Religicide
Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence
Published on 22. November 2022
352 pages
978-1-63758-102-5 (ISBN)
Description
A brave and timely proposal to name, investigate, and ultimately stop a new crime-the mass murder of millions of people for their faith.
Religion-related violence is the fastest spreading type of violence worldwide. Attacks on religious minorities follow a clear pattern and are preceded with early warning signs. Until now, such violence had no name, let alone a set of policies designed to identify and prevent it. A unique attempt to create a new moral and legal category alongside other forms of persecution and mass murder, Religicide explores the roots of atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, and other human rights catastrophes.
The authors tap into their decades of activism, interreligious engagement, and people-to-people diplomacy to delve into a gripping examination of contemporary religicides: the Yazidis in Iraq, the Rohingya in Myanmar, Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in China, and the centuries-long efforts to wipe out Indigenous Americans. Yet, even in the face of these horrific atrocities, the authors resist despair. They amplify the voices of survivors and offer a blueprint for action, calling on government, business, civil society, and religious leaders to join in a global campaign to protect religious minorities.
Religion-related violence is the fastest spreading type of violence worldwide. Attacks on religious minorities follow a clear pattern and are preceded with early warning signs. Until now, such violence had no name, let alone a set of policies designed to identify and prevent it. A unique attempt to create a new moral and legal category alongside other forms of persecution and mass murder, Religicide explores the roots of atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, and other human rights catastrophes.
The authors tap into their decades of activism, interreligious engagement, and people-to-people diplomacy to delve into a gripping examination of contemporary religicides: the Yazidis in Iraq, the Rohingya in Myanmar, Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in China, and the centuries-long efforts to wipe out Indigenous Americans. Yet, even in the face of these horrific atrocities, the authors resist despair. They amplify the voices of survivors and offer a blueprint for action, calling on government, business, civil society, and religious leaders to join in a global campaign to protect religious minorities.
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Persons
Dr. Georgette Bennett is an award-winning sociologist, widely published author, popular lecturer, and former broadcast journalist for NBC News. In 1992, she founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, the go-to organization for combatting religious prejudice. In 2013, Bennett founded the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, which has worked to raise awareness and mobilize more than $175 million of humanitarian aid, benefitting more than 2.2 million Syrian war victims. She is a co-founder of Global Covenant Partners and served on the U.S. State Department's Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group tasked with developing recommendations to engage religious actors in conflict mitigation. Bennett is a former faculty member of the City University of New York and adjunct at New York University. She has published four books and more than eighty articles. Bennett was awarded a 2019 AARP Purpose Prize, and in 2021 was selected as one of Forbes' 50 over 50 Women of Impact.
