James Foley leaves legacy
U.S. journalist’s dedication to free the religiously persecuted must continue
FEARLESS — American journalist James Foley, driven by his faith, worked relentlessly to bring freedom to persecuted religious minorities in the Middle East and around the world. Google Images
“Martyr,” many Catholics have called him.
A man driven by a faith that never dimmed but only grew seemingly brighter, James Foley was an American photojournalist whose work breached the cultural chasm that divides the West from the war-torn mountains of the Middle East. An exemplary chronicler, Foley was known for his investigative strength.
It was late Tuesday night, Aug. 19, when a video surfaced of James Foley’s beheading by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The media erupted with a whirlwind of speculation about his execution.
ISIS first captured Foley in November 2012, and he was last seen covering the Syrian civil war, according to Daily Mail.
Dedicated to bringing freedom to persecuted minorities all around the world, Foley was no stranger to controversy and conflict.
In the days, weeks and months leading up to his death, Foley was beaten as well as subjected to psychological torture with mock executions, according to the New York Daily News.
The situation finally came to a head when the U.S. decided to begin airstrikes in early August as an effort to diffuse the radicals’ seizure of several towns and infrastructure through Iraq and Syria. ISIS, infuriated by the decision, became determined to punish America.
“You and your citizens will pay,” ISIS said in the video of Foley’s execution. “The first of which being the blood of American citizen, James Foley.”
“This group, which has a taste for the macabre, made him stand against a wall in a pose as if he had been crucified,” Didier Francois, a French journalist who had also been held by ISIS, told radio station Europe1.
As terror continues to escalate in the Middle East, between Israel and Palestine as well as in Iraq and Syria, the ongoing tension seems to be more heavily centered on religion every day.
Dragging his feet on matters of religious liberty, it took President Obama a staggering nine months to nominate an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, a position vacated in October 2013 by his previous nominee Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook, according to Fox News. All the while, tensions were rising in the peace-defunct Middle East, with Foley caught right in the middle.
“The continual delay of a nomination communicates an indifference to the cause of religious freedom around the world on the part of the United States,” Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and former Liberty Convocation speaker, wrote in a letter to the president over the summer.
Finally, at the end of July, Obama nominated Rabbi David Saperstein for the ambassadorship. However, the Senate has yet to confirm Saperstein, who, if chosen, will be the first non-Christian to hold the post, according to the Religion News Network.
Had there been a swift nomination and confirmation for ambassador for religious freedom, a more pinpointed focus may have been placed on Foley’s rescue. However, even amid uncertainty of his return to the U.S., he remained fervently committed to exposing the evils of persecution.
“(James) reminds us of Jesus,” Diane, Foley’s mother, said in an emotional press conference. “Jesus was goodness, love — and Jim was becoming more and more that.”
Foley was very open about his faith. In 2011, he recounted in Marquette University’s alumni magazine his and his colleague’s first imprisonment in a Tripolitan military detention center where they were detained after being caught while on assignment in Libya.
“Clare (one of Foley’s fellow colleagues) and I prayed together out loud,” Foley wrote. “It felt energizing to speak our weaknesses and hopes together, as if in a conversation with God, rather than silently and alone.”
It is clear that Foley was dedicated to bringing freedom to the persecuted. He did not allow fear to keep him prisoner. He was driven by something deeper than a hope of being rescued. At his very core, Foley was driven by his faith and the “certain inalienable rights” that are central to our humanity — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It was July 4 when the U.S. first attempted to rescue Foley. The operation was, in “hesitation,” allegedly delayed by Obama, according to reports from Toby Harnden of the British Sunday Times, and ultimately failed.
Foley’s arrest, torture and eventual murder is far too robust of an issue for the totality of the blame to rest on the shoulders of the president. Regardless, I cannot help but imagine that our efforts would have had greater impact had we moved urgently to establish a strong and unmistakable commitment to the bruised, battered and beaten religious minorities around the world.
It was Foley’s faith that gave him the fortitude to step into the deepest, darkest corners of the earth to shed light on the oft forgotten.
“Often we’re asked, ‘How is it possible in human history such atrocities occur?’” Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C., said, speaking at the Catholic University of America on the horrors plaguing the Middle East. “They occur for two reasons: there are those prepared to commit them and there are those who remain silent.”
No matter what the faith, genocide in the name of religion is unjustifiable.
Foley was not one to remain silent. And now, he has passed the baton to the next generation of truth seekers.
For today, all of our leaders in Washington must move with tenacity and firmness, with a zero-tolerance resolution to defend those without a voice. This nation must act with the same audacious spirit that took Foley to distant and perilous lands.
From one journalist to another, thank you, James Foley.