Political rhetoric in Britain has taken the country into “the foothills of genocide”, according to Scotland’s leading scholar on issues related to refugees.
Professor Alison Phipps, who also works with the Scottish Government on asylum policy, said in today's Big Read with journalist Neil Mackay that the discussion around refugees by British politicians had “characteristics that you can find in descriptions of the processes of genocide”.
Phipps holds the Unesco chair in refugee integration at Glasgow University, and chairs the New Scots Leadership Board. It operates in partnership with the Scottish Government, coordinating refugee integration. She’s also an OBE.
She spoke out in a wide-ranging interview in the Herald on Sunday.
Part of her expertise is the study of genocide, including the causes of the Holocaust, and work on the Bosnian genocide.
Phipps pointed to some of the extreme behaviour and comments around anti-asylum protests, such as demonstrators holding banners reading ‘kill ‘em’ all’, Lucy Connolly – a Tory councillor’s wife – calling for asylum hotels to be set on fire, and demonstrators giving Nazi salutes.
“We’re getting very close to something terribly tragic like Rostock happening,” she said. Rostock in Germany was the scene of violent rioting when mobs set light to an apartment block housing asylum seekers. Neighbours cheered on the rioters.
Phipps referred to the ‘the ten stages of genocide’ by the international organisation Genocide Watch. Britain has ticked off a number of these warnings signs, she believes.
When it comes to ‘dehumanisation’ – which is stage four – Phipps says that political rhetoric, such as refugees being referred to as ‘swarms’ or an ‘invasion’ by politicians, fits the definition.
Stage five of the Genocide Watch list is ‘organisation’. Phipps believes that the organisation of far-right riots, coordinated on social media, and with “money flowing in”, ticks that warning box.
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Another stage is ‘denial’. Phipps says this involves people saying “we’re not like that, we don’t do that, this isn’t who we are, this isn’t something we could ever do in Britain”.
However, she pointed again to banners urging the murder of asylum seekers and calls to burn down hotels.
She referred to another stage: preparation. To Phipps this means the “setting aside of international law”.
She noted Reform’s plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, and the UN Convention Against Torture, as well as calls for refugees to be interned in “camps".
She added: “It’s important to state that every society is always on a path to genocide potentially. It’s something humans keep doing to ourselves.
“We say ‘never again’, but it happens again and again. The reasons it happens repeatedly is that states didn’t have the courage to act and society suddenly finds itself over a cliff.
“Genocide is something humans are capable of when international and domestic safeguards are eroded.”
Genocide, Phipps says, “begins culturally, often in language first. Violence always has cultural seeds. It’s why hate speech legislation is vital as a preventative measure”.
Phipps said that “genocide is a process not a single action or event”, and that “ticks are being made on the list”.
In terms of how many stages of genocide Britain has met, Phipps said: “I think we’re sitting at around four, but with elements of five.”
She added: “We’re in the foothills of genocide, and worrying signs which scholars use to identify the process of genocide are present in society and require remedy.”
Phipps, who fostered a refugee child, has received death threats for her work. She fears that “lives will be lost” unless “demonisation” ceases. That requires political leadership, she says.
She praised First Minister John Swinney’s speech this week in which he spoke of “common humanity” and Scotland’s “commitment to the oppressed and those seeking sanctuary”.
Swinney said: “Our Saltire is a flag of welcome … refugees are welcome here”.
Read Neil Mackay's Big Read here
