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    • Human Religious Rights: a Nonkilling checklist, by Francisco Gomes de Matos

    Rather than adopting the same textual strategy used in writing the previous pieces (available on this CGNK website,under Learning materials), I decided to go beyond and include contributions requested of some friends active in several areas, among which Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, Peace Linguistics, Nonkilling. I should add that I opted for RELIGIOUS Rights, a standard term in the Human Rights Tradition, although in my little book Nurturing Nonkilling (p.17: The Ultimate universal plea: a Nonkilling proclamation) I use the word "spirituallly" in pleading that we do not kill spiritually. Similarly, on page 47, I use the adjective "spiritual" in the title of my text Spiritual leaders for Nonkilling.
    Those two uses might lead some readers to wonder why I didn’t opt, instead, for SPIRITUAL Rights. As I said, my option reflects a conceptual-terminological adherence to the Human Rights
    Tradition. Interestingly, from an etymological perspective, the word RELIGION entered written English in 1150, FAITH and SPIRIT entered written English in 1200. The adjective SPIRITUAL entered written English in 1275.
    This brief text is dedicated to the memory of Robert F. Drinan, S.J., author of the inspiring book The Mobilization of Shame. A World View of Human Rights, published by Yale University Press, 2001. That Human Rights scholar taught at Georgetown University.
    His commitment to Religious Rights made him devote chapter 17 to this challenging question: "Is freedom of religion the most fundamental of human rights?. His opening chapter can be
    interpreted as a plea for universal ,concentrated, sustained attention to Religion Rights. As he cogently put it :
    "...one would think that religion -- as the source of the moral and spiritual values underlying the vast majority of human rights --would be referred to more than most sources of human rights. But in the fifty years of the international human rights movement, religion has not attained the level of importance that some secular ideals such as the freedom of speech have reached"(p. 154).
    An inspiring,thought-provoking source I often use in my workshops on Human Rights is the Declaration of Religious Freedom -- Dignitatis Humanae -- on the rights of the person and of communities to social and civil freedom in matters religious,promulgated by Pope Paul VI,Dec. 7, 1965. Its text is available on the Web. In such interactions,I also suggest that participants google Religious Freedom so they will access Article 17 of the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, concerning the right to freedom of thought,conscience and religion.

    Religious Rights: my own list

    Before sharing the contributions received from friends,let me share my own listing, resulting from brainstorming.You are asked to add to it,refine it, probe it, adapt it to your cultural contexts.

