have known for some time - capitalism doesn't work - or at least it doesn't do what its proponents claim it does. As a "trainee" economist in the early 1970s at Birmingham University I came to this conclusion a bit late (having studied the subject for three years and swallowed the mantra of "perfect competition" and "free market forces" it was only in the last few months of the course that the penny dropped and I began to approach the subject more critically).

The myth of free market forces was, well, just that. In the real world the driving force of business and financial institutions is to eliminate competition, not enhance it. Even the free market model ,within its own logic, fails to deliver a range of essential goods and services. Even if the "market" is operating "perfectly" within theoretical models such things, for example, as public goods (e.g. public parks and open spaces), housing for poor people and a range of other goods and services, currently taken for granted are not delivered. An intervention by the state (either through local or national government) is required to deliver these essential goods. Or (in the context of wages - the price of "labour") the free market results in people being paid at or below minimum subsistence (poverty) wages - hardly something that any of us would really like to see (would we?).

There is a huge amount of ignorance about economics and about how our economic system works in the real world and the underpinning ideologies. Vince Cable has, perhaps unintentionally, done us all a favour. He has opened up a debate that places economics not in the arena of a science and object truth, but very firmly in the realm of society, politics and human agency. Economic systems are not God-given and/or driven by hidden forces beyond human intervention and influence. Rather the reverse. We can intervene and change the way our economy is run and this can be done through political interventions and the collective action of all of us. We can, if we wish and have the inclination, either change or abolish capitalism. Personally I prefer the latter, but in the short to medium term I am prepared to accept the former - if it makes for a fairer and more just way of running things!

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