Moral Courage with Diane Foley | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

how long ago did Isis take James this summer is 10 years since he was killed where did you find the courage to meet one of his killers there was a Grace in the meetings he expressed a lot of remorse and I tried to tell him a bit about who Jim was he showed me pictures of his family three little girls in a refugee camp in Syria so there was a a real connection a human connection but the other side of that Simon is we're all very human and so we all have a a negative part

of us so we're also capable of horrible bad things too and I think our goal as people who care about the world is to try to nurture the good and Jim believes that that everyone down deep has a bit of the Divine if you will and so if you look hard enough and listen hard enough and care you can bring it out how long ago did Isis take Jim Thanksgiving Day of 2012 2012 so yeah this fall will be 12 years this summer is 10 years since he was killed the the big question is look

no parent should ever have to outlive their children ever I agree and and and even less so in such a horrific Manner and such a publicly horrific manner as well the you know does does talking about it help it's the one thing as I was getting ready to talk to you like the so the burning question I had is you know do you still want to talk about it sure because I Jim Jim has challenged me to be a better person he's challenged me to be more courageous and to dare to take on things that

I thought was right um in a way that I've never been challenged before to be honest um so and I'm very proud of Jim's Legacy yeah and um grateful I enjoy when he can Inspire others to do good and make a difference in the world um in in which case I mean this is this is sort of the the giving back isn't it you know I mean he he lived a life of giving of giving as a journalist and and now that his legacy continues I have to ask of course I I I I knew

Jim's story I I remember playing out you know on television I understand all the science and I've read the studies and heard the stories about forgiveness and when people meet the killers of their family you know and uh uh and I know understand all of it where you know holding this animosity hurts you more than it hurts them MH but still I want to understand where did you find the courage to decide to meet one of his Killers I I'm not sure I have that courage well I've been blessed from the time I was young

with the faith in a higher power assignment from the time I really was a teenager um I my parents challenged me to choose what faith to follow when I was a teenager because my dad was Unitarian my mom was Roman Catholic and they said we'll let Diane decide so it it kind of made me quite intered who what is the idea of God and what is a relationship with such a higher power so I've been blessed by that but then when this happened to Jim his courage and goodness challenged me even further to have more

courage to act on my inner convictions if you will so I I really think it's the God had been preparing me for this moment in a way um and Jim in his own way and he kind of handed me the torch and um I've done my best to continue Jim's Legacy but at what point did you find that courage because obviously sadness is the denial sadness of the first things the anger you know how long did it take for you to sort of take that deep breath and say I think I need to meet this

guy well first of all um that was not the first thing that happened um I met Alex Ander seven years after Jim was killed so time helps um in the beginning um I was shocked and angry I felt very betrayed by my government and that is what propelled me and many of Jim's friends and supporters to insist that our government could do better and to do our part by starting the fley foundation to prioritize the return of innocent us Nationals Amer Americans who are targeted simply because they're American and also to work well we had

three goals primarily was to um prioritize the return of a fellow Americans taken hostage or wrongfully detained abroad to improve safety for journalists and international Travelers and also to inspire our moral courage in all of us ourselves included to try to use what gifts we have to do the right thing if well so it's been kind of that three-pronged approach that has um fueled our work over the years and when Alexander Cody were pleaded guilty to all charges without a fight he just pleaded guilty to all eight charges and offered to speak to victims I

just felt very strongly that Jim would have wanted to talk to him here hear his story hear him out and as a mom I kind of wanted to share who Jim was to be honest with him so that he might understand too the first time you met with Alexander can you share sort of how it came about and and where you had the first meeting so I'm very curious how you felt walking into the prison that day sure um I was convinced that Jim very felt very strongly that Jim would have wanted me to go

but then when it actually was time to do it um I had my own doubts and I thought boy I don't know and so I really had to pray a lot about it for the grace to be able to first of all see him as a human flawed human being like I am to see him as a person not as a terrorist who um kidnapped and tortured my son but as a person my family wanted no part of it they really thought it was ridiculous they had no interest and it was over three days we

met two days in the fall of 2021 and quite soon after his guilty plea and then later in Spring of 2022 after the trial of his colleague elsha El shake so um the first time I met with him I was nervous he was too was very awward ORD um we had a you know a audience of people around us in that both defense teams and FBI and other people present but you know the interesting thing Simon is once we sat down and started to talk it's like they all melted away and I found him a

