George Bell Lecture at Lambeth
by Lord Alton
Marking the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention.
Any statement calling for the elimination of Jewish people – from the river to the sea – is by definition genocidal, does not constitute free speech, and brings nothing but shame and further tragedy.
What is happening today has a direct connection with events more than seven decades ago.
In 1945 Bishop Bell’s friend, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, had been executed by the Nazis.
Bonhoeffer had asked Captain Payne Best, a fellow prisoner at Flossenbürg to give Bell this message: “Tell him that for me this is the end but also the beginning.”
Ten years earlier, in 1935, Bell had commissioned T.S. Eliot to write “Murder in The Cathedral” and five years later Eliot composed the Four Quartets – the second of which, East Coker, concludes with the poet saying that humanity must renew itself, using the same thought, that “In the end is my beginning.”
75 years ago, the Genocide Convention was among the valiant attempts to make a new beginning
Tonight, I want to consider three things:
What was its genesis?
What does it require?
Is It fit for Purpose?
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