Benedict Rogers: So it's now a privilege to invite, firstly, Andrew Copson to share his reflections, and then Lord
Williams.
Andrew Copson: Thank you, Ben, and thank you to our hosts for inviting me to share some reflections from a humanist
perspective. And thank you, Ziba, for what you've shared with us, which, as everyone else has said, is a very
powerful reminder of why we're here. Humanists are non-religious 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. They're people who believe
that morality is not something given to us from outside by some extra-human source, but something intrinsic to our own
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 waiting to be discovered, but see that every human being creates meaning
by giving meaning 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 organizations in 60 countries, and Humanists UK is one of
the oldest humanist organizations in the world; we celebrate our 125th anniversary this year. 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 3,000 years ago in Europe, in India, and, yes, in 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 a
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, of thought, of 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 is no future life in which we can see happiness, fulfillment, or completion. If completion
is to occur, if happiness is to come about, if our fulfillment is to be achieved, it must happen in this life.
For this 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 the wider culture 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're bearing witness to.
Government should never be able to tell you what to think. Government 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. And
China is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that 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 – as we've
already heard – this isn't a belief unique to humanists, although humanists perhaps lean on it more heavily than
others. For us, 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've ever known and ever will know. 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 organizations were banned early in the Third Reich, in 1933, and Adolf Hitler
celebrated in a speech that year in Berlin that he had successfully won the 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 19th century from the German word 'humanismus' – the
annihilation of humanist culture in Germany was very successful. It's taken many years for humanist organisations
in Germany to restore themselves to the membership numbers and social recognition that they enjoyed in the late 19th-
and early 20th century. The atrocities of the mid-20th century give us a permanent example – a horrifying and well
documented example – of how we can be dehumanised and brutalised by ideology and political conformity. But they
give us another lesson too, because they teach us of the perils of the failure of human solidarity. Most people
didn't speak up for the humanists of Germany when their associations were broken up, or then the trade unionists or
the political opponents of the regime, or then for the Jews, when the genocide began, or the Roma or 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 30 countries, it's unlawful or illegal to set up humanist organizations,
identify as a humanist or express humanist beliefs. And this living experience of marginalisation, discrimination,
persecution, judicial murder, and extrajudicial killing, which I've seen around the world through Humanists
International, motivates me to speak out not just for humanists, but for all who suffer. And that's why I called
last year at the United Nations Human Rights Council for action against China's genocidal actions against the Uyghur
people, and why humanist organizations have done so consistently for the last few years at the UN and elsewhere,
and will continue to do so. But even if it weren't the case, that as we sit here today, there are humanists suffering
around the world, living in fear of torture and death, I would still feel called upon to speak out for the universal
rights for all people. There are no humanist mottos or commandments, but I find personal inspiration in the
aphorism of the Roman playwright Terence, writing two millennia ago: 'I am a human being, and nothing human is
alien to me.'