Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Official Report 795KB pdf

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. Our first item of business today is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader is the Very Rev Dr Lorna Hood OBE, chair of Remembering Srebrenica Scotland.

Thank you for the opportunity to lead this time for reflection. Tomorrow evening, the charity that I chair, Remembering Srebrenica Scotland, will hold a memorial event here in the Parliament for white armband day. It will be only the second such event to be held in Scotland. Just 50 years after the Nazi decree that required Jews to wear a yellow star of David, members of an ethnic or religious group were once again marked for extermination, this time in Bosnia. Having taken over the municipal government by force, Bosnian Serb authorities issued a decree on local radio ordering all non-Serb citizens—who were mainly Muslims—to mark their houses with white flags or bed-sheets and to wear white armbands when leaving the house. It is but one facet of a story of genocide, gender violence and the struggle to find justice and, hopefully one day, reconciliation.

Supported by the Scottish Government, we have taken about 100 people to Bosnia, including a number from this Parliament. We go to hear the stories of grieving mothers who cannot rest until their loved ones are identified and of rape victims living with the stigma, too ashamed to talk and receiving little support or help in their struggle for justice. We listen, we weep with them and we promise to tell their story and to work here in Scotland for a better, more cohesive society.

I am often challenged about our relevance here in Scotland. We assume that the genocide in Srebrenica, the mass rape and torture were simply the consequences of a deeply divided society, yet nothing could be further from the truth. People living in villages and towns worshipped together and celebrated with one another yet, almost overnight, neighbours became enemies and friendships turned to hatred. The fact that it happened there is a sober reminder that it can happen anywhere.

Genocide does not happen in a vacuum; it happens when the seeds of prejudice and racism are not checked and challenged but allowed to flourish, when we tolerate sexist or racist language and behaviour as being just talk and not to be taken seriously and when we turn our heads as others are mocked and, worse still, attacked.

My Christian faith as lived out in the life of Jesus speaks of our shared humanity, always seeking to find that which connects us rather than that which divides us, whatever our faith or if we have none. We learn the lessons from Srebrenica, pledging to be vigilant against hatred and intolerance so that, as the prayer in the memorial centre pleads,

“Srebrenica
Never happens again
To no one and nowhere”.