ON MANY occasions I have said that one of the greatest successes of the referendum campaign was how it galvanised young people to discuss and become active in politics.

I have had the great pleasure and privilege of being invited to schools across Pollok and up and down the city to meet with some of these young people, taking part in debates and meeting with Modern Studies classes.

My most recent visit to a school was to a 3rd year Modern Studies class at Rosshall Academy in Crookston. I was invited along with several other elected members, including my colleague Councillor Alex Wilson, to meet with Rosshall’s “Action Groups” of young people campaigning for action and change on a range of local, national and international issues.

During our grilling session I was astounded by the pupils’ depth of knowledge on a wide variety of issues, from cleaning up Penilee Park to reducing inequality and the gender pay gap to supporting the local G51 parking campaign.

Obviously much of the credit has to go to the pupils.

However, I have to take my hat off to all the teachers who find the time to nurture and support this enthusiasm.

Over my time as an MSP I have visited Rosshall Academy many times and got to know some of the teachers well, including this Modern Studies class’ teacher, Olivia Drennan.

Ms Drennan’s passion for her job shines through her pupils every time I stop by.

Every year on January 27 we observe Holocaust Memorial Day, remembering the millions killed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

However, the day is not only focussed on that one awful period in history, but also continuously assessing the world we live in today and considering how we can prevent such atrocities from ever happening again.

The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day was, Don’t Stand By – a call for people to stand up and speak out whenever they encounter any kind of discrimination, whether it be racism, anti-semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, ableism or misogyny.

This sort of behaviour might sound to you like playground taunts and bullying, but when practiced en masse and normalised it can lead to the kind of horrors we saw in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.

We must never forget the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

It is important to remember also the many millions of others who were persecuted and slaughtered by the Nazis including Trade Unionists, those suspected of being LGBT, mentally ill and physically disabled people, communists, Roma, Slavs and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in the context of a society where unmitigated prejudice was rife and in which the majority continuously scapegoated minorities.

We say ‘never again’, but 20 years ago we witnessed genocide once again on European shores, in the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War.

Today in different parts of the world we are again seeing the targeting of particular communities – from the Islamophobic rhetoric on the rise in Europe to the homophobic legislation being actively enforced in countries like Russia, Uganda and Nigeria.

#DontStandBy is about standing up to the sort of discriminatory attitudes, jokes and behaviour which can normalise hatred and escalate to violence and the violation of human rights.