good listener and I tried my best to be a good listener of his story there was a Grace in the meetings he expressed a lot of remorse particular one of the best meetings was the middle meeting it was the second one it was after we got some of the awkwardness out of the way and he uh expressed tried to make his case of why he had done what he' done and and all and and I tried to tell him a bit about who Jim was and such and so it was in that second meeting which

was the following day those two day meetings were back to back that was the most authentic if you will um he showed me pictures of his family and started to cry um three little girls who at that time were in the refugee camp in Syria so there was a a real connection a human connection um and like I say he expressed a lot of remorse for what we' gone through and subsequently sent me several letters which I never received to until many months later but nevertheless it was a good thing I was glad I went

it was important what did he say how did he justify his case his case was mostly based on our country's mistakes our the times in our country when Innocents have been killed in bombings or drone strikes he um talked about a a specific time when one of his friends little ones was killed in in the midst of such a strike uh he was very resentful even about the movie Jim the James Foley story why should this white American have have a movie done about him um no one's going to do a movie about his friends

lots of their child kind of thing and he was angry about a lot of the arrogance of the United States the times we've made mistakes look at Abu graab we certainly have Guantanamo and and all of that was focused Jim was not seen as a person none of the their captives were they were the epitome of anything the United States has ever done wrong Western Partners ever done wrong so that's was his justification and yet remorse so those two seem incompatible to be able to justify one's actions and yet also feel bad for them usually

when we rationalize tring to distance ourselves some guilt right he justified what he did it was a war this was a war and and even though Jim and the other captives were total non-combatants which I pointed out to him they never carried a gun or anything they also were there to tell those stories like his friend and their lost of the PE losses for the Syrian people and the aid workers but it's he just felt it was war and this was Jihad against the Western oppression Western arrogance Western bad deeds and all those things everything

we've ever done wrong was part of the reason for this intense hatred and all that hatred was embodi in these innocent folks they held captive you said that you were you know ultimately um grateful and glad you did it um have any of your family um seen the impact that it's had on you and then thought maybe they should reconsider and go and meet him too I don't think so you know everybody Grieves differently Simon um and and his remorse was more um to do with me as a mother right no he wasn't sorry that

he' done those things he he felt those were justified in war in Jihad right but he felt sorry for my suffering I think he's fairly close to his mom his dad left when he was a kid so he was raised by a single mother so I think he had some respect for my role and my own suffering so that was the area he expressed remorse um my family everybody has grieved in different ways um you know Jim was the older brother uh his presence is sorely felt by everyone in the family but but their grief

is different um for me I I guess I need to walk through the grief somehow and part of um talking to Alexander was to in hopes of gleaning some insight into what Jim's last two years of life were and a kind of a hope that maybe Alexander could um come to some um remorse for his deeds and his own healing um but it was healing for me um to see him as a person I I think we need to do more of that as you said before Simon that we need to have somehow have the

courage um and patience to listen to people who may hate us or who may disagree strongly and that's why the Foley Foundation seeks to be totally nonpartisan we want to work with everyone we want to do our best to hear everyone out because that's the only way forward I say to me it's very clear that hate is never the answer I mean if we hate one another in the end people suffer the greatest challenge is to love one another right the greatest challenge is to hear one another and empathize with one another just this last

year we uh we always give three awards for in areas of moral courage you know one for hostage advocacy who dares to really help bring people home one for journalists who dare to report the news in spite of um issues and other for humanitarians because Jim really cared about people and that's the way Jim was I think he really wanted to PE us to understand someone else's suffering someone else's story that we might care the missions of the Foley Foundation you know the first two are very specific to uh people who are traveling abroad and

who find themselves in in in trouble but it's that third one which is to help people find moral courage that I find the most universal and if you look at the world that we're living in today and our country today um moral courage seems to be dare I say desperately lacking and and we're not talking about the moral courage to meet you know your son's murderer we're talking about the moral courage to listen to someone you disagree with exactly we're talking about the moral to allow someone else to feel heard M so what has happened

to our moral courage why why are we in such a deficit of moral courage today well that's a good question um some of it I think is because we have a der of spirituality in a way you know I think we tend to think all the answers come from ourselves and we've lost some of the wisdom of knowing that we don't know at all that we need one another we need the inspiration of the almighty you know our creator if you will to teach us to help us to come to wisdom about what our next