    We KILL religiously when we don´t

    1. Respect and ensure the free use of religious texts or religious forms of communication, orally, in writing or signed
    2. Respect Ecumenism as an interfaith system aimed at uniting Churches universally
    3. Allow persons, groups of their right to engage in their religious activities and practices.
    4. Allow parents to educate their children in the religion practiced by that family
    5. Help spiritually hungry or insecure people when they ask us for something spiritual to believe in
    A complementary Checklist, resulting from the generous written statements sent by friends.
    The sequence is chronologically organized,starting from October 28 ,2009.
    After each statement of Religious Rights,a brief biodata of the contributor will be provided.
    Asked to exemplify a RELIGIOUS RIGHT, some friends answered as follow:
    6. The right to worship without being killed or with responsibility not to kill others
    (Glenn D.Paige,founder and President,Center for Global Nonkilling.Author of Nonkilling
    Global Political Science)
    7.(especially during conflicts), the right of persons, groups living /working in religious spaces, buildings to be protected from killing, attack, damage, destruction or other violent actions
    Joám Evans Pim, Director of Communication, Center for Global Nonkilling
    8.(especially during conflicts ) the right of religious spaces, buildings, symbols, sacred art works to be protected against destruction or violent actions
    (also contributed by Joám Evans Pim)
    9. A religious human right that recognizes the Universality of God and Unity of Faiths”
    Bill Bhaneja. A retired Canadian diplomat.Active in the movement to establish a Federal Departmnt of Peace in Canada.
    10. “Everyone has the right to look for an explanation of human life and living that goes beyond the physical, and, insofar as they conceive this explanation in theistic and personal terms, they have the right to worship in ways they find appropriate; but that entails an obligation to respect the religious beliefs and practices of others. I am not interested in any god whose worshippers believe they have a mandate to kill those who do not share their belief. The only god I want to have a relationship with is one whose identity is synonymous with love, and where LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF is the golden rule.
    David Crystal.Linguist, lexicographer, encyclopedist. Author of the autobiographical volume Just a phrase I´m going through: My life in Language, published by Routledge, 2009.
    11. The Unity in Diversity principle prevents humiliation and promotes dignity. This is valid also for religious rights. Religious rights mean the freedom of each individual to interpret and live religious to thought in ways she feels comfortable with (Diversity),and the constraint, implemented by Society,to prevent dogmatic views from usurping the discourse in a community (Unity)
    Evelin Lindner is a transdisciplinary social scientitst with two Ph.Ds: in Medicine and in Psychology. Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, www.humiliationstudies.org
    12. Religion has always been a practice of living “ in right relationship” with one´s interpretation of religious thought in a community. Today we are living in a globl community. Religious human rights mean finding a pathway to right relationships that dignify our religious differences in ways that enrich the dignity of all people
    Linda Hartling,Ph.D. is currently the Director of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies and past Associate Director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Center for Women at Wellesley College, Massachusetts.
    13. A religious right is to expect that all religions will have mutually respectful and harmonious relations. A religious right is to believe that the awesome mystery of the creation of the universe is not solvable by humans.
    Morton Deutsch. E.L.Thorndike Professor Emeritus and Director Emeritus, International Center of Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, Teachers College,Columbia University
    14. The religious right to Life, fundamental and inalienable, presupposes the correlative duty to preserve one´s life and the life of others.
    Margarida Cantarelli. Professor of International Law,Universidade Federal de Pernambuco Law School. Federal Court Judge.
    15. Religious right is the right to believe or not to believe. Therefore, it means being able to practice one or more religions, expecting that one´s religious option be respected and respecting other persons` religious option.
    Artur Stamford da Silva, Professor of Law, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and Coordinator,
    Moinho Jurídico ( Social observation of Law). Member of the Dom Helder Camara Human Rights Commission,UFPE,Recife,Brazil

    16. When I read your message the first time I was puzzled: religious rights? I have been thinking since then I feel the interpretation to which you refer to (human rights literature) cares for 'religious behavior' and political response to it. Before being a right to practice one's religion, the 'religious' is a call, an experience, a sense of the infinite that should not be bound by rights. Jesus did not have the 'right' to say what he said, to do what he did, to practice what he practiced. He experimented with a freedom that is defended in and by the human heart more than human political constructs. Or we can argue that he had the right (as inalienable condition) but that it was disrespected in his right. Regardless, I find that -even if Robert Drinan,S.J. is correctly asking: "Is freedom of religion the most fundamental of all human rights?" - we should all measure ourselves in terms of realities that are gifts, freedoms to be, to love, to create that may not always be articulated fully and well by the language of 'rights'. At the moment I see 'rights' as an elaboration of human suffering, a response to the extraordinary sufferings of the first half of the 20th century. It is an articulation of what man (and women) should not do to one another. it is a form of self-restrain having discovered with horror how much destruction can come by humans to humans. Religion
    however is about eternity in the present. Indeed, we must defend religious rights as they were articulated by art. 18 of the Universal declaration (" Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.") but rather than see this only (or primarily) through the lens of the political discourse I would recommend looking at it as an invitation to take our own religious calling seriously. A narrow interpretation of 'change' in the text would focus on moving from one religion to another ('converting' from, converting to). But 'change' occurs also when enlightened friends do conquer the religious awareness of eternity in the present. It happened recently with John XXIII and John Paul II in the Catholic Church that has encountered a lot of 'change' in recent years!

    We kill by thoughts, words, acts and omissions the same way we grow through thoughts, words, acts and omissions. We kill spiritually by neglect as much as by disrespect and active slandering. At times it is terrible to contemplate how our best intentions, our most profound senses of 'right', bring us to annihilate the others, their spiritual as physical beings. Without the discipline of openness, curiosity and response it is difficult not to kill many around us.

    Andrea Bartoli is the Director of the Institute for Conflict Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University (USA) and a member of the Community of Sant'Egidio.