Engaging Community Against the Tide of Indifference

Yom HaShoah reminds us that the Holocaust must never be forgotten and that we must remain vigilant against all forms of prejudice and hatred to ensure that such unspeakable acts of inhumanity never happen again.

  - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 27 April 2014

Earlier this month I was in Weimar, Germany to commemorate the liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, one of the places where the Holocaust took place.

It was an occasion both somber and celebratory as survivors remembered lost friends, but also marked their own survival.  They've lasted a lot longer than the Third Reich did.

As part of the commemorative weekend, the IKBD - the international association of Buchenwald survivors (like my grandfather) and family members (like myself) held our AGM to discuss the next year's activity, but also the alarming rise in Europe of ethnic intolerance in general but antisemitism in particular.  

Bertrand Hertz, IKBD President and survivor, said that it's no longer enough to say "never again", because it's increasingly clear we are indeed heading down that same, dark path.

The question was posed - what can we do to ensure the lessons from the Buchenwald story are remembered, but also applied here and now?  The question was largely directed at decedents like myself.  

Buchenwald survivors have spent 70 years raising their voices; they have done there part.  It's time for others to pick up that mantle.  But where to begin?

Bertrand, who accompanied US President Barack Obama during his visit to Buchenwald, said pointedly that today's politics is part of the problem.  At all levels, polarization is extreme and hate is once again becoming a valid tool for political mobilization.  Populism, simplistic messaging and austerity measures that target those with the weakest voices are increasingly common. 

It's just good business.

When I spoke, I focused on the concept of dehumanization; the only way one human being can justify the ill-treatment of another is by reducing them to lesser form of life.  What do we refer to people we don't like as?  Vermin, pigs, wolves, sharks - animals.  

The angrier we get, the more fearful we become, the easier it becomes to dehumanize others.  It's basic behavioural economics.  That, after all, was what the Camps were designed to do - reduce inefficiencies due to the human element by dehumanizing The Other.  

The Concentration Camps were prison camps - to the Nazis, inmates were law-breakers.  As such, they had a penance to pay, but also had to earn their keep through hard labour.  The Nazis figured out that if you lumped all your undesirables together, turned them against each other and worked them to death, you were killing several birds with one stone.  

That, I said, is how the pattern works - fear, anger, economize, dehumanize.  Laissez-faire is indifference.

The way to break this cycle, I suggested, was to humanize groups to each other.  Communication, information sharing and project-based partnerships that establish common goals and personalized relationships matter.

Like the Open Data/Open Government movement, I said, we need to be catalysts of community.  We need to find ways to bring people together at a time when the powers that be are trying to drive them apart.  

We must be the opposite of indifference, I suggested.  And where others are content to focus on symptoms - throw one criminal in jail, shout down one racist - we have to think big.   It's not enough to throw starfish back in the ocean; we have to stop the rising tide of indifference and intolerance that threatens to consume us whole.

Vigilance, too, the opposite of indifference.  

How can such a thing be accomplished?  How might we build a community in defiance of inhumanity?

It's not a question one person can answer.  But it is a riddle we can solve together.

Crystal Clear in Quebec

But not to worry, the minister responsible, Bernard Drainville, assures us: "It will be done humanely."  But of course.  They will not be told to get out in a cruel way, but with care, compassion, or what the minister calls "good old common sense."  It will simply be made clear to these people, as kindly as the occasion permits, that, notwithstanding their years of blameless service, their continued employment is incompatible with Quebec's common values - that their insistence on wearing the yarmulke or the turban, in accordance with the deepest teachings of their faith, has become a source of "tension" and "division" and that for that reason they will have to find other work.

There's a shift happening here that goes far beyond just Quebec.  Intolerance is creeping back in to the mainstreet dialogue and even Parliamentary debate in places ranging from Hungary and Greece to our very own Quebec.

I have to admit - when I wrote "I hate to say it, but I would keep an eye out for a party further to the right of the CPC gaining some presence, too" I was particularly thinking about the inevitable rift forming between hard-right social conservatives and their more electoral-win focused brethren in places like Ontario and Alberta.  It still wouldn't surprise me if some of the muzzled or turfed MLAs take their grievances as a rallying cry, turning some of their supporters against the conservative Party's that were once their home.

