The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein had some harsh words for a number of world leaders and political figures during a security and justice conference on Monday. Calling out Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, along with others around the world such Dutch leader Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen of the French National Front, and Nigel Farage of Britain, Commissioner Hussein accused them of pushing “humiliating racial and religious prejudice”, stating that their actions can lead to a rise of populism that could “turn violent.”
He went further, making a striking comparison between these people and the ever-vicious, most well known terror group of the moment, ISIS.
Saying that they were employing fear tactics similar to that of the terror group, Commissioner Hussein stated that “Make no mistake, I certainly do not equate the actions of nationalist demagogues with those of Daesh…But in its mode of communication, its use of half-truths and oversimplification, the propaganda of Daesh uses tactics similar to those of the populists.”
He ends with a word of caution, a warning that we should have all learned from history a long time ago about how effectively xenophobia and bigotry have been “weaponized” through the ages. Clearly, this lesson seems to fly right over most people’s heads, even when it stares them right in the face.
If you ask me, it could be that some don’t want to take that lesson to heart…that they rather enjoy the implications of such warnings.