Month: September 2009

Responsible for Equality And Liberty’s (R.E.A.L.) goal in outreach to the public on human rights is based on our commitment to human dignity and respect. We seek to defend the truths that we hold self-evident – that all men and women are created equal – and that they have inalienable human rights of such equality and liberty.

Some believe that this is an “optimistic” view towards humanity. Some believe that this is a “naive” view towards humanity. A week ago, I was at a meeting on “building a culture of peace,” where the speaker gloomily responded to a question from me that he does not hold out much hope for democracy, and thinks that democracy’s days are numbered. Some believe that fear, anger, and hopelessness are the human condition.

We disagree. We believe that humanity can do better than that. We believe that courage, love, and hope are the human condition that we must positively aspire towards building.

We have had many public awareness events and rallies. In one form or another, we traditionally begin such events with either the song or the rallying cry: “We are not afraid.” At the United States Capitol building, at the Lincoln Memorial, at the Washington Monument, in Chicago, in New York City, we start with the verse from the song “we shall overcome,” entitled “we are not afraid.”

We are NOT afraid.

We believe that to be a people responsible for equality and liberty, we need to put our fear away. This does not mean that we do not recognize that we have threats and challenges. This does not mean that we do not recognize that there are ideologies that are inimical to our universal human rights of equality and liberty. But we can choose how we will react to such threats and such enemies of freedom, and we can choose how we will educate others and defy such challenges. We can choose to act in fear. Or we can choose to act in courage. It is our choice.

Fear does not lead to responsibility. Fear does not lead to hope. Fear silences love and respect. Fear is the antithesis of the real courage that we must have to defend our fellow human being’s human rights.

And fear leads to hate.

There are some that have grown so used to doing things reflexively out of fear that they no longer realize it. Fear has controlled their thinking and their behavior so totally and for so long that it has programmed their lives. For some organizations, fear has even become a basis for their activism and for their slogans.

Sadly, we see so many organizations that are dependent on and based on fear. We don’t forget that fear is the tool that supremacists and totalitarians use as well. That is why it is so essential for positive activist groups and human rights groups to begin by rejecting fear. We are NOT afraid.

Some groups use the very idea of fear in the text of their group’s slogan. The “Stop Islamization of Europe” (SIOE) group has chosen the slogan that states: “Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense.” While intending to be clever, sadly their slogan reveals much about what they really believe, as does their references to “Nazislam.” SIOE states that it “does not accept the notion of moderate Muslims.”

We understand that the leaders of the “Stop Islamization” network are afraid. We understand that they feel threatened. We understand that they feel desperate. But as I have stated before, European organizations could learn a lot from American challenges to supremacism, such as the prolonged struggle in America with racial supremacism.

Can you imagine if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had sought to promote human rights by promoting “Whiteophobia” as “common sense”? But history shows us that he did not. He challenged the anti-freedom ideology of “white supremacism” to call for change, and he promoted the universal human rights that all human beings deserve everywhere, of every faith, of every race, of every gender, and of every national origin. He did not choose fear and hate, he chose courage and love. When we are faced with great challenges, it is essential that we choose wisely.

Fear does not promote human dignity, respect, and dialogue. Fear does not promote healthy societal change. Fear does not promote human rights.

So if the fear-based “Stop Islamization” network is not working to promote human rights, what exactly are its goals? SIOE states that it seeks “a free, open and honest debate about the place, if any, of Islam within Western democracies.”

Responsible for Equality And Liberty accepts the most basic of our universal human rights, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
— Article 1: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
— Article 2: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”
— Article 3: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

In America, we accept freedom of religion as a guaranteed freedom for all human beings. Like freedom of speech and freedom of press, we don’t have to like or agree with every other religion. But in America, we have that guarantee to everyone we like and to everyone we don’t like. Such freedoms are a bond of trust between the inalienable rights of equality and liberty inherent in our identity and defined in our Constitution.

We are NOT afraid.

The European-based “Stop Islamization” network is now about to announce a chapter in the United States called “Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).” The SIOA promotes the SIOE and the larger “Stop Islamization” network on its web page, including links to all of the European groups that promote “Islamophobia” as part of the SIOE slogan. The SIOA states that “our values and goals are in support of the entirety of Western civilization.”

We believe that a fear-based “Stop Islamization” network is not the answer for defending our universal human rights for all of humanity. We believe that equality and liberty are not just “our values,” nor are they unique to “Western civilization.” When Responsible for Equality And Liberty supports universal human rights for humanity, we support such universal human rights for all people everywhere. We reject the idea that the truths we hold self-evident of humanity’s inalienable rights of equality and liberty are unique to any one “civilization” or “culture.”