The angrier your foundations, the more vindictive becomes your direction.  As perhaps opportunistic politicians add legitimacy to xenophobia for their own gain, the haters of our world gain that much more credibility, plus a broader platform to speak from.  That Party's moving in the right direction, they can say in validated fashion; they just need to go further.

How the rest of us and, in particular, our leaders respond to this trend is of critical importance.  You can't ignore it - like cancer, hatred left unchecked will inevitably spread.  At the same time, you don't want to fuel the fire by creating an "us vs. them" mentality that, as in North Korea, justifies increasingly alarming decisions and actions.

This is where neuropsychology comes in.

For ages we have known, in anecdotal fashion, that courage, altruistic acts, a positive spirit and creativity are great tonics against hatred and intolerance.  Thanks to advances in how we understand emotion, behaviour and the engine that drives them, we've gotten better at influencing mind and the social matrix.  Its up to those who would represent the Canadian Idea - above all, strength through diversity - to borrow from neuromarketing and wage a hearts and minds campaign to counter the dangerous direction Quebec's government is taking.

This isn't a Quebec/ROC thing any more than it's a religious people/ROQ thing - it's a human thing.  Politicians and their policies set the tone of the province in much the same way as different corporate leaders change the entire culture of their companies.  Our ultimate goals are twofold:

1) To inoculate people against hatred and intolerance, reducing their efficacy as a populist tool.  

2) To support those within Quebec who would stand against intolerance, ensuring them the safety needed to raise their voices in opposition without fear of undue reprisal.

The main tool for accomplishing this is the same it has been throughout history - education.  

It's time Canada's leaders take their hand off the fear button and stop oppressing information which challenges them; that merely fuels the problem.

It's time Canadians start holding them to that - not narrow mandates and limited focus, but sustainable leadership.

Get informed, folks; get engaged - because, when we do, we can make a difference.

The Politics of Fear Leads To Violence

 

“The English are waking up, the English are waking up ... It's payback ... Yeah, yeah, that’s enough,” the man muttered as police officers led him away in handcuffs. The suspect, a heavyset, bespectacled man, wore a balaclava, shorts and what appeared to be a bathrobe.

 

"I've travelled across this country and what I've seen more than anything is anger. We have angry people."

 

 

You can ignore the source of any frustration for a while, but there comes a point where the penalities of doing nothing outweigh the costs of action.  Walking away - flight - is one such option.  When you remove avoidance from the table, though, there's really just one choice left - fight.

 

 

That's the emerging theme in Canadian politics from the federal level down to the municipal level.  All Parties and operators are pushing the fear and anger buttons.  The choice is no longer between opposing views of policy; it's a choice between one side or "those who would destroy our community/our future/our traditional values/our language/our culture/our education/our healthcare."  It takes strong emotions to shake the electorate from their restful complacency, after all and fear is easier to build and sustain than is hope.

 

 

The same thing is happening around the world, leading to a rise in regional friction and ethnic tensions.  In some places, violence is already the norm.  Where social strife is less prevalent, it's the already emotionally frayed that serve as canaries in the coal mine.  In somnambulant Canada, the people are stewing.  We're a pot slow to boil, but when that happens, people will get scalded.

 

 

"It gets worse before it gets better" is a truism - possibly because we need to be reminded just how bad it can get when we stand against before we remember why we started working together in the first place.

Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney, Take a Stand Against Neo-Nazism

“The time for fear has come for those who betrayed this homeland,” he said at a news conference, flanked by young men with shaved heads.

“We are coming.”

Do I have your attention yet?  Good. 

In an echo of Europe’s tortured past, Nazism, with its association with the Holocaust and horrors of the Second World War, not only survives, but in some instances is thriving.

I have zero interest in saying "I told you so."  I would much rather we avoid repeating mistakes.

We live in an integrated society and will be held accountabile by both our actions and inactions.

Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper - the ball's in your court.

Show the world that Canada stands against hatred and will always, always stand on guard for those in need.