• >Home
• >Culture and leisure
• >Events
• >Holocaust Memorial Day
• Stand up to Hatred

• Home
• Culture and leisure
• Events
• Holocaust Memorial Day

• Stand up to Hatred

Stand up to Hatred

The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2009 (HMD09) is Stand up to Hatred and explores the expression of hatred in speech and propaganda; how hatred can be enshrined in legislation; the impact of hatred on those who are regarded as different; hate crimes in Britain today and what we can all do to stand up to hatred in our own communities.

In Britain crimes are carried out every day fuelled by hatred of the victim because of their race, religion, nationality, sexuality or disability. HMD09: Stand up to Hatred is an opportunity for you to examine discrimination, exclusion and hatreds which may exist in your own community and make a commitment to tackle them.

Hate. We think we know it, but most of us will never face it. Hatred is a corrosive force, able to ruin lives, wreck co-operation, destroy communities, or races, or nations. It is present in small ways in daily life, but it is at its most lethal in prejudice, discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

In this lethal form it was the driving force in Nazi Germany, in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, in Rwanda in 100 days in 1994, in Bosnia and in other places at other times. And so it is in Darfur today. The past is powerful, from it we can learn to protect ourselves and our communities from the forces of hatred.

Britain today is not Nazi Germany, nor Cambodia, nor Bosnia at the time of genocide. But the evils of prejudice, discrimination and intolerance are still with us. We categorise, stereotype, discriminate, exclude, bully, persecute, attack – because of race, religion, disability, sexuality. We damage, and are damaged, as a result of our refusal to accept our common humanity.
Acts of hatred always involve making a choice. We choose to attack, to abuse, to exclude, to stand back and do nothing – or we choose to resist, to respect, to protect.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2009 challenges us all to Stand Up to Hatred. It urges all of us to look at our behaviour to others; to understand how hate is directed against different minorities in Britain today; to explore how each of us can help make our communities stronger and safer.

HMD09 is an opportunity to forge links across ALL the diverse strands of local community lives, to build understanding and to unite in a common cause.

Find out more about the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (opens in a new window)