Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the program
that's bringing you discussion,
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news, analysis and
up to date information
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about religious
liberty developments
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in the United States
and indeed around the world.
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For this program, I'd like
to welcome you to a discussion
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with my guest Tina Ramirez.
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Hesitating on
your name, I'm sorry.
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That's okay. But I know
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you have a lot to share,
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in particularly
for this discussion.
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You can fill in so many gaps,
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because I want to talk
about religious freedom
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around the world,
in the United States
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even though I was
born in Australia,
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I've really got into
it because we talk about
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the
constitution in U.S. history,
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it's--of course
it's unique in some way
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but it's so tied up
to religious freedom,
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because of the
constitution, pilgrim fathers,
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you know, that whole thing,
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but when you go global,
it's a mixed bag, isn't it.
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Oh, absolutely, yeah.
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And religious
freedom is not to be taken
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for granted in
many, many countries.
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No, no. For most
people their faith
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is a matter of life and death.
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It's interesting about
74% of the world's population
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of 5.1 billion people
live under governments
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that severely restrict
their religious freedom.
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So it's, that's a lot
of people to be oppressed.
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Because of many of
them don't know it.
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They are in whatever
state to found themselves
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but if they chose to change
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their religion in Saudi
Arabia, their life is at stake.
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Yeah or like North Korea
for instance is a great example
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because they're so
brain washed by the government
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that they think that's
normal, but it' just horrifying
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what they do to people out there
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in order to stamp out religion.
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Give me your
reaction to something
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I've told people at
meetings, talking about
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this I've said, just because
everyone around you says,
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you live in a free country,
does it mean and so I said,
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most countries unless
you're political dissident
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or having actual
religious freedom problems.
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You judge yourself by
your peers, and if that echo--
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into that echo
chamber everyone is saying,
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this is the--most countries do,
this is the greatest country,
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the freest country,
its self reinforcing.
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Oh, absolutely and the
problem is that you can
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tell the status or the litmus
test for religious freedom
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in any country is really
how do you treat the minorities,
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and the people that
dissent from majority faith.
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And so whether it's
in the United States
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with small
percentage of the population,
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very small
population that want to object
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to the new health care
mandate over the contraceptive
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and abortifacient
drug issue or if its,
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in a country like
Saudi Arabia where you have
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small percentage that
worship privately in homes
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because they are not
allowed to do anything publicly.
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Those minorities are
the ones you can judge
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the freedom for
the broader public by.
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That's the
interesting point, yeah.
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I mean it's not a strange
point to me but I've never
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really narrowly
expressed it that way
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and at the end of the
day that's probably it.
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I remember Hillary Clinton,
talking at our liberty dinner
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once said that you can
judge general civil liberties,
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by how a country treats
religious liberties. So I think
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that statement is
true. Oh, absolutely.
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And then on
religious liberty, yes.
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It's how the smallest minority,
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the minor issues
that are treated,
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if there's no diligence there
likely extends on a broad front.
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Well, on religious freedom
isn't just about the freedom
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of a religious
person to go to church.
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It's really about the freedom
of every individual in society
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to seek the
transcendent in whatever form
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that might be and to exist
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as a spiritual
and a rational being.
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And it's act of freedom.
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It is, it has to be
active, it's not just inside
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of our heads to express
it. In religious liberty
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here we actually horrified when
someone talks about toleration.
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Because what a
lot of people think
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of as religious
liberty is only toleration.
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No, it's
absolutely not. Just to allow
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someone to exist with
the divergent opinion,
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that's no freedom at all.
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When a test comes
and that minority view
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challenges the
majority, you aren't allowed,
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because you're just
merely tolerating them.
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If you hold as a
deep, deeply held viewpoint
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that this person has
innate rights as a human being,
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you're going to go to
great lengths to insure
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that they have those
rights. Oh, absolutely
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and when you have
religious freedom,
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when you have the freedom
to have an internal forum,
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where you are
communicating with an eternal,
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you know with God.
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And to think through moral
absolutes and moral decisions
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right and wrong, when you're
able to judge what is true,
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that affects how you express
it and live it out, you know,
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who you associate with,
and where you go and travel to,
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how you train your community,
your children, your leaders.
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Who you can marry
and how you marry them.
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It affects every aspect of
your life from cradle to grave.
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It's not just
something internal;
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it's an external form as well.
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And one of the
important things to understand
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with religious
freedom and coming back
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to that idea of
litmus test and well,
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you've mentioned
about secretary Clinton's
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comment about it, get
tying into the civil rights,
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is that religious freedom
is inextricably intertwined
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with every other
human right that we have,
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and so you can't just
say, a religious freedom
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is just for religious people.
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No, it's a
matter of how societies
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and communities operate civilly
and have a public discourse
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that debates truth,
whether it's political truth
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or religious truth or
any other kind of truth,
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that aspect of
family and how families
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should exist or
marriage or anything.
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You used the word
before transcendent.
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Clearly it's the society
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that's thinking on
a transcendent level.
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In absent of that what
if you are just a collection
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of beings could be, I
mean we're not animals
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but it's tending
towards just the animal, human,
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a humanism on an animal
level, and all societies
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aim higher than
that. Oh, absolutely.
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Even if they don't
state it as religion.
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The human spirit
yearns for something high,
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so religion is the
highest sensibility of humans
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and we should grant that
to others of our species.
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Yeah, so I wouldn't just say
that how you treat a minority
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is indicative of the
larger freedom in society,
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but how you treat
religious freedom is indicative
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of larger freedom in
your society as well.
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And we, I just
mentioned talking about,
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kind of globally what's
happening around the world.
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Yeah, picking a few places,
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I know you've been
to many, many places,
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where as, and I've
thought of this before
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as we were doing this program.
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Unfortunately,
religious freedom usually
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is expressed in the negative.
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Because we are finding
places where it's struggling
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or it's
restricted, but I don't think
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there's any way around
that, but we need to acknowledge
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there are many
places, I wish there were more
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where there is religious
freedom but we generally
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talk about problem areas.
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What are some of the
areas that you've seen recently
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and think it's worth
bringing to people's attention?
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Well, I like to think of
it more as a global struggle
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against religious oppression.
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And the reason
that I like to think
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of it like this is because,
religious freedom sometimes
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has the connotation
that we're just dealing
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with religious
people but we're not.
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We are dealing with individuals
that are fighting for truth
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and for the freedom to coexist
with other religious people.
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I mean, there's
and to live in a way
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that's free from the imposition
of the particular religion
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which in most of
the world we're dealing
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with Hindu extremism
in India, which I mean,
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it's one of the largest
population in the world.
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I think it's nearly a
billion people in India,
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so nearly like seventh
of the world's population
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in one country where
most of the religious
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persecution in the
world is happening.
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And it's directed
against Muslims and Christians.
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It's Muslims, Christians,
Buddhists, everybody, Sikhs.
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I mean they're all
attacked and some Hindu seculars
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are attacