To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, prominent leaders and thinkers share how their beliefs inspire them to action for the Uyghur people.

The Rt Hon and Rt Rev Lord Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury

When Christians say – following what the Hebrew Scriptures affirm – that human beings are made in God’s image, they are not simply saying that every individual is a kind of passive reflection of God.  God is active and God is a ceaseless giver of gifts.  So to say that humans are in the divine image is to say that every human person carries a unique gift which will help to make every other human being more fully alive.

In that sense, the oppression, abuse, humiliation, silencing and, above all, murder of other humans is an offence against all humanity, depriving the human family of the gifts God wishes to give.  The oppressor, abuser or murderer is damaging, even destroying, their own humanity as well as injuring all their fellow humans by attacking some.  If we stand up and call to account those who are responsible for genocidal crime, it is not just a matter of judgement but a matter of pleading with the oppressor for their sake as well as their victims’. To speak in this way is to speak out of love for the violent oppressor as well as the victim – but a love that calls to judgement and demands change.

If every human individual represents and carries a gift from God, the same is true of distinctive communities.  God has not made human beings uniform and regimented; human culture across the world is rich and beautiful because of its diversity, and a world that is truly at peace is one in which communities welcome, delight in and learn from the differences in language and custom and history that surround them in the lives of other communities.  The particular horror of genocide is in its assumption that not only individuals but an entire history can be blotted out. And this is a crime against not only love but truth, a denial of the past that we all share.

We hear often enough these days that we live in a post-truth environment. But this is not as new as we think. The story is often told that Hitler, when one of his colleagues expressed misgivings about how history would look back on the murder of the Jews, said, ‘Who now remembers the Armenians?’ He believed that successful butchery would be able to write its own version of the truth in the long run; that truth was always at the mercy of successful violence. He was wrong about the Armenians; and he was wrong about the Jews and all his other victims.  Precisely because such violence cuts into the living fabric of humanity itself, it cannot be forgotten.  It is what is so powerfully expressed in the biblical language of the blood of the victim crying out from the ground – and in the prayer that can be seen in many memorials of the Shoah: ‘O earth, cover not their blood.’ Power and abuse cannot eradicate truth.  What we say in protest is part of the acknowledgment of this fact.  The attack on any human community is everyone’s business because it assaults everyone’s humanity.

It is not that we condemn any nation or regime as inherently and irredeemably evil.  God knows that all our national histories are scarred by violent and terrible acts.  Only this last year, we have been forced to look again at the history of slavery and its part in the economic development and success of our own country. Recognising that the past has its horrors for every community, that no people is completely innocent, is not a sign of weakness but of strength – the strength to face unwelcome truths in the confidence that we have enough moral energy and clarity to change.  In calling the government of the PRC to account in regard to the treatment of the Uighur people, we appeal to a history of wise and humane thinking in China itself over thousands of years, and plead for actions that will honour that tradition which itself has given the world so much.

To advocate for justice for any national or religious group facing brutal repression and threatened with extinction is not to take up a partisan stance.  It is to risk trying to speak for humanity itself, for the good of all.  It is fatally easy for the oppressor to write off challenges as motivated by narrow national or ideological interests.  This is why it is crucial for the voices of faith to be heard, proclaiming with clarity that they are not trying to defend any partial or exclusive vision but are speaking, protesting and praying for the good of all.  That is why we are here today; seeking to advocate not just for one profoundly suffering and abused community but for the security and well-being of all who bear the divine image and the divine gift.        

Sonam T Frasi, FCA, RAS, Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for Northern Europe, Poland and the Baltic States

A reflection on religious genocide and repression in Tibet under the communist China by Representative Sonam Frasi at the Holocaust Memorial Day on 25th January 2021

On this sombre Holocaust Memorial Day, we are standing shoulder to shoulder and reflecting with the Uyghur people, the atrocities and genocide suffered by all faith communities under the control of Chinese Communist Party. I would like to briefly share the experiences of the Tibetan people’s religion and cultural genocide perpetrated by the Chinese communist party.   

Tibet was invaded by the PLA and is illegally occupied by the communist Chinese regime since the fall of 1949 to date. 

The Tibetan civilisation at its core is the practice of the Buddhist philosophy of peace, non-violence and compassion, which has been nurtured over the past 1000 years. Over the centuries Tibetans have developed and invested heavily in the preservation and development of Buddhism in Tibet. 

Therefore, the Tibetan culture, its language, its literature, writings, thinking and the social way of life of the Tibetan people are embedded in the religious practices and philosophies of the Buddhism.  

Communist China has targeted Tibetan monasteries and religious centres from the very beginning of their occupation to destroy Tibetan loyalty, support and faith in Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhist culture is interwoven in the social fabric of our society and is seen as a big and separate value challenge to the communism. 

