We Need to Find New Ways to Fight Hatred in The World
Due to the recent events, massive sparks of antisemitism in Europe, governments all over the world must find new solutions to deal with it.
Albert Einstein once said that it is strange to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. The same thing applies to an existing collective approach to combating antisemitism.
Since the Holocaust tragedy, despite all of the efforts of the European government, the world hasn’t seen such levels of hatred as this year. During the first half of this year, there were 767 antisemitic sparks only in Europe. That is the highest level since 1984. The most disturbing is the 78 percent rise of violent assaults, comparing to the same period in 2016.
Jewish communities are broadly affected throughout Europe, including France and Germany, which shows the severity and urgency to the situation.
Traditionally, fighting this problem has focused on “minimization” as opposed to eradication. But due to the burning situation that occurred, European government need to make a paradigm shift. It should include being smarter, more proactive and creative. But to achieve this whole world, not just the Jewish community, must undergo serious changes.
Vladimir Sloutsker, the president of the Israel-Jewish Congress, stated that Europe must adopt a universal definition of antisemitism. The Israeli-Jewish Congress has advocated for it for quite some time now because if one cannot define it, it won’t be defeated at all.
Also, it is important to emphasize that education is essential to any campaign that is focused on defeating antisemitism. People should be educated not only on the history of antisemitism, the Holocaust and bigotry but clarify the vital contribution of Jewish people and specialties of their culture. National governments need to pay attention to educating youth about what the hate crime is.
All of us are not born to hate, we learn this emotion through life. If we can shift this mindset at a young age, we can get a crucial difference.
Another important point is that we need to recognize that the situation with Jewish people is not unique. We can find the same examples of hatred in the history of other nations. In this situation, it starts with the Jews, but it never ends with the Jews. Today we also can see intolerance at parts of society and many other minorities and consequently the Jewish community should cooperate with other faith groups to find the best ways to deal with the situation.
Finding solutions must be a burning problem to the society as a whole and not be left only to the Jews – stated Katharina von Schnurbein, the EU Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism. Also, she admitted that we need to be creative about how we spread these messages. As the modern generation is all about social media, the use of it is critical.
The digital realm has become an important battleground and platform for spreading antisemitism and hate. Therefore greater pro-active actions need to be taken to deal with the current situation. But at the same time, social media gives an opportunity to reach new audiences worldwide.
By utilizing pre-existing legal frameworks within various EU countries and exposing hatred, we can push the shutdown of hate speech immediately and hope that law will prevent people from similar acts.
Former UK Chief Rabbi, Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, once described antisemitism as a “mutating virus.” And we must find an antidote to this virus as soon as possible.
Vladimir Sloutsker, the president of the Israel-Jewish Congress, said that governments must declare their support whilst making resources available for the fight against all forms of hate crime. The power is in our hands, we can stop antisemitism and all forms of hate speech. We already have technological innovations that give us opportunities to combat the current situation. The EU was built on a foundation of openness and tolerance, but it struggles with the tensions borne between identity and globalization. The fight against all forms of hate crime must be done proactively if the EU itself wants to survive.
