Op-ed: Put “Othering” back into the dustbin of history

‘Othering’ was once a term most closely associated with the Holocaust. Yet the practice long predates Nazism. It was present in the transatlantic slave trade and in imperial conquests, used to rationalise violence against those cast as inferior or expendable.

The Nazis and their allies refined this process into a systematic doctrine. They labelled Jewish people Untermenschen — subhuman — and constructed an ideological framework in which exclusion, segregation and ultimately extermination could be justified. We now recognise that this dehumanisation was the first stage of genocide, followed by ghettos, concentration camps and death camps.

For the perpetrators, othering served a strategic purpose. It reframed mass murder as duty. It normalised the actions of death squads. It also discouraged intervention by bystanders, whether through fear or moral numbing.

In Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning examines how a reserve police battalion composed largely of older, married men — some with children and grandchildren — murdered 1,600 Jewish women, children and elderly people in a single afternoon near Józefów. They had been explicitly told they could step aside if they found the task too distressing. Around 20 per cent refused. Eighty per cent participated. Browning’s conclusion is stark: most were not ideological Nazis, but they were bound by group loyalty and had internalised the framing of Jews as “other”.

After the war, human rights instruments and international courts were intended to make such dehumanisation harder. The principle was clear: every human being possesses inalienable rights, regardless of nationality, race or religion.

Recent wars have exposed how fragile that principle remains. The language and logic of othering have returned.

Consider three examples.

First, reports indicate that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire. The response in much of the Western political and media sphere has been muted. The contrast is unavoidable: if hundreds of Israelis had been killed in comparable circumstances, the reaction would have been immediate, sustained and emotionally saturated.

Second, the bombing of an Iranian primary school reportedly killing 165 schoolchildren received limited attention in Western coverage. If an Iranian missile had struck an Israeli primary school with similar casualties, the global response would have been wall-to-wall reporting, repeated images of the victims, extensive interviews with grieving families, and unequivocal denunciations. Civilian deaths are crimes wherever they occur. The disparity in reaction signals a hierarchy of whose lives are treated as fully human.

Third, the celebratory tone adopted by senior US officials, including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, following the sinking of an Iranian vessel in international waters — resulting in the deaths of over one hundred sailors — would likely have been unthinkable had the roles been reversed. If an Iranian attack had killed one hundred US sailors thousands of miles from American shores, the political and media response would have been explosive. The moral asymmetry again reflects selective recognition of suffering.

Othering is not confined to distant battlefields. Protests outside asylum accommodation centres have carried slogans demanding mass expulsion. In Falkirk, a banner reportedly declared “kill them all”. This is dehumanisation in its most explicit form.

Such rhetoric must be confronted directly. Media institutions bear responsibility for the language they normalise. Political actors who legitimise collective blame should be identified plainly for what they are promoting.

The majority who still believe that human rights apply universally must assert that conviction publicly. Large, united demonstrations against racism across Scotland in the run-up to the election on 7 May would signal that othering has no place in public life.