Plenary, 27 Jan 2010
Meeting date: Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item this afternoon is time for reflection, and we are very privileged that our time for reflection leader today is the Right Rev William Hewitt, moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
The Right Rev William Hewitt (Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland):
Presiding Officer, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the privilege of delivering this time for reflection.
Since 2001, people in Britain have observed today, 27 January, as Holocaust memorial day. Yesterday, I was privileged to join some members of the Parliament at a powerful and moving event organised by Glasgow City Council, at which pupils from Shawlands academy who had visited Auschwitz last year shared their thoughts and feelings with us. We also heard from the lady in Tennessee who founded the paper-clips project, which is a project for schoolchildren to create a tribute to the estimated 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. The school decided to represent one life with one paper-clip, and therefore to collect 6 million paper-clips. They have been sent from all over the world. At the last count, 30 million paper-clips had been collected.
The idea of a national Holocaust commemoration was proposed with three broad and interrelated aims in mind: to commemorate the Holocaust; to acknowledge the repeated occurrences of genocide around the world since 1945; and to renew the commitment of British people to combat racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia and to work for an inclusive, caring and open society. All those aims are important to us and to all of society.
For those of us who take the gospel seriously, this day provides a particularly valuable opportunity for us to reflect on some of the core concerns of society and our Christian faith in the light of world history. Although the focus of the day remains the central event that we call the Holocaust, it is also intended to provide an opportunity to reflect on issues that are raised by all atrocities, especially those events that have been designated as genocides, such as those that took place in Bosnia and Cambodia.
We are reminded of the reality that evil is still powerful in our world. Today gives us an opportunity to strengthen our resolve to protect every community from ethnic cleansing and elimination. Neither the Holocaust nor any other genocide would have been possible without whole societies being told that certain groups of people were alien, dangerous, contemptible or not fully human. We do not have to go terribly far in our own society, here in Scotland, to find dehumanising language, stereotyped images and hostile attitudes expressed against those who, some would claim, are different, so that we may dismiss them as alien or unwanted.
Today, we want to affirm the blessings that diversity can bring to our society and to acknowledge that all true faiths engender compassion, justice, tolerance and living peacefully within the worldwide community, that all people might enjoy the right of life and the pursuit of happiness and livelihood.
Today, in this busy world, we best remember and honour the victims of the Holocaust and other atrocities if we order our lives—personally, nationally and internationally—to ensure that there will never be another time in our history when we make victims of anyone. It is not enough to put the past behind us and move on. I hope and pray that we can all find the wisdom to ensure that such events never happen again.