Holocaust Memorial Day, ‘Ordinary People’, and Climate Change

By Alan Bellamy, former editor of the Voice for Arran

Holocaust Memorial Day just took place on the 27th of January and is when we remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

In the words of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, “this is a time when we seek to learn the lessons of the past and recognise that genocide does not just take place on its own – it’s a steady process which can begin if discrimination, racism and hatred are not checked and prevented.

Genocide is facilitated by ordinary people. Ordinary people turn a blind eye, believe propaganda, join murderous regimes. And those who are persecuted, oppressed and murdered in genocide aren’t persecuted because of crimes they’ve committed – they are persecuted simply because they are ordinary people who belong to a particular group (for example Roma, Jewish, Tutsi)”
In all genocides those ordinary people who are the perpetrators have choices. In some situations those choices are limited and sometimes life-or-death decisions have to be made. Some ordinary citizens make brave decisions to rescue or hide others, or to stand up and protest. But other ordinary people take the decision to ignore what is going on around them, to be bystanders, to allow genocides to continue. So the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day was ‘Ordinary People.’

As a Jew I know very well that the continued commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day is vital if we are to remember and learn anything from these dreadful events, particularly today as we see the resurgence of far right, populist and authoritarian governments around the world, with their racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic rhetoric.

But suppose we widen the focus here to consider something rather different – today’s changing climate – but staying with the theme of ‘Ordinary People’. Already here in the UK we are seeing the first effects of a destabilised climate, with more severe dry periods, heavier rainfalls, and last year being confirmed as the UK’s hottest on record, with the average annual temperature passing the 10C mark for the first time. Elsewhere the effects have been far greater, and far more lethal. Intense heat and massive flooding have caused tens of thousands of deaths around the world, and the displacement of millions. This will only get worse year on year as we continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere and we approach tipping points that will cause exponential increases in levels of destruction and death.

So are we like the ordinary people who made decisions to ignore what was going on around them, to be bystanders, to allow this worldwide crisis to continue, to worsen? For this is a human-induced crisis and our behaviour can make a difference. There are the individual things we can do like not flying unless it is absolutely necessary(1), increasing the proportion of plant-based foods we eat(2), insulating our homes better(3), and then there are the big collective things, such as supporting the campaigns for disinvestment in fossil fuels and in the banks and companies that continue to promote them, and supporting the groups and organisations, both local and national, and political parties that fully acknowledge the severity of the climate crisis and really want to do something about it.

To be sure, it is more comfortable to ignore the evidence of the world’s climate scientists and our own eyes, and to passively accept the misinformation and greenwashing of the corporations and politicians with vested financial interests in maintaining the status quo. The conscious, wilful undermining of public confidence in scientific research has been termed denialism. It was used for years by the tobacco industry to obscure the harm caused by smoking, and more recently by oil companies to discredit or minimise the increasing evidence of global heating.

Back in 1987 the psychoanalyst Hanna Segal wrote a paper entitled ‘Silence is the real crime’ with reference to the existential dangers of nuclear weapons, but her argument is equally applicable to the climate crisis. There is now a sizable body of psychological work looking at the reasons we avert our eyes and minds (as is illustrated so well in the film Don’t Look Up). Sally Weintrobe in her book Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis(4) describes two forms of denial – negation, saying what is clearly true is not true, and disavowal, accepting the truth but saying it does not matter, it need not concern us, it may have useful benefits. Disavowal finds any way it can to avoid our feelings being disturbed. Both negation and disavowal thrive in a culture of denialism (and there are echoes here of how Holocaust denial works too).

Of course it is very distressing to acknowledge that it is already too late to stop many of the destructive effects of climate breakdown, but we can still attempt to soften those effects, which will be felt most by our children and grandchildren and by already disadvantaged populations around the world, through the choices we make. Ordinary people we may be, but as long as we don’t look away we can make a difference.

1 Mile for mile, flying is by far the most damaging way to travel for the climate.
2 The climate impact of plant-based foods is typically 10 to 50 times smaller than that of animal products.
3 The UK has the highest levels of heat loss from homes in Western Europe.
4 Weintrobe S. (2021) Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis. Bloomsbury.