steps are in our life so I I for some reason I think some of it is the secularization and some of it is just um a lack of values in terms terms of the value of listening to one another I think perhaps some of the electronics have taken us away from just playing having deep conversations with one another and instead just doing things instantly and quickly um on our phones or whatever so I don't know it's it's a complex challenge but certainly the challenge for our future no question Simon it's a good Insight you know

which is people still still have the desire to believe in something and people still have the desperate desire to feel like a part of a call it a belief Community though I think the church has lost relevance in a lot of people's lives we can see people trying desperately to find something some sort of movement whether it's what's going on in the Middle East whether it's it's vaxing or masking when people are feeling disenfranchised perhaps it's all anti-establishment anger all of it whether it's on the left or the right and they're finding these communities of

belief in these movements but it's not a higher power nor is it a moral guidance but it does provid some of the yeah it does act as a salv and provides some of what faith provides it seems like we've got some of the wires crossed exactly we do but a lot of times some of those movements are are fueled by fear anger you know alienation from one another yeah um uh resolve that we're right and everyone else is wrong kind of thing um it's not based on a on a uh wisdom or a desire for

good in the world necessarily so I I I feel in many ways we've we've lost our moral compass we also haven't had any war in country you know we us westerners have not had a war we've not felt we've kind of grown kind of lazy self-satisfied and we are a little spoiled we're not used to sacrificing for one another and all those other things that come in hard times let me push a little bit you know when you say you know uh the they're against things and they're against each other no one thinks they're on

the side of wrong everyone thinks they're on the side of right even even the jihadis Jims Jims Killers absolutely they were driven by love and they were they fundamentally believed they were on the side of good and so if if everyone in all of this anger Still Still believes they're on the side of good like just reconcile that for me well but then you've got to look at their actions if if if what they're promoting is good and yet it results in thousands of people suffering and being killed in poverty and and I mean that

is not how is that a greater good I I mean I think you can see the fruits of the actions of some of these groups the results tell you in a way that they're misguided that they yes you're right they may believe and that Community feeling makes them feel righteous and strong about what they're doing but it results in suffering and um suffering for the world so I think there you can see that the results do not bear fruit for good in the world this idea of of uh moral courage you know I've also become

sort of quite fascinated with the idea of moral obligations which is the number of times I talk to leaders or hear leaders and I see the short-term financial decisions they're making sometimes that come at the expense of human beings their livelihoods or the communities in which they operate and when you question their decisions they'll say they'll justify their decisions like Simon I have a fiduciary duty to my shareholder I have a fiduciary duty to whatever it is you know they talk about their fiduciary duty but I think it's correct that leaders should start also considering

their moral obligation and it seems to me that a moral obligation is higher than a fidu duty moral obligation comes first and once you have fulfilled your moral obligation then you can fulfill your fucery responsibility well that's why I was so angry when Jim was killed because throughout Jim's captivity for nearly two years I was told that Jim was the highest priority I was sent in circles people essentially patronized and lied to me within the government partly because they didn't know what to do with me we had no hostage Enterprise no way to no structure

to handle when any us Nationals other than a soldier is targeted abro so they didn't know what to do with me so instead they just kind of lied to me if you will and told me oh he's our highest priority and and just sent me to another person they literally sent me in circles so it was I was angry I was angry at our government I had voted for Obama I had I thought he was a great leader but I was so angry that he considered Jim and the other American's collateral damage that he didn't

feel any higher moral obligation to at least be honest even just tell me we can't do anything about it we can't help you or just tell me the truth um instead of sending the in circles I wasted a lot of time um and Jim died so I felt sure that we could do better and so it was kind of a a anger I had that gosh this is was appalled the way I was treated and the way Jim and the other Americans were treated um and the fact that we didn't even try to do a

coalition with Western Partners I mean there were at times 20 to 22 westerners held all together every country did their own thing and all the westerners um negotiated all their people came home the Brits and the Americans were all horrifically killed and used for propaganda so I was I really felt and our country could do better and many people did after that and so thanks to many good people we were able to at least begin to change that that now 122 Americans have returned home since 2014 we now have uh some experts working on the

problem far from perfect we have a lot to do um because now some people are targeting Americans nation states are particularly like Russia and others um it continues to be a problem but at least now we have some a dedicated group of people who are working on it and we are and other nonprofits have spur up to health so why did they lie to you as opposed to what were they afraid of what were they afraid that you would do like why why not just say look please understand complex situation well part of the problem

