The voice of experience
Rhys Johnson’s passion for human rights and justice has deep roots in the poorest slums of London.
It was sparked by racial slurs he endured as a child – born to a British father who married a poor girl from Calcutta, India – and nurtured by the pervasive violence, beatings and bullying he sustained.
Those childhood experiences – coupled with 10 years working in the war-torn Gaza Strip and Jerusalem – give Johnson a broad definition of human rights. As director of Coeur d’Alene’s new Human Rights Education Institute, the 38-year-old said he wants to expand the local scope beyond the struggle for racial equality.
He believes human rights encompasses everything from fighting meth addiction and domestic violence to eradicating bullying in the schools, working for equality for women and even protection of the environment.
Johnson’s personal story and his “global perspective” made his application stand out from the more than 70 others who applied to head the town’s human rights center, said Betsy Hawkins, chair of the search committee.
The center, which will be located in the former railroad battery building at the edge of City Park, received $1 million in seed money from Idaho philanthropist Greg Carr. Board members envision the center as telling more than the local story of how the community stood up to former Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler. The center will also focus on national and international issues, with education programs for children and adults.
Johnson will oversee an assistant – yet to be hired – and possibly a larger staff if funding allows. For now, the institute will operate out of donated office space at Fifth and Front.
The job opening in Coeur d’Alene came at a time when Johnson was searching for a change.
In 1997, he had taken a job as assistant director of the LAW Society, a Jerusalem-based nonprofit that was formed to stand up to abuses by the Palestinian Authority. Within a few years, the 80-hour work weeks began to take a toll.
“I saw people shot in front of me in Palestine,” he said. “Seeing someone shot, that’s a very incredible experience on its own. Another experience is the fact that it could have been you.”
Johnson decided to take a break from Jerusalem. He spent time with a girlfriend in Boston, researching in the Harvard library. After they split up, he moved to South Africa, spent more time in America, went to New Zealand and traveled everywhere from Indonesia to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
“I needed space and time to think and kind of reflect on life,” Johnson said. He met a Buddhist monk outside a temple in Malaysia, shaved his head and together they traveled Southeast Asia.
All the while, during his travels, Johnson continued working with the LAW Society. During his absence, early in 2003, the nonprofit was rocked with scandal. Money was siphoned off and, though it was eventually found, the new board of directors didn’t want Johnson to stay on.
“I never looked at the financing,” Johnson said. “I just raised the money. We had an accountant and a bookkeeper and all those things. Obviously, they didn’t look after the books.”
Johnson said he was crushed to see the organization fall apart the way it did –”It was supposed to be the beacon of democracy in Palestine in many respects” – but he learned an important lesson. He wants the Human Rights Education Institute to be more transparent. He wants people to hold the center accountable, to scrutinize the center and be involved.
Mary Lou Reed, chair of the Human Rights Education Institute committee, said Johnson told them he had left the nonprofit after an “unfortunate incident.” He was open about the fact that something had happened and he wasn’t happy.
Reed said the board had no reason to question Johnson’s integrity.
“One of the things Rhys exhibits is he’s really into honesty,” Reed said. “That’s part of what human rights is all about.”
When he accepted a $1,000 check on behalf of the human rights center this month, Johnson made a bit of a scene handing the check over to Reed. He said he wanted people to know exactly where the money was going.
After the LAW Society scandal, Johnson returned to London. He said he was grateful for the opportunity to reconnect with his hometown. He came to the realization that, though he was working hard to better the lives of others, he was neglecting his own.
“Life was too hard for me the way I was living,” he said. “I realized I was spending all my time battling something: Against the bads. Against anti-democracy. Against facism. Against this, against that. Even the battling didn’t seem right.”
When he came to Coeur d’Alene a year ago to interview for the job as director of the human rights center, Johnson said he was impressed with the story he was told.
“The community took control,” Johnson said. “It took control to say no to Butler, but it also took control in a way that was a true expression of human rights, which is, ‘Do what you want to do, but don’t encroach on our rights and don’t dictate to us. Don’t bully us.’ “
He left the community with a new – and happier – definition of human rights.
“I actually realized human rights was not the thing I was thinking it was,” he said. “It wasn’t about torture. It wasn’t about killing.”