Monasteries and Nunneries plays a huge role in social and society at large. They are the seats of learning, centres of scholasticism, libraries for manuscripts, writings of many thousands of teachers and philosophers and centre for cultural imageries and artifacts. 

They are also the centres for the study of painting, sculpture, embroidery, music, dance, chant and ritual. They are the repositories of the treasures of Tibetan civilisation.

It is a fact that the International Commission of Jurists found criminal acts of genocide had been committed in Tibet by the Chinese Communist Party in an attempt to destroy the Tibetans as a religious group and ICJ said that such acts are acts of genocide independently of any conventional obligation.

The ICJ evidence established four principal facts in relation to genocide in Tibet, which the CCP is still practicing with vigour and impunity. They are:

• That the Chinese will not permit adherence to the practice of Buddhism in Tibet
• That they have systematically set out to eradicate this religious belief in Tibet
• That in pursuit of this design they have killed religious figures because their religious belief and practice was an encouragement and example to others
• That they have forcibly transferred large numbers of Tibetan children to a Chinese materialistic environment in order to prevent them from having a religious upbringing

In addition to the above, the CCP has updated their methods of attack on Tibetans by a variety of others means such as destruction of monasteries and nunneries, abduction of the second most important religious person the 11th Panchen Lama, 

They control and limit the entry into Monastic education for young monk and nuns. Monasteries are barred from giving traditional monastic education and are instead replaced with ‘Patriotic Education’

Under the campaign of the so-called Patriotic Education, they force the monks and nuns to denounce the Dalai Lama and force them to declare their allegiance toward the Communist Party leadership and forced them to display the portrait of the Chinese communist leaders and the Chinese national flag in their homes and in monasteries. 

It is now 70 years that the Chinese have ruled and tried to change us. It haven’t succeeded and it will never succeed.

The current CCP mantra of Sinicisation of all and every aspect of Tibetan religion, culture, language, thoughts are a gross attempt of social transformation, social engineering and cultural genocide. Uygurs and Tibetans suffer in tandem under the yoke of the Chinese occupation. They are forcing us to be like a Han Chinese by stealth. 

In conclusion I would like to share the following prayer of wisdom, solidarity and oneness of all humanity by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and it is called Never Give up:

Never Give Up

No matter what is going on
Never give up
Too much energy is our country 
is spent developing the mind instead of the heart
Be compassionate, not just to your friends but to everyone
Be compassionate, work for peace in your heart and in the world
And I say again Never give up
No matter what is happening
No matter what is going on around you
Never give up
No matter how strong the wind of evil may blow
The light of truth can never be extinguished
Never give up

Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK and President of Humanists International

Humanists are nonreligious people who believe that the universe is a natural place with no supernatural side and that this life is the only life we know we have. People who believe that morality is something not given to us from outside by some extra human source but something intrinsic to our evolved  social nature, built on by thousands of years of culture to nurture good values. And humanists see the meaning of life not as something out there to be discovered but see that every human being creates meaning by giving it to the events in our lives and through the connections we make, and through our pursuits.

Today there’s a modern humanist movement connecting 120 organisations in 60 countries and Humanists UK is one of the oldest humanist organisations in the world, celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. But the humanist values I’ve described - and the beliefs - are as old as the written recollections of humanity itself. We find them expressed up to 3000 years ago in Europe, India, China: everywhere we find men and women taking time to think about the big questions of our existence, we find the humanist alternative offered forward. 

From a humanist perspective there are two things that I want to say today: a political thing and a moral thing.

First the political thing. From the humanist point of view, governments are constituted to safeguard and advance the freedom of their people. Freedom of choice in how to live, freedom of conscience, thought, and belief, freedom of expression and association, the freedom to pursue our own idea of the good life, the life well lived. And this is connected of course to the humanist conviction that there’s no future life in which we can see happiness, fulfilment, or completion. If completion is to occur, if happiness is to come about, if fulfilment is to be achieved, it must happen in this life. For that reason and because we all want to be able to live the life of our choosing, governments should enable and empower and free their people to achieve these ends. The concept of the ‘open society’ is probably the greatest contribution of humanist political thought to wider humanity in the 20th century and the humanist thinkers that developed it, like Karl Popper, directly based their account of the need for this concept on the atrocities of the first half of the 20th century which we commemorate today and the repetition of which we bear witness to. Governments should never tell you what to think, governments should never be able to take away your dignity, your liberty, your life, for having the wrong thoughts or making the wrong choices, if they harm no one else. China is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which embodies these beliefs and values. Its government should uphold them.

The moral thing I want to say is about our shared humanity. This isn’t a belief unique to humanists, though humanists perhaps lean on it more heavily than others - for humanists our shared humanity is the beginning, middle, and end of our moral commitments. There are no separately created races or nations. We human beings, all connected and related to one another, are all children of this earth, living together in the only home we have ever known. The existence of the human species as one family, the legitimate claim to equal and dignified treatment that every human being has on every other human being, in light of each human being’s wish to have that for themselves. These moral convictions call us as humanists as a duty to speak up for persecuted people whoever they are, and wherever.

