Alexander McCall Smith

   "Former people," said Isabel. "I was thinking about the people that the Bolsheviks described as 'former people.' They were anybody whom they regarded as enemies of their revolution. It's such a chilling term. They had no rights to anything, really—no right to work, no property, no freedom. The only right they had was the right to be shot."

   "They actually used the term former people?" asked Andy.

   "Yes," said Isabel. "It's chilling, isn't it? And that sort of attitude has had many followers: Nazis, Pol Pot, Jean Kambanda in Rwanda—it's quite a big club. Deny somebody else's humanity and human worth and you're on a very well worn and familiar road."

—The Conditions of Unconditional Love (2024), p. 76.