‘A bully for justice’
Johnson’s grandfather lied about his age to join the British Army at 14. He traveled with the army to Afghanistan and eventually ended up in India. His son – Johnson’s father – was born in India.
He was well-educated in schools similar to American boarding schools, but was a rebel, Johnson said. A man who would later become Johnson’s uncle decided to pair the Brit with his sister, a poor girl from a family of Indian tailors.
The two married and had a son, Andrew. Johnson was a life taking shape in his mother’s womb when the family moved from India to escape the communal conflicts between the Hindus and Muslims.
They moved to the east end of London – a locale famous for its poverty. At first, they lived in hostels. His father was in a men’s hostel an hour’s walk away.
Johnson’s mother has told him the experience was awful. The hostel air was thick with the stench of alcohol. The people were rough. Eventually, the family moved into a small apartment.
“There was a lot of poverty,” Johnson said. “With poverty comes violence.”
Because his of dark skin, Johnson was considered a “Paki,” and relentlessly bullied by both children and adults in the neighborhood. He says he lived in fear, walking close to walls and constantly looking for alternative routes home to escape the bullies’ wrath.
As a young teen, he was attacked by a gang of about 20. Johnson said he was on the ground, curled up with his elbows up to protect his head as he was getting kicked.
Then one of the older kids told the others to stop, to leave Johnson alone.
“I’m thinking, God, there is some justice in this world,” Johnson said. “There was that wonderful feeling of something good.”
As he lifted his head, the older boy kicked him square in the face.
Another time, Johnson was studying in his apartment. He went upstairs to ask the neighbors to quiet down and they attacked him with hammers as his older brother (he also has a younger brother) watched.
“I saw my brother and the look of horror on his face was extreme as a look of anger on those people’s faces,” Johnson said. “These people had lost their humanity. No matter how much blood they spilled, it wasn’t going to satiate their anger.”
In his later teen years, Johnson went from being bullied to becoming one himself.
“The way I bullied was I didn’t allow bullies to bully anyone else and I didn’t allow there to be racial violence,” Johnson said. “I would try and push around for justice. I was a bully for justice.”
‘Safer places’
He started working in London’s poor neighborhoods, with refugees and immigrants and the mentally ill. He went on to address national concerns, such as how to keep the mentally ill out of prisons, and then international issues.
Because he’s been bullied and was raised in an abusive household and an abusive community, Johnson is a strong advocate against bullying and violence.
Since arriving in Coeur d’Alene, Johnson has fielded phone calls from parents concerned about bullying in Coeur d’Alene’s schools and teachers who want him to visit their classrooms.
He recently met with school principals to discuss strategies to deal with bullying. Much of Johnson’s job will center on educating children in the community, but he will also be working with adults. He said he considers several other issues under the umbrella of human rights.
Human rights can be about helping empower women, he said, by working to stop violence in the home and stopping the cycle of victims becoming abusers.
“We can make our schools happier and safer places,” he said. “Maybe if we start to do that, we can actually start to make those frail, fragile homes where there are problems of drug abuse, or any abuse, safe places, too.
“These are the places we need to try and make safe: The institutions of our communities first. Our homes. Then, we need to try and work toward a better community.”
Johnson said an issue that’s not often looked at as a human rights issue is the environment. People are entitled to life, liberty and happiness, Johnson said, but also to clean, clear drinking water.
“It’s about our existence and the continuation of the quality of life we’d want for our children, too,” he said. “If we pollute our waterways, if we chop down our trees, the quality of our life is reduced in many ways.”
To be successful in addressing any human rights issue, Johnson said it comes down to balance and compromise.
Partisan politics and competing views need to be put aside in order to strike a balance that benefits everyone, he said.
Before applying for his job, Johnson only knew Idaho as a place on the map.
Now, he said he considers Coeur d’Alene his home. He said he can picture a future here. He can imagine buying a home, maybe marrying and having a family.
Johnson might train for the Ironman triathlon. He wants to take tango lessons, learn to ski, go snowmobiling and conquer his fear of heights by flying, skydiving and parasailing.
He likes the idea of Coeur d’Alene that a local shared with him: Coeur d’Alene could become a Camp David. People from around the world, people in conflict, could come here to start having conversations and work at addressing issues that cause division.
“To do that, first we need to have these conversations ourselves,” he said. “Then, we need to help our nation have that conversation.”