Georgette Bennett

Sociologist and former broadcast journalist Dr Georgette Bennett explains why she has put a new name ‘religicide’ to religion-related violence, the fastest spreading type of violence worldwide.

In her book Religicide, written with Professor Jerry White, Bennett looks at the roots of atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Bosnian war. She and her co-author, activist entrepreneur Jerry White, tap into their combined decades of experience of working in interreligious engagement and people-to-people diplomacy and of examining contemporary religicides such as 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. They call on government, business, civil society and religious leaders to join in a global campaign to protect religious minorities.

‘This is a timely and richly informed reminder of the central place that religion and cultural conflict has in our contemporary world.
It is also a reminder of how religion can be mis-used to attack the liberal secularism upon which we depend to protect our human rights.’ Simon Schama

Bennett is an active philanthropist focused on conflict resolution and interfaith relations. She founded the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, which has mobilised more than $300 million of humanitarian aid for more than three million Syrian war victims, and the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. She was selected as one of Forbes’ 50 over 50 Women of Impact in 2021. She is a former network correspondent for NBC News and had a successful career in banking and finance.