![]() What makes the situation more dangerous is technology. But as a rising tide of hatred against immigrants and minority groups surges through many parts of the world, including India, it is useful to recognise the early alerts of this toxicity, to see how ordinary people can be made part of a hatred-spewing machinery. Hopefully, the world will never witness such unspeakable horrors again. Nazi propaganda did not start from first principles it tapped into pre-existing stereotypes, and amplified it massively. Once propaganda had succeeded in pin-pointing who would be excluded from this envisioned national community, it was easier to ram through measures against these groups - Jews, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, political dissidents, even Germans with physical disabilities. In order to “otherise” certain groups, it was also necessary to sell the myth of a homogenous “national community” to Germans looking for affirmation of national pride and greatness. As Holocaust historians tell us, Nazi propagandists helped shape the regime’s policies and practices by publicly identifying groups for exclusion, then instigating hatred towards them and rationalising their marginalised status to the general populace. ![]() The classic and oft-cited example comes out of Nazi Germany’s playbook - how it went about defining the enemy. To be sustained, it needs constant nourishment, a continuous flow of toxic ideas which seek to “otherise” and demonise a group of people simply for who they are. It is manufactured and culturally engineered. ![]() Hatred of any community is not automatic.
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