Dominick Chilcott

Letters to the editor

I want to draw your attention to two letters to the editor I've written in US papers today. The first responds to inaccuracies about the NHS in The Washington Times. The second, which runs in The New York Times, points out that the UK has integrated climate change into its national security strategy.

Posted at 10:13 14 August 2009 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[0]

Holocaust Memorial Day

The United Nations has designated 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red army, as an annual International Day of Commemoration to honour victims of the Holocaust.

One purpose of this day is to remember the past and honour the victims. A second and related objective is to encourage all countries to ensure that the Holocaust is known about and understood in our present time. And this leads, in turn, to a third purpose, by keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive, we and future generations should be more on our guard against allowing circumstances to arise in which such terrible events are repeated.

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has put it this way, "Holocaust Memorial Day communicates our conviction that the politics of hate will not triumph, and it symbolises our resolve to safeguard the future by understanding the past".

In the UK, we have held our own national event, Holocaust Memorial Day, every year since 2001. This year's commemoration took place in Coventry, a city heavily bombed in the Second World War, and had as its theme the exhortation "Stand Up to Hatred".

Learning about the Holocaust is a compulsory part of the national curriculum in the UK. It is taught not just in history lessons but as part of the English literature course, citizenship studies and religious education. As you would expect a responsible multi-ethnic, multi-cultural country like Britain to be, we are serious about learning these lessons from history.

In Washington, I attended a remembrance event at the Holocaust Museum during which we were addressed by a survivor who told us about her experiences during the war and her present work at the museum. As ever, when one hears a survivor tell his or her story, it was deeply moving. I felt shock at the first hand account of persecution and admiration for her indomitable spirit and calmness.

This week, I am hosting, with my Czech colleague, a reception to launch the English translation of a book about Sir Nicholas Winton ('Nicholas Winton's Lottery of Life' by Matej Minac, translated by Peter Rafaeli). Winton was a young British man who went to Prague in the months before war broke out in order to provide humanitarian relief to refugees. He quickly decided the priority was to get Jews out of the range of Nazi persecution. In eight months, he managed to get 669 Jewish children to safety.

Winton did not advertise what he had done. It came to light only in 1988, when his wife found a scrapbook in the attic, full of names, photos and letters from the parents of the children. When asked why he had kept his rescue activities quiet, Winton said that he didn't think he had done anything extraordinary.

The five thousand people who are today descended from the original 669 children might beg to differ.

In September 2007, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution honouring Sir Nicholas Winton in which they hit the nail on the head. They urged men and women everywhere to recognise 'in Winton's remarkable humanitarian effort the difference that one devoted, principled individual can make in changing and improving the lives of others'.

Let us leave the last word to Winton himself. In a letter written in 1939 he said the following. "There is a difference between passive goodness and active goodness. The latter is, in my opinion, the giving of one's time and energy in the alleviation of pain and suffering. It entails going out, finding and helping those who are suffering and in danger, and not merely leading an exemplary life, in a purely passive way of doing no wrong."

That's not a bad lesson to take away in the week we commemorate the Holocaust.

Posted at 13:07 30 January 2009 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[1]

Remembrance and reconciliation

Many of us are used to taking part in remembrance services, commemorating those who have died for our countries in past wars and present conflicts. The words, music and hymns are familiar and comforting. We can take a quiet pride in the achievements of those we are honouring. Watching the veterans march past is always moving.

This year, in Washington, a conference or 'conversation' on the theme of the universality of remembrance is being held in the week that Veterans' day is celebrated. As I understand it, the aim is to find a way to commemorate the dead of past wars collectively. This would not be a substitute for the national commemorations that are now a well established tradition - our British tradition of Remembrance Sunday will continue to be the best means of acknowledging the debt we owe our forebears. But it would be a way of acknowledging that many, perhaps most, combatants who died, whether they were on the right or wrong side of the argument, were ordinary people, doing their duty as best they could. In the end, we are all human beings. In death, we all dissolve into the same earth.

