Tag Archives: donald trump

After the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust, the world united to say ‘never again’. Never again would any state be allowed to persecute a section of the population on the grounds of their religious beliefs, ethnic background or nationality. Never again would the rhetoric of discrimination and ‘othering’ which allows such persecution to prosper be allowed to gain a foothold in our societies. Never again would we allow the fundamental dignity of all human beings to be so completely eradicated as it had been by the Nazi regime.

Post-World War Two, we as Westerners have been fortunate enough to live in a world in which we have had ample opportunity to learn these lessons, and no excuse to forget them. They have been drilled into us through our education, through remembrance services and through a wealth of documentation of the horrors of the Second World War in the media and in cinema. To varying degrees, we have all been brought up with some understanding of the events which led to the systematic murder of several million Jews, as well as members of other minority groups and countless political opponents. We know the dangers of allowing a stigma against minority groups to fester and to be propagated by the state through claims which tend to be founded on lies, or ‘alternative facts’.

And yet, today, in the year of 2017, the question of just how far these lessons have truly been heeded appears more acute than ever. If the warning sirens were not already sounding during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, they must be heard loud and clear now in the first weeks of his presidency. Never again must the world stand by and watch as one of its most powerful states descends towards the oppression of minority groups and the erosion of fundamental rights.