Mikhail Bell
January 30, 2012
|
Since the early 1980s, Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) has advocated on behalf of oppressed people in uninviting places around the world, notably Romania, Sudan, Egypt, and China. His travels and reflections are chronicled in his newly released book Prisoner of Conscience: On Man’s Crusade for Global Human and Religious Rights. On January 12, Capitol Hill’s doyen of religious freedom and human rights issues addressed an attentive assembly at the Heritage Foundation.
“I was very naive” Congressman Wolf recalled. Two then members of Congress, pro-life Democrat Tony Hall and the late Missouri Republican Bill Emerson, told Wolf about Ethiopia’s famine after seeing mass starvation during their trip. Two excursions abroad cemented Wolf’s commitment to defend religious freedom and human rights. In 1984, with two trembling hands, he held malnourished infants during a visit to one of Ethiopia’s crowded refugee camps. “It was a life changing event. Seeing people die, and famine — it was just different than I had ever seen, ever really expected,” he said.
A 1985 visit Eastern Europe was equally unsettling. “Romania was one of the darkest places both [in] kilowatt but [also in] evil.” It was there, after seeing “churches that had been bulldozed,” that he fully appreciated the serious price Christians paid under Nicolae Ceausescu’s communist government. “Those two trips literally radicalized — changed — a lot of the concerns and the thoughts” Wolf had about threats to human rights.
Often human suffering jolts many people into stunned silence. But Congressman Wolf, who originally campaigned on transportation issues, sees his outspokenness as an extension of his faith. “My faith,” the Presbyterian said, “kind of drives you in giving this opportunity to kind of take your faith, take these concerns” into the public square.
Wolf recalled that early in his congressional career America was more dedicated to international liberty. The commitment cascaded down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol building to the White House. “[President] Reagan believed very deeply in human rights and religious freedom,” the congressman shared. Reagan’s affinity for human rights was based on his reading of the Declaration of Independence, which he saw as “a covenant for the entire world.” Accordingly U.S. embassies were an “island of freedom” where “the ambassador would advocate for human rights and religious freedom.”
At present, Wolf regretted, “we are losing the interest” as neither party is “looking into these issues.” The international community has noticed America’s apparent ambivalence over defending human rights and religious freedom. In China, Catholic bishops are under house arrest and Protestant Christians are “being pushed out,” to say nothing of the notoriously harsh persecution of Falun Gong adherents.
Wolf reminded his audience that Christians are as deeply connected to North Africa as they are to the Middle East. “The Coptic Christians were there before anyone else and if you look at the Bible, you know, Jesus, Mary and Joseph went to Egypt and Saint Mark evangelized to Egypt.”
American leadership is expected by victims of persecution worldwide, Wolf said: “Those in Sudan look to us. Those in Iraq look to us.”
In Sudan, Wolf said 2.1 million Christians and members of other marginalized groups have been killed since the early 1990s. The most serious violations persist in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile regions as Russian-made fighter jets are bombing villages and refugee camps. Wolf told of militias “going from door to door” in search of potential victims. Troublingly, Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president and International Criminal Court war crimes convict, is petitioning the U.S. to be removed from its State Sponsors of Terrorism list. During the Cold War, “no law firm in this city could have represented the Soviet Union” without suffering the consequences, Wolf said. But D.C. lobbyist Bart S. Fisher recently has taken on the ignoble task of advocating for Sudan.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a Sudanese refugee once told Wolf about Western public opinion: “You care more about the whales than you care about us.”
In the past, Wolf said, “America used to be the beacon and I want us to be the beacon again.” Once upon a time, household names such as evangelist Billy Graham and the late Illinois Republican Congressman Henry Hyde resisted attempts to make passivity de rigueur. Even though the “giants have left the field,” he believes there is an opportunity for America to again denounce violations of human worth and religious freedom.
Has the U.S. reached a “turning point” in which religious freedom is considered a hindrance to an effective foreign policy strategy? Wolf regretted that the precipitous decline in engagement on religious freedom and human rights is obvious to insiders.
The 15 term congressman, quoting Simon and Garfunkel, warned against complacency: “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” That is why, Wolf concluded, “We have to be a country that is a shining city on a hill.”
Related articles:
- Running to the Free World
- Sudanese Diaspora Celebrates First Year of Freedom
- Bush Speechwriter Addresses Christians in Politics at Calvin College
No comments yet
Leave a Reply