was I never spoke to anyone in real Authority I always was spoke to Middle people they didn't know what to do with me they knew there was no one to help me I I don't know why they didn't dare to be more honest with me so there was a lack of moral courage on their part too yeah and um there was one individual when all the American families came together in April of 2014 um who did very callously very unkindly tell us the truth at the time I was appalled at what he said but in

reality he was the one person who told us the truth at the end just before Jim was killed yeah how do we ever find moral courage to listen with somebody with whom we want to hate where do we find the courage or the obligation if there's no Foundation of unified belief in your case Alexander still justifies and believes he feels justified in in in his actions but or and he can still see you as a mother simultaneously and recognize that his actions have caused incredible pain to a mother and at the same time his actions

are can never be justified to you but you can at least see him as a human being with little kids who also has a mother and misses his family and th those things don't have to be in opposition those sometimes conflicting feelings can live simultaneously absolutely absolutely the oh I I wish go I wish more people had your courage I'm just a very ordinary I'm a mom of five kids a nurse a nurse practitioner I'm not anything I I you know you know it's really my faith in God and also my faith in the goodness

of people yeah and Jim believes that that everyone down deep has a bit of the Divine if you will and so if you look hard enough and listen hard enough and care about them um you can bring it out Jim believed that um and and he's taught me a lot of that and I've seen it and I mean none of the work of our little group would have been possible without many many good people who stepped out up about after the horror of it and offered help so good things aren't possible without one another we

can't do anything alone I don't think that's that's a great lesson one of the lessons I'm learning from you is is when I want to judge someone and and and describe them as evil or describe them as bad or wrong or whatever negative words we use to describe each other to ask myself what good are they motivated by maybe it's they feel lost and they're trying to find love maybe they feel they're just trying to do the right thing for their family they're they're loving parents who believe this is the right thing to do for

their like can I find anything that I could at least agree with or find understanding for as as you said what good is there but the other side of that Simon is we're all very he human and so we all have a a negative part of us that's self-centered that's selfish that's greedy that all those things so there's always that inherent tension in living so we're also capable of of horrible evil horrible bad things too and so my my goal and I think our goal as people who care about the world is to try to

nurture the good and that's what good AU authentic communities do so you know that's what good business cultures do that they try to um emphasize what's good in their employees and praise them for working together and doing the next right thing together so whenever we do that for one another I think good is magnified if you will um and fruitful oh you're amazing hi ly I mean I I'm just you're amazing I mean I think we need to use whatever platform we have to inspire others Simon to do the right thing and so I applaud

you I applaud what you're doing in this regard and if I can be of any use I would love it just because I think it's important the world is so need needs this you know when you said the three things that your organization focuses on moral courage was third on the list and I actually think moral courage is the first thing on the list I do too I think the primary reason for the existence of your organization is to help teach us the importance and how to live with moral courage you happen to do it

through this mechanism of helping us rescue uh uh Americans who are who are uh kidnapped around the world you happen to do it by helping journalists you know who who get taken around the world that is the manner in which you're demonstrating moral courage but I think fundamentally what your organization stands for and what it exists uh is how to have moral courage well I think you're making an excellent point Simon the things we actually do are kind of Niche things that sometimes people can't relate to whereas the moral courage is what inspires our events

and a lot of the people who donate to our work I have no personal experience with anyone who's been taken hostage in a foreign country that would warrant me to support an organization like yours if you described it as such however if you talked about it as an organization devoted singularly to advancing moral courage in the world hookline and sinker where do I sign up how can I help and and and how you bring it to life through this rather Niche thing becomes secondary to me because I desper want to support you in your effort

to teach us and Advance the uh philosophy of moral courage but Simon what gives me the authority on moral courage do you see what I'm saying I mean to me God gives me the authority you know but it's just that's you not you are not the authority on moral courage you are a preacher for moral courage you are a messenger for moral courage okay and your organization is a teacher of moral courage and an example Setter of moral courage so and and and by the way you have moral credibility by the mere fact that you

have demonstrated moral courage in in in in the work that you do so I mean you have the credibility uh and you are a a a you are about as good as a messenger as anyone could be for for for the cause of moral courage then I'm thank you for that um you've taught me today too so so yeah I would love I love what you're doing if I can be of any use um please uh let me know thank you and the feeling's mutual to to to for us to work together to advance Moral

Moral courage is a is is a fight worth fighting for it is Simon so you know we can always use the help of incredible people like you so thank you for that kind than you so so much if you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more please subscribe wherever you like like to listen to podcasts and if you'd like even more optimism check out my website simon.com for classes videos and more until then take care of yourself take care of each other