Many of the great poets of the First World War, soldiers who captured the experience of warfare most eloquently, felt a degree of empathy towards their enemies. Wilfred Owen's poem, Strange Meeting, contains the shocking line, directed at the poet: 'I am the enemy you killed, my friend'. It concludes with the words 'Let us sleep now'.

Charles Sorley, killed aged 20, at the battle of Loos in 1915, in his poem 'To Germany' looked forward to peace, 'then we may view again with new-won eyes each other's truer form and wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm we'll grasp firm hands an laugh at the old pain, when it is peace'. Incidentally, Robert Graves reckoned that Sorley was one of the three truly great poets killed in the war (the others being Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg). 

Siegfried Sassoon, who despite his name was not partly German, also wrote about this theme. In his poem, 'Reconciliation' he appeals to Britons to remember 'the German soldiers who were loyal and brave'. 

No-one, I trust, is arguing that Britain should despense with the annual ceremony at the Cenotaph. But after we have honoured our Commonwealth dead, perhaps the time has come for us to pause and consider the young men and women who died fighting against us. It was, after all, only an accident of birth that meant we and they ended up on one or other side of these historic conflicts.  

It is no bad thing in today's more interconnected world where no nation can solve global problems on its own to remind ourselves that, as human beings, what we have in common is greater that that which divides us. And in doing so, we should be fulfilling the wishes of many of our own troops who gave their lives in the hopes that peoples and countries at war would later be reconciled one to another and become friends.

Posted at 09:20 14 November 2008 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[2]

Election night in Washington

Where were you at 11pm Eastern time when the networks announced that Senator Barack Obama would be the next president of the United States? Will you always remember the circumstances of the moment when America choose its first African-American head of state? I shall.
 
I was watching the BBC covering the election, at their headquarters in downtown Washington DC. The main newsroom was a hive of activity - banks of journalists, producers and directors hovering about flat screens, communications devices and computers, sucking up the nectar of the early results from the states. It looked a fantastically complex operation, with the BBC broadcasting simultaneously on, at least, two TV and three radio stations. Amazingly, everyone seemed to know what they were doing and, despite the appearance of chaos, all this activity had to be following a disciplined and meticulously planned system.
 
And then, after Ohio (the rock on which Kerry's ship had foundered in 2004), as the world collectively did the maths of the electoral map and concluded that Senator McCain could not possibly win without a stunning upset in the Western seaboard states, the realisation grew that Senator Obama had really done it. At eleven o'clock, the polls closed in California, Oregon and Washington state and the networks called his victory. It was an emotional moment. Hard bitten journalists around me stopped for a few seconds to savour it. There were tears of joy, punches in the air and hugs. 
 
McCain's graceful concession speech struck an affirmative tone that commentators suggested his campaign had missed. Americans I spoke to seemed to be relieved to be reconnecting with the John McCain they knew and admired. It was followed by Obama's wonderfully lyrical and moving acceptance speech, renewing the promise of America to the vast crowd gathered in the middle of the night in Chicago to hear him. "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," he said. I have been replaying that speech on my i-pod ever since.
 
Just as gracious and almost as moving were President Bush's and Secretary of State Rice's statements the next day. The election was rightly being interpreted as a victory for the whole country, even by the defeated party. As Rice said, "One of the great things about representing this country is that it continues to surprise. It continues to renew itself. It continues to beat all odds and expectations." 
 
Senator Obama wasn't elected, of course, because he was African-American. But the fact that the colour of his skin and his unusual name didn't put the American people off shows how far this country has travelled since the civil rights activists challenged segregation and racially-based laws in the 1960s. The original sin of slavery, inherited from the colonial era, feels more and more like ancient history. Obama's election has proved that, in America, it's your qualities as a leader and a human being, not your ethnicity, that determine whether you can get to the top. I wonder when we'll be able to say the same about Europe.
 
There are, of course, huge challenges ahead for President-elect Obama. But the contemplation of these difficult times must not be allowed to tarnish the glory of the wonderful thing the American people have done in this election, once again becoming a shining example to the rest of the world. What a night to remember.

