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  • Religion and Global Affairs: Repression and Response
  • Stephen Rickard (bio)

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights represented a fundamental challenge to the suppression of religious and other freedoms by sovereign states, but its application was frustrated during the Cold War. Today, the problem of religious persecution remains extremely widespread and serious, but a growing opposition to it has strengthened the human rights movement. This trend has been offset by, among other things, corporate opposition to strong human rights action, resulting in a continuing struggle to hold abusive governments responsible.

On May 23, 1618, Bohemian Protestants seized two of the Holy Roman Emperor’s representatives and defenestrated them. That is, they pitched them out of a window in Prague’s Hradcany Castle. They landed, I seem to recall, safely, if unceremoniously, in a dung pile. This might be little more than an interesting anecdote for Czech tourist guides to recount if it had not precipitated the Thirty Years’ War - until our own century, something of a benchmark for savagery.

Of course, “the Great Defenestration” no more caused the Thirty Years’ War than the Boston Tea Party “caused” the Revolutionary War. It arose out of the Protestant Reformation and the reaction to it, and was perpetuated by the territorial ambitions of various temporal and spiritual leaders. It was brought to a finish in 1648 by the Treaty of Westphalia, which guaranteed the sovereignty and independence of each state in the Holy Roman Empire and came to be seen as the birth of the modern European nation state.

The Treaty of Westphalia closed the door on the legitimacy of invasions to suppress or defend religious groups abroad. No more Hapsburg invasions to suppress the Evangelical Union. No more Swedes coming to the aid of their fellow Lutherans in Germany. Roughly two centuries later Napoleon could mockingly ask, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” That had not always been a [End Page 52] rhetorical question.

The Treaty of Westphalia is alive and well. However, if it had the positive effect of discouraging religious suppression from external sources, it paradoxically reinforced the notion that whatever a sovereign did within his or her own borders was of no one else’s concern. The Holy Roman Emperor was stripped of his “right” to suppress Protestants. But, as Cardinal Richlieu might have said on behalf of the nation states: that is our job if we think it is required.

What has this got to do with the role of religion in the world today? Plenty. It goes to the heart of a complex set of issues that are still unresolved: religious freedom, the power of the state, and the role of the international community when religious adherents are repressed. As in the 17th century, new or growing religious movements often terrify temporal authorities and status quo religious leaders, leading to repression and resistance. The international community is still struggling for an appropriate response. In the meantime, however, the increasing awareness of religious persecution in the world is bringing new vitality to the human rights movement and growing opposition to the trend toward “see no evil” foreign policy that emphasizes commercial opportunities.

It took 300 years, Hitler, and the Holocaust to bring about the most important and sustained challenge to the spirit of Westphalia and the ability of sovereign states to carry out gross persecution within their borders. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted without dissent by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, was a fundamental challenge to the doctrine of unfettered sovereign power. Among other things, it states that:

Every one has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

(Article 18)

But, what if state authorities deny, or even ruthlessly suppress these rights? As important as the Declaration was and is, neither it nor the Charter of the United Nations resolved the problem of effectively confronting a sovereign willing to flagrantly disregard these rights. [End Page 53]

Moreover, the application of the Universal Declaration...

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