Part III | Expanded Analysis
Category E | Perspectives
Topic 27 | Standing for and with others
One of the most important ways we can advocate for the right to religious freedom is to stand up for the religious freedom of those not of our faith. Religious freedom must be for all people in all places. In addition to standing for others, we can promote the right to religious freedom when we stand with others in efforts to protect this right.703
Introduction
"Man’s inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good."704 – Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." 705 – Dante
"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere."706 – Elie Wiesel
Standing for others: Becoming upstanders
The following terms have been used to discuss and classify different types of human behavior in history.
- Victims: those whose rights have been violated.
- Perpetrators: those who violate the rights of others.
- Bystanders: those who witness the violation of others’ rights and simply stand by.
- Upstanders: those who witness the violation of others’ rights and stand up for those being harmed, who may not be able to stand up for themselves; this may require upstanders to make significant personal sacrifices.707
The important decision for most of us will not be whether to perpetrate human rights violations. Rather, our most important decision will be whether to be bystanders or upstanders when others are victims of religious bigotry, discrimination, persecution, or even more extreme misconduct. With education and effort, individuals and communities can overcome societal hurdles that promote passivity, developing upstanders who will not tolerate the violation of the right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) for any individual or group.
Upstanders: Standing for others
A foundational, sometimes difficult, truth is that the right to freedom of religion or belief requires us to protect the right for others—including those with whom we disagree—if we are to enjoy the right ourselves. This includes standing up for others if we witness any infringement on that right. Historically, bystander inaction at individual and institutional levels has had devastating consequences, illustrated most dramatically by genocides throughout human history.
The term upstander has been applied in recent years to advocates in many spheres, from environmentalists, to domestic and sexual violence victim advocates, to human rights activists who encourage action in the face of genocide and other atrocities.708
Former Harvard Law School dean Martha Minnow describes what actions might be required of an upstander:
"An upstander may speak out publicly against bigotry and injustice. An upstander may be a whistle-blower, who exposes wrongdoing in the hope of stopping it. An upstander may resist the temptations of silence and passivity by expressing and offering support directly to victims of bigotry and injustice. An upstander may provide immediate aid to victims of bigotry and injustice through physical rescue or other help. . . . An upstander may speak out publicly or may instead engage in secret resistance. An upstander may rescue individuals who are in danger—through secret or overt actions."709
Minow also notes, however, that “[a]ll of these acts expose the upstander to danger. The danger may be disapproval by others; costs of time, money, and emotion; or even more dire risks to personal safety.”710 These potential negative consequences disincentivize upstander behaviors and incentivize bystander behaviors.711 Minow explains that passivity can be easier than action for complex reasons, including “peer pressure, fear for the safety of reputation of oneself and others, denial, worries about being overwhelmed by the work and repercussions of standing up, and traditions that put the burden on individual heroism rather than shared responsibility.”712
These obstacles can be overcome or mitigated, however, through education and the concerted efforts of individuals, organizations, and communities. The key requirement is courage.
Encouraging school-aged children to stand up for each other in response to bullying, including religious-based bullying,713 is just one promising application of the upstander concept.714 Like other social institutions, schools “mirror larger forces of exclusion and inequality in society, often reflecting dominant notions of who does and does not belong.”715 When children are taught to be upstanders, they are taught how to empathize and take thoughtful, appropriate action (rather than inaction) to defend those who are being mistreated.716
A powerful vehicle for teaching the negative consequences of being a bystander, particularly to violations of religious freedom, is studying and remembering the Holocaust. In the United States, the Texas state legislature passed a law designating a week in January as Holocaust Remembrance Week. The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum has developed a curriculum for elementary and secondary schools to teach students during this week what it means to be an upstander for one’s own rights and the rights of others.717 The curriculum contains worksheets, morning school announcements, suggestions for practicing upstander behavior, family activities, video testimonials of upstanders and those who have been supported by upstanders, and more. The materials emphasize that being an upstander may be difficult and may even have negative consequences for the upstander but that ordinary people can make a difference by empathizing with others and standing for their rights, including the right to FoRB.
Schools, families, communities, and faith communities can also encourage upstander behavior by promoting religious literacy, including addressing biases and inaccuracies about religions and beliefs. We generally are more likely to stand for others and their right to beliefs, traditions, and practices when we better understand them and their bases.718 Promoting religious literacy helps develop a social norm of acceptance of others’ beliefs and practices in the rising generation and a lower tolerance threshold for rights-violating behavior.
