“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Every week, Diane Foley marks “Moral Courage Monday” (#MoralCourageMonday) by sharing examples of ordinary people doing not-so-ordinary things on behalf of their fellow human beings. Foley is the founder and director of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation – an American human rights organization that supports US citizens held hostage or otherwise illegally detained abroad.
The weekly notes serve as a tribute to the grace and compassion Foley’s son James Wright Foley showed during his two years of imprisonment in Syria, and the support he received from his fellow prisoners in return. James, who was working as a conflict journalist, was kidnapped in 2012 by forces associated with the Islamic State (IS) and brutally murdered two years later.
#MoralCourageMonday is not only inspiring but reminds us that all of us – governments and private citizens alike – can and must meet the challenge when lives are at risk and our values are threatened. Rendering aid is both a duty and a privilege, Foley keeps emphasizing, because, as she says, “in democratic societies, our citizens are our greatest assets and, in fact, our greatest treasure.”
As it happened, a few weeks ago, during a meeting with representatives from several international human rights organizations, a Swedish colleague and I were asked if there was not anybody in Sweden with a strong public profile who would advocate on behalf of the three Swedish citizens who have been arbitrarily detained abroad for a combined 43 years now. Dawit Isaak (Eritrea, 23 years); Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali (9 1/2 years) and Gui Minhai (almost 10 years). To these activists it seemed unfathomable that with a few notable exceptions, no Swedish official, no parliamentarians or other prominent individuals have taken a clear and consistent public stance in any one of these three cases.