Posted at 09:40 07 November 2008 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[5]

Remembering William Wilberforce

Two slim, elderly ladies pulled the sheet off the frame to unveil the artwork. More than 47,000 tiny squares of brightly coloured glass, like the pixels of a digital image, made up a strikingly realistic picture of a young, modern, confident black woman whose hair-style was cut into the shape of a backwards facing slave's profile. Someone boldly suggested that it might have been George Washington and I could see what they meant. I secretly hoped the artist, Jorge Burtin from California, had made the likeness deliberately. For this was a work of art commissioned by the Black Women United for Action as part of their annual commemorations of the slaves buried at Washington's home at Mount Vernon and the unveiling was taking place at a reception organised by the British Embassy.

The story of Britain's involvement in the slave trade contains much to make modern Britons feel deeply uncomfortable and ashamed. As the world's greatest industrial and maritime power in the 18th century, British merchants profited hugely from the transatlantic slave trade. Although figures are hard to validate, approximately a quarter of the 12 million or so Africans, shipped across the Atlantic as slaves, were destined for North America or British Caribbean territories. The vast majority of these enslaved people would have travelled in British ships. It's an horrendous record of human misery, and a shameful episode in British history. 

Britain also led the way in abolishing slavery. Last year marked the bicentennial of Parliament passing the Slave Trade Act, which made the slave trade unlawful throughout the British Empire. We, in Britain, spent 2007 remembering, and celebrating, the work of all who fought for the abolitionist cause and, in particular, William Wilberforce.

Wilberforce is now a name honoured around the world. Abraham Lincoln invoked his memory during his efforts to abolish slavery in the United States. The eminent 20th century British novelist, E M Forster, compared him to Gandhi. Nelson Mandela, the inspiration of post-apartheid South African, has called Britain "the land of William Wilberforce", describing him as the man who "dared to stand up to demand that the slaves in our country should be freed". Wilberforce's fame will have spread even more widely as a result of the recent movie, 'Amazing Grace', that dramatised his struggle against slavery.

Abolishing the slave trade was not the same thing as abolishing slavery itself. As it happens, possessing slaves had been illegal in England since a landmark judgement in 1772 had led to the emancipation of all the 10,000 or so slaves in the country at the time. But in the rest of the British Empire and in foreign countries, slavery, if not the international slave trade, continued after 1807. It wasn't until 1833 that slavery was finally abolished throughout the British Empire. Sadly, Wilberforce died a month before the Act passed into law. So he never saw the crowning achievement of his campaigning work.

Nor did he see the work of the West Africa squadron of the Royal Navy, which literally took the law into their own hands and seized ships of any and all countries carrying slaves. When Parliament passed a law declaring that carrying slaves on the high seas was equivalent to piracy, the Royal Navy effectively wiped out the slave trade around the world. It was a breathtakingly bold example of humanitarian intervention, dramatically so as the actions of Britain's navy were contrary to international law at the time.

It is more than 200 years since Wilberforce's struggle began to change the British Empire and the world. It is even longer ago that the slaves buried at Mount Vernon worked on George Washington's plantation. But the scourge of slavery has not been eradicated. Human trafficking, the exploitation of illegal migrants and the trade in women for the sex industry are modern versions of the slave trade.

According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there are 27 million people in slavery today, spread all over the world. According to Free The Slaves, these slaves represent at once both the largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history and the smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved. Whatever you make of these statistics, the world cannot doubt that it needs a new Wilberforce.

This year, Black Women United for Action are remembering Wilberforce in their commemorations at Mount Vernon. Hence their association with the British Embassy this week. In 1807, when the Slave Trade Act passed, the then British prime minister said that Wilberforce's memory would be blessed by millions yet unborn. I bet that the young, independent, black woman, depicted in those thousands of squares of coloured glass, would agree.

Posted at 16:12 29 September 2008 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[0]