Moreover, we believe that is the root concern that we must challenge today. On the SIOA website, a leader and attendee at a European SIOE event states that “multiculturalism, tolerance, and ‘niceness’ are destroying the foundations of our cultures,” but that misses the point. In fact, our liberties are based not on individual “cultures,” but on our universal human rights of equality and liberty.

Our challenge to ideologies that defy such universal human rights are not because we reject diverse cultures, not because we reject tolerance, and not because we reject “niceness.” Our challenge to ideologies that defy such universal human rights is because we support universal human rights as being Responsible for Equality And Liberty.

We won’t abandon women in Saudi Arabia or any other part of the world. We won’t abandon Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, other Muslims, and other religious minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Philippines, Thailand, Somalia, Israel, and the rest of the world. We won’t deny those who legitimately call for reform a place in promoting human rights. We won’t accept the September 12 mentality of fear by so many who are willing to do anything just to be have “security,” “safety”, or “protect our culture,” no matter what happens to the rest of the world.  Our fellow human beings and our universal human rights are not expendable.

Our running days are over. We are NOT afraid.

Real courage allows us as individuals to challenge ideas against freedom, not because of our fears, but because of courage and responsibility. Real courage requires that we demand such universal human rights not just for America, not just for Europe, but fearlessly and without question for the entire world.

But such courage starts by REJECTING fear. It starts by rejecting acceptance of any type of “phobia.” Rejecting fear gives us the courage to be responsible for human rights, human diversity, and human dignity.

Those who are courageous defenders of human rights do not fear those who go to pray, whether it is on the Capitol lawn, whether it is in front of the White House, or whether it is on the street in front of us. We have more courage and more sense than to challenge those exercising their American and universal human rights of freedom of religion, whether we like it or not. Those who seek to defend human dignity do not sit around “brainstorming” creative ways to victimize others by seeking to find “donkeys,” so that “Islamic prayer is nullified,” and making asses of ourselves.

In America and around the world, there are extremists and supremacists who seek to do real damage and harm to human beings’ rights and lives every day. At our September 12 public awareness event at the Washington Monument, I spoke about a reported mob of 20,000 in Pakistan that marched into the city of Gojra, burned down a church, 100 Christian homes, and burned down women, children, and the elderly alive. In Egypt, Christian Copts are routinely oppressed, hunted, raped, kidnapped, and murdered for the “crime” of being Christian. In Pakistan, Hindus flee the nation for religious extremism, and in India they have been the target of vicious terrorist attacks as we saw in Mumbai. In Thailand, Buddhists are regularly attacked by extremists in the South with a death toll exceeding the 9/11 attacks. In the Philippines, 120,000 have died in the ongoing attacks in that nation. In Israel, Jewish citizens and others have continued to be victims of an endless series of attacks by extremist organizations, including those whose charter embraces the apocryphal “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” promoted by Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

The challenges we face today are literally life and death issues for our fellow human beings around the world who are counting on our voice, counting on our real courage today. Is the best that we can do to seek to just protect our “Western civilization”? Is the best that we can do to promote the fear of “Islamophobia” as “common sense”? Or can we rise to our generational challenge and have the courage to consistently and unequivocally defend universal human rights for all people, everywhere — whose very lives are threatened today?

Unlike the “Stop Islamization” movements, we do not attack “Islam” and Muslims, and we have no disrespect intended for either.  Moreover, we see significant efforts to discriminate, oppress, and demonize Muslims in America, which is simply wrong. We recognize that there are supremacists and extremists who seek to affiliate themselves with every religious faith. We recognize and we challenge religious extremists of any religious persuasion or rationale, who would then justify denying human rights based on such rationales.  We do not believe those who would make such rationalizations represent such religions either.  The “Stop Islamization” movements in both Europe and in the United States seek to attack and demonize Islam.

We have come a long way through courage, not through fear. We continue to fight against the institutionalized hate of supremacism, but we did not give up on humanity or on our fellow Americans.

So we must not give up on our fellow human beings in challenging extremist  views today – whatever basis they may come from and no matter who they seek to discriminate against. We must not accept the idea that fear can and will rule our lives and our choices. So many of our fellow human beings are dependent on us choosing courage over fear.

It is our destiny to die as human beings. At some point in all of our lives, we will all inevitably suffer to varying degrees. Recognizing this is neither fatalistic nor craven, and I have spent years helping my fellow human beings to learn to how protect themselves from harm.

But while we are here on our shared Earth, we live. While we are here, we can choose how we live and what we live for.  We don’t have to let extremists  terrorize us into living our lives based on fear.

We can choose to decide that we are NOT afraid.