Remembering is not enough, Canada needs more genocide education

Last fall, the Toronto District School Board cancelled an address by Yazidi genocide survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad, reasoning it would lead to Islamophobia. The cancellation made international news, and subsequent scrutiny forced the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) to reverse its decision. The incident highlighted a larger problem: Canada’s youth, and their educators, are poorly educated about genocide. Without an understanding of genocide, Canadians are left unable to understand current human rights violations at home and abroad. This month marks the seventh anniversary of Canada’s official recognition of April as Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation, and Prevention Month. This year, a coalition of advocacy organizations representing victims of recognized genocides, including the Armenian National Committee of Canada, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the Humura Association, Romanipe, Project Abraham, the Rohingya Human Rights Network, and the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, issued a warning: lack of education about genocide leads to complacence about the actions of authoritarian states. Russia is waging a war of annihilation against Ukraine. To Russian president Vladimir Putin, Ukraine is not a sovereign nation but a people who must submit to Russia’s power and domination or be destroyed. Between 1932 and 1933, Soviet Russia instigated a famine-genocide that killed 3.9 million Ukrainians. As news out of Ukraine today proves, for Putin, as for past Russian leaders, Ukrainian lives mean little. The lack of knowledge about genocide facilitates Turkish president (and quasi-dictator) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s continued denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide, which killed an estimated 1.5 million. This negation emboldens Erdogan to bulldoze ethnic minorities, encourage Azerbaijan’s military aggression, and invade neighbouring countries. Targets of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, Jews are accused of “Jewish supremacism,” turning victims into perpetrators. Their nation-state, Israel, is labeled a “racist” enterprise that Iran and its allies (Hezbollah, Hamas, among others) are sworn to destroy. The old canards of Jewish control of media, governments, and banks—language used by Hitler and his henchmen—circulate widely today. China is detaining millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps where they are subjected to torture, political indoctrination, forced labour, and organ harvesting. Uyghur children are separated from their parents and raised as ethnically Chinese, erasing their cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage. China’s ruthless hostage diplomacy, imprisoning Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, is another shocking example of its disregard for basic human rights. To be truly committed to human rights, we must understand the genocides officially recognized by Canada, draw lessons from them, and do better. For that, we need to understand stories like Nadia Murad’s. But, as our lives continue to migrate online, our most popular platforms fill with hate, misinformation, and disinformation. Originally a connection platform for students, Facebook was used by Myanmar’s military to help fuel a genocide against the Rohingya people. Anti-Rohingya content, including racist political cartoons, falsified images, and staged news reports, normalized hate speech, and shaped public perception. Violence against Rohingya people is now celebrated online. From the Second World War to the Balkan wars of the late 1990s, history has shown that the plight of Roma and other minorities is dismissed, thereby rendered invisible. Platforms are littered with content that portrays Roma as criminal, uneducated, deservedly outcast. Hate speech and propaganda were catalysts of the genocidal violence against Rwandan Tutsis. Claiming it aimed “to create harmonious development in Rwandese society,” radio station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines was financed by Hutu extremists to demonize the Tutsi people, encourage hate, and pave the way to genocide. Today, social media disseminates propaganda denying, distorting, and minimizing the genocide of the Tutsi people, reminding us that democracy cannot be served if hate is leveraged as a tool to incite the violation of human rights. We therefore call for swift action to remove hate from our online communities. Canada’s federal government should do more to prevent hateful and racist content online, and social media platforms should be compelled to remove hateful and extremist content. For refugees fleeing current conflicts, we ask the government to return to pre-2017 policy and cancel the refugee status document requirement for G5 and Community sponsors under Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR). We urge the government to accelerate the in-Canada process for PSR (Private sponsorship of refugees program) applications. Once under 30 days, the average visa wait time is now six to 18 months before processing. We call for the re-establishment of the all-party parliamentary group for genocide prevention to educate MPs about genocide and equip them with the tools to lead the fight against genocide and hate. We urge the Government of Canada to continue to work with our communities to ensure that "Never Again" truly means "Never again." Richard Marceau is vice-president of external affairs and general counsel of Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. Ihor Michalchyshyn is CEO and executive director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. Sevag Belian is executive director of the Armenian National Committee of Canada. The Hill Times