Looking back on Festival of Humanism 2024
October 28, 2024
What a day! At our sold-out Festival of Humanism in Glasgow we heard from expert speakers on topics ranging from assisted dying to AI. There were tears, laughter, anger, and hope, as we explored the big issues facing our movement in 2024.
Over 100 attendees made the trip to Glasgow’s Clayton Hotel last Saturday to enjoy our annual Festival of Humanism. We covered an amazing range of themes. But there was one topic our members and supporters told us they wanted to hear about above all else: assisted dying. With Liam McArthur’s assisted dying bill being debated at Holyrood, we have a chance to pass one of the most momentous pieces of humanist legislation in years. So we dedicated our closing panel to hearing from two brilliant speakers with personal stories to tell.
Assisted dying
Joanne Easton, an assisted dying campaigner, spoke about losing her dad to pancreatic cancer, and the lack of autonomy and comfort he faced at the end of his life. Joanne spoke from the heart about her life with her dad, her love for him, and how she would have wanted to say goodbye. She battled through tears to make a deeply moving call for law change.
Joanne was joined by Elena Whitham MSP, a long-time humanist. Elena, too, lost a parent to cancer. Her mother was the life and soul of Elena’s household growing up in Canada. But the last weeks of her life saw her battling her illness alone, starving herself secretly to avoid a protracted death. Elena is one of the lawmakers who has a chance to make history in the next few months. But as she noted, we have a fight on our hands to stop assisted dying from getting dragged into the culture wars. Already disinformation on the topic is rife.
AI and online misinformation
Joanne and Elena were just two of the expert speakers we heard from across the day, with panels covering the topics voted for by our members and supporters. Steph Wright of the Scottish AI Alliance got the festival off to a brilliant start, explaining how her organisation is working with Scottish Government to create trustworthy, ethical, and inclusive artificial intelligence.
Brian Eggo of Glasgow Skeptics then exposed some common tropes of online misinformation and disinformation, and how these fuel culture-wars outrage. Topics covered in the following discussion included the vast amounts of energy used to power AI technology.
Conversion practices
In our second morning session, humanist historian Dr Charlie Lynch and Erin Lux of Equality Network offered historical and contemporary perspectives on conversion practices. Sharing research from the Queer NI project, Charlie relayed disturbing stories of conversion therapies for gay men during the 1950s-70s. The psuedo-medical jargon used to justify this was still being published into the 1990s.
Erin, meanwhile, talked about her organisation’s work to finally pass a law in Scotland to ban conversion practices. Again, the spectre of culture wars loomed over discussion. Speakers and audiences considered how anti-trans sentiment is holding up the progress of laws to protect LGBT+ people.
Religion in schools
In the afternoon, attention turned to the role of religion in schools. Again, there was a comparative focus on Northern Ireland and Scotland. Boyd Sleator of Northern Ireland Humanists explained his outreach work with schools, and how the history of sectarianism in his country is holding up progress ensuring secular, fact-based education. The vast majority of schools remain either Protestant or Catholic in ethos.
Our own policy and campaigns officer Joe Higgins then explained the progress being made to curb religious influence on schools in our country. The west of Scotland is all too familiar with the sectarianism faced by our allies in northern Ireland. Yet over the past few years we have seen many local councils pass resolutions removing voting rights from religious representatives on education committees. The next battle, as Joe explained, is to ensure an opt-in approach to religious observance.
Art and craft sessions
Attendees were also treated to a creative mending session at the start of the day from All That Is Braw. There was a display of historic feminist magazines from Glasgow Women’s Library, too, and an evening craft workshop with Glasgow Zine Library.
Remembering Kate Buchanan
But final word must go to our chair Jennifer Buchan’s moving opening tribute to Kate Buchanan. A humanist celebrant and assisted dying campaigner, Kate was a brilliant and steadfast voice for humanist causes throughout her life. She had planned to speak about her campaigning work on assisted dying during the festival, but sadly passed away the previous weekend.
As Jennifer put it, “Kate was a humanist from the souls of her feet, and she advocated for humanism for as long as any of us can remember. She was never shy of putting her point across, especially if she came up against prejudice and injustice.” Our 2024 festival was, perhaps above all, a chance to pay tribute to Kate’s bravery, compassion, and commitment.
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Photos by Jack Donaghy.
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