We gather here today in the light of Holocaust Memorial Day. Humanist organisations were banned early in the Third Reich - in 1933 and Hitler celebrated in a speech that he had successfully won his ‘fight against the atheist movement’ and ‘stamped it out’. The attempted annihilation of humanist culture in Germany (and humanist culture was strong in Germany, even the English word humanism came to us in the nineteenth century from the German Humanismus) was very successful. It has taken many years for humanist organisations in Germany to restore themselves to the membership numbers and social recognition they enjoyed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The atrocities of the mid-20th century have given us a permanent example, a horrifying and well documented example, of how we can be dehumanized by ideology and by political conformity. They give us another lesson too, because they teach us of the perils of the failure of human solidarity.

Most people did not speak up for the humanists of Germany when their associations were broken up, or the trade unionists, or the political opponents, or then the Jews when the genocide began, the Roma, the lesbians and gay men. Even most of those who knew it was wrong looked the other way. 

We know now that it is only when we do speak up for the freedom and humanity of others, that our society can be a peaceful space for all.

Today in over thirty countries it is unlawful or illegal to set up humanist organizations, identify as a humanist, or express humanist beliefs. This living experience of marginalisation, discrimination, persecution, judicial muder and extra-judicial killing, which I have seen around the world through Humanists International, motivates me to speak out not just for humanists but for all who suffer. That is why I called last year at the United Nations Human Rights Council for action against China’s genocidal actions against the Uighur people and why humanist organisations have done so consistently for the last few years at the UN and elsewhere.

 But even if it weren’t the case that, as we sit here today, there are humanists today as we sit here, living in fear, facing torture and death, I would still be called upon to speak out for the universal rights of all people. There are no humanist mottos or commandments, but I find inspiration in the aphorism of the Roman playwright Terence, written two millennia ago: ‘I am a human being - nothing human is alien to me’.

Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, Senior Rabbi of Masorti Judaism

In Solidarity – Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

It is hard to speak after Ziba’s heart-rending words. Her urgent and searing testament brings to mind my own family’s history in Nazi Germany: the flight into exile, the disappearances, the unanswered letters, the silence. 

We are gathered in this week of Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 to share messages, first and foremost with the persecuted, but also with their persecutors and, not least, with ourselves, who are in potential either allies or bystanders. 

Incarcerated by the Nazis and their allies, enclosed in ghettoes, forcibly parted from their families, deported and corralled to their deaths, the Jewish People all too often felt utterly alone. Probably every persecuted people feels isolated, unheard, forgotten, cut off from all help. That is part of the intention of their tormentors. This strategy, perpetrated against the Uyghur people even now as we meet, is all too familiar: concentration camps, beatings, torture, solitary confinement, the separation of children and parents, enforced sterilisation, organ harvesting. It is intended to break both body and spirit. That is why it is supremely important to stand in solidarity with the Uyghur people on this Holocaust Memorial Day, dedicated to reflecting on genocide, the murderous pursuit of the destruction of a people and their culture. We must say to Ziva, her family, and the many family members exiled across the world who are deeply worried about their relatives in China, that you are not alone. We must say this not only in words but follow these up with sustained actions in support and protest. The spirit and resilience of a people rooted with depth and integrity in its way of life cannot be broken. But, all the same, it is strengthened through the solidarity of others, speaking in the name of our different faiths and philosophies and united by our common humanity.

At the same time, it is important to address those who perpetrate these wrongs. It must not be thought that the world will stand by in silence and that no one across the globe will dare to speak up or seek to intervene. In the end, a state is always called to account for the way it uses power. Furthermore, that power does not lie, solely or ultimately, in the capacity to harness force. It rests on the reputation for law and justice, the respect for human dignity and rights, and the readiness to honour diversity and difference. The failure to obey these basic principles detracts from a nation’s moral strength and impacts on its destiny. In the words of Lord Williams, China has a deep, ancient and unique tradition of humanity, according to which we call on its current leaders to act.  

Faced with the evidence of what is perpetrated against the Uygur people today, we must also consider our own humanity. What kind of people would we be if, looking back, we were to say, ‘I knew, but I didn’t do anything; I didn’t care enough to act’? Given the experiences the Jewish People has passed through in living memory and their impact down to the second and third generations, it is unthinkable and unconscionable for us simply to stand by. This would be a betrayal not only of the humanity of every Uyghur person suffering today, but of our own humanity, our collective historical experience and our moral and spiritual tradition. Our Judaism, in text and history, tells us that we are responsible, and that, even though what we can contribute may be very limited, we must do all we can to help. 

Our gathering today is an immediate and urgent call to solidarity and mutual responsibility.