Building understanding and relationships connects community members in a way that makes them more likely to stand for each other. Multi-faith activities such as the Week of Faith and Kindness in Dallas, Texas, promote understanding and community among religious believers.719 In addition, “organizations such as social media companies, corporations, and community- based organizations”—particularly those focused on youth—can “incorporate bias- and stereotype-challenging practices” in their products and programs.720 They can also model “the importance of thinking critically about stereotypes,” including religious stereotypes.721
Examples: Standing for others
Below are three examples of individual and organizational upstanders who stood up for others’ right to freedom of religion or belief—from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, respectively.
Colonel Thomas Kane was an aide-de-camp to the governor of Pennsylvania in the mid-1800s, when he became interested in the plight of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of the Church had long been persecuted and, more recently, driven from their lands in Missouri and Illinois. Kane did not join the Church but, believing Church members to be misunderstood, worked tirelessly on their behalf. He served as their advocate vis-à-vis the President of the United States so that they could procure lands to serve as a temporary resting place before moving westward. He also provided Church leaders legal and political counsel, engaged with newspapers to explain the beliefs and cause of Church members to a suspicious U.S. citizenry, and served as a mediator when misunderstandings led to a potential battle between the U.S. federal government and Latter-day Saint residents of the Utah Territory.722
While professed Christians were largely responsible for atrocities committed against Jews during the Holocaust, some Christians refused to be perpetrators or bystanders and helped Jews escape persecution. Corrie Ten Boom and her Christian family famously housed Jewish refugees and Nazi resistors in their home in Haarlem, Netherlands, eventually paying the price of imprisonment, interment in a concentration camp, and—for Corrie’s sister and father— death.723 Even though they did so at great personal sacrifice, the Ten Booms and their “hiding place” network of friends and colleagues “saved the lives of an estimated 800 Jews and other war refugees.”724
In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation (NVHC) and other members of its local interfaith community reached out to the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS). The outreach was a concerted effort to demonstrate that “Muslims were . . . part of the social fabric, and the faith community led by Jews, would not tolerate Islamophobia in [their] neighborhood.”725 In 2008, when the NVHC learned that the local Muslim community lacked meeting space during Ramadan, they offered to rent synagogue space to ADAMS. Since then, NVHC has “open[ed] its doors and welcome[d] ADAMS members weekly and every night during Ramadan to pray in a synagogue.”726 They even installed “a Muslim foot bath in a synagogue bathroom” to facilitate worship.727
With-standers: Standing with others
It is important that we not only stand for others’ right to freedom of religion or belief; we must also stand with others in promoting and protecting the right itself. In countries where disaffiliation with religion is on the rise,728 many see the right to FoRB as an irrelevant or outdated right. Some believe it is superfluous, given that other rights, such as the right to expression or assembly, may protect some aspects of FoRB. And still other critics regard the right as an excuse to discriminate and, thus, unworthy of protection. Now, perhaps more than ever, it is important that we become with-standers—that we stand with others in promoting the right and demonstrating its value and relevance for all people everywhere.
Examples: Standing with Others
The following are just two examples of organizations engaged in standing with others to protect and promote the right to FoRB at different societal levels.
In the United States at the grassroots level, the Religious Freedom Alliance Council supports a network of local Religious Freedom Alliances (RFAs) that facilitate multi-faith gatherings focused on understanding and promoting FoRB locally. The Dallas–Fort Worth Alliance, for example, holds annual summits that bring together multi-faith perspectives to explore issues such as religious inclusivity in the workplace, the intersection of religious freedom and LGBTQ interests, defeating antisemitism and Islamophobia, and the role of Black churches in defending civil rights and religious freedom.729
At the international level, the International Freedom of Religion or Belief Alliance (IRFBA) is a network of government representatives that (1) coordinates government, parliamentary, and civil society efforts in advancing FoRB worldwide; (2) enhances global advocacy for FoRB; and (3) promotes accountability for those who violate the right to FoRB.730 Since its founding in 2020, IRFBA has grown to 38 member countries.731 Thematic areas of work have included confronting blasphemy/apostasy laws, responding to mass atrocities, and protecting and preserving religious heritage sites, among others.732
Conclusion
By looking inward to confront individual and systemic biases, and looking outward to prevent rights violations, we can stand for and with others to protect the right to FoRB and the right of everyone everywhere to exercise that right. Developing a community of upstanders and withstanders is possible if done on several levels: in educational efforts with individuals of the rising generation, in communities through multi-faith dialogue and activity, and on a macro level with corporations and governments modeling respect and protections for freedom of religion and belief.
References
703. Toolkit Topic 27 (Standing for and with others) was originally drafted by Stacy Runia, 2023 ICLRS Summer Fellow.
704. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. 229 (Clayborne Carson ed., 1998).
705. JOHN F. KENNEDY, THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 105 (Allan Nevis ed., 1960) (quoting Dante).
706. Elie Wiesel Acceptance Speech, THE NOBEL PRIZE (Dec. 10, 1986), https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/acceptance-speech.
707. See Upstander Education Database, DALLAS HOLOCAUST AND HUMAN RIGHTS MUSEUM, https://www.dhhrm.org/educators/upstander-education-database (last visited Dec. 2024).
708. Samantha Power, a journalist, professor, and U.S. government official, is credited with popularizing the term upstander. Her Pulitzer Prize–winning book analyzes and criticizes the U.S. government’s and citizenry’s bystander responses to genocides, while also sharing accounts of courageous upstanders who acted. A PROBLEM FROM HELL: AMERICA IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE (2013).
709. Martha Minnow, Upstanders, Whistle-Blowers, and Rescuers, 2017 UTAH LAW REVIEW 815, 817 (2017), http://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol2017/iss4/9.
710. Id.
711. Id.
712. Id. at 823.
713. NADIA S. ANSARY, INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL POLICY AND UNDERSTANDING, RELIGIOUS-BASED BULLYING: INSIGHTS ON RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE-BASED BEST PRACTICES FROM THE NATIONAL INTERFAITH ANTI-BULLYING SUMMIT 8 (2017), https://www.ispu.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ISPU-AMHP-Religious-Based-Bullying.pdf.
714. Cheryl Jackson, The Rise of the Upstander (July 26, 2013), https://bullyingepidemic.com/upstanders.
715. ANSARY, supra, at 13 (quoting Monisha Bajaj, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher & Karishma Desai, Brown Bodies and Xenophobic Bullying in U.S. Schools, 86(4) HARVARD EDUCATIONAL REVIEW 481 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted)).
716. Appropriate action may include reporting bullying to a responsible adult who can intervene or act further. See ANSARY, supra, at 5–7.
717. See Upstander Educator Database, supra.
718. ANSARY, supra, at 15–18.
719. Week of Faith and Kindness Promotes Unity and Gratitude as Pandemic Eases, TEXAS METRO NEWS (May 1, 2022), https://texasmetronews.com/31611/week-of-faith-and-kindness-promotes-unity-and-gratitude-as-pandemic-eases-may-3rd-7th-2022.
720. ANSARY, supra, at 23.
721. Id.
722. Lance B. Wickman, Thomas L. Kane: Outrider for Zion, ENSIGN (Sept. 2003), https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2003/09/thomas-l-kane-outrider-for-zion?lang=eng.
723. See generally CORRIE TEN BOOM, THE HIDING PLACE (1971).
724. The History of the Museum, CORRIE TEN BOOM HOUSE, https://www.corrietenboom.com/en/information/the-history-of-the-museum (last visited Dec. 2024).
725. Rabbi Michael G. Holzman & Imam Mohamed Magid, 20 Years After 9/11: The Power of Tiny Acts to Create a Moral Universe, REFORMJUDAISM.ORG (Sept. 5, 2021), https://reformjudaism.org/blog/20-years-after-911-power-tiny-acts-create-moral-universe.
726. Associated Press, Synagogue Doubles as Mosque During Ramadan, NBC NEWS (Sept. 16, 2009), https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32881567.
727. Holzman & Magid, supra.
728. Modeling the Future of Religion in America, PEW RESEARCH CENTER (Sept. 13, 2022), https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america.
729. DFW ALLIANCE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND HUMAN DIGNITY, https://dfwreligiousfreedom.org (last visited Dec. 2024).
730. IRFBA Information Sheet, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE (Apr. 2022), https://www.state.gov/wp- content/uploads/2022/04/April-2022-IRFBA-Information-Sheet.pdf.
731. Id.; International Religious Freedom and Belief Alliance, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, https://www.state.gov/international-religious-freedom-or-belief-alliance (last visited Dec. 2024).
732. IRBA Information Sheet, supra.