Fee Hutch (she/her)

Do watch 'The Experiment' Watch it here on Channel 4: channel4.com/programmes/the-… It offers some history on Aktion T4, the nazi Germany systematic killing of sick, disabled, mentally ill, learning disabled, children & adults from 1939 - 1945 where up to 300,000 were murdered. The forced sterilisation programme ran from 1933. Children & adults were murdered by lethal injection, starvation, and gassing (chamber & mobile van gassing), before it was implemented larger scale in the concentration camps. Mass murder didn't start there, it started with words, propaganda campaigns, to convince the population that disabled people were a burden not deserving of life. This programme was a social experiment to demonstrate how people could be convinced that it's a good idea. Participants were disabled actors with members of the public filmed on a fake tour of a fake residential home using nazi era ideas. The public were unaware of the experiment. The "workshop" showed disabled people doing what we know to be 'industrial therapy', which was still seen in the late 80s in the UK in the old style sprawling asylums like Napsbury and Friern and medium secure units. The public tour participants didn't appear to appreciate the demeaning nature of this. Residents wore uniform clothing, which reminded me of my experience of seeing shared clothing & no underwear in "cheaper" private care homes for older people in the 80s. It was only in the dormitory style barren bedroom with lockers did some tour participants start to question it, though others considered it acceptable. The Experiment held up a mirror to the current demonisation of disabled people, to the rhetoric from politicians, rightwing journalists, MSM, broadcasters, Think Tanks. The nazis wanted genetic supremacy, and used economic burden to achieve their aims. Currently, politicians, MSM, broadcasters and journalists, peddle a not dissimilar rhetoric using economic productivity with economic blame and burden as their method of propaganda and persuasion. Mass killing never starts with injections, starvation, gas, guns, bombs, it starts with words, with a constant drip-feed of othering and propaganda until people are persuaded. What this programme demonstrated is that yes, people can be persuaded. But it also showed us that people can recognise dehumanisation and voice it, those are the voices we must encourage. Susan Sontag, on being asked about what she had learnt reflecting on the Holocaust said that 10% of any population is cruel, 10% is merciful, and the remaining 80% can be moved in either direction. IDS, Jeremy Vine, Helen Whately, Fraser Nelson, Tice, Lee, so many MPs, Mail, Telegraph, Spectator, profs who don't stand up to the daily onslaught, everyone who looks the other way, need to think about which 10% are they? We need to get the 80% to join the merciful 10%.