The challenge for our generation is how to fight barefoot in the global war of ideas in support of our universal human rights.  We must learn how to fight such a war of ideas without the traditional weapons of military, political, and even foreign policy campaigns of might, hate, and cunning. The magnificent goal of seeking real change requires real courage and real compassion, not just angry bluster, momentary adrenaline, and the temporary satisfaction of outwitting an opponent.

The war of ideas for our unqualified, universal human rights is one that must equally challenge anti-human rights ideologies, such as totalitarianism, religious extremism, racism, and misogyny.  But while it may challenge such ideologies, a real struggle for human rights does not seek hate and violence against those who hold such ideas, but seeks to change their hearts and minds.  We seek to challenge ideologies, not reject individuals as human beings.  We seek change with an outstretched hand, not an upraised fist.

The question is: do we really believe in our unqualified, universal human rights?

While this is a secular issue, there is a useful analogy in religious text.  There is an example of the barefoot warrior described in the Bible of Joshua in Jericho.  When faced with an angelic commander from God, Joshua asks the angel  (thinking at first it is a man) – are you on our side or the side of our enemies? The angel replies that he is on God’s side, and demands that Joshua takes God’s side, and remove his sandals as he was now standing on holy ground.  Removing one’s sandals required true faith, as while a soldier could lose his shield and weapon, without his sandals (especially in such rough territory), he could not even run away.  But he was not defenseless – he had something more powerful, he believed in something greater than himself.

In the secular war of ideas for universal human rights, we also need to remove our sandals and be barefoot in the rocky hills of humanity.  It is not enough to ask others if they are on our side on any given issue.  We must be on the side of universal human rights for all of humanity.  If we are on the side of our unqualified, universal human rights, then we must be on the side of humanity, even those we don’t agree with, even those on “the other side” of our ideological struggle.  Our universal human rights are also their rights too.  We are not just on “our side,” but we are on “their side” too as human beings.

This requires faith – not only just in our unqualified, universal human rights, but also in humanity itself.  Do we believe in our universal human rights?  Do we believe that humanity is worth fighting for?

Certainly the past could give anyone pause in answering.  We have seen and continue to see great atrocities, the Holocaust, global genocides, global terrorism, continents swept by hate, fear, and senseless violence.  It is understandable that anyone might ask, how can you expect the best from your fellow human beings?

But to march as a barefoot warrior on behalf of our shared universal human rights, we have to believe that together we can change.  For the future of our descendants, we have to believe that humanity is worth the struggle.  What we focus our minds on is what we will surely realize.  If we focus on hate, then we are certain to attract hate.  If we focus on love, then we must believe that we will attract love.

I have urged many times, for us to Choose Love, Not Hate – Love Wins.  It is easy to cynically dismiss this as impractical philosophy.  It requires real courage to believe in the power of love.  It requires real compassion to believe that Love truly does Win.  It is only once we start to make this a part of our lives that we can begin to become a barefoot warrior for human rights.

When we challenge ideologies that defy our human rights and that promote hate, we cannot be a barefoot warrior for human rights and respond to those who promote such ideologies with our own hatred, mocking, and violence.  We have to leave those childish things behind.  We have to grow up as human beings, if want to be barefoot warriors, responsible for equality and liberty.  It is time to be men and women, and to answer the clarion call to our generation for compassion, not just echo the anger of frustration and impatience.

To reach the vistas that are possible together as human beings, we must break the ball and chain of hate and fear that drag us all down.  When we urge our fellow human beings to release the burden of hate and fear from their hearts, we are asking them not just to release that burden from themselves, but also from ourselves as well. Their burdens are our burdens in the grand challenge for humanity to reach towards equality and liberty for all.

Much of the world has changed, and we can reach more of the world than ever before.  Such global communication abilities have given us great power as human beings.  But with great power, comes great responsibility.  We have an opportunity to continue the long march started by so many champions of justice for so many individual circumstances, but this time, not just for one identity group, but in the name of equality and liberty for all.  Never before did those who came before us have the opportunity to reach so much of the world in a single generation.  But with new technologies and a vastly expanded globalism, we now have the opportunity to reach countless others who never had the hope to believe in our shared universal human rights.

Will we rise to the challenge?

Will we dare to have the courage to begin a barefoot march for the universal human rights for all?

Some will ask, will this march for human rights end totalitarianism now, will it end racism now, will it end religious extremism and promote pluralism now, will it end misogyny now?  The answer to that is both yes and no.

A march for human rights can reach some hearts now, but we know we have a long way to go in this generational struggle.  But the march begins with the first steps — within us.   If we end such hate and such disrespect for human rights within ourselves, then we have begun the march as a barefoot warrior for human rights.

It is the march itself for our fellow human beings rights that is the living example we set, the living testimony as to what we can achieve together in respect and love.  We can demonstrate that there is another path to our future, another choice beside endless hate and endless violence.

It is the march itself that can reach out to others and help others realize that we are not bound to deny the human rights of others.  We are not bound to the hopeless cynicism that humanity cannot change.  We are not bound to distrust, disrespect, and the disease of hate.  We have a choice.

We can choose love, not hate.  We can choose to be responsible for equality and liberty.

We can choose to leave our sandals on the rocks and believe in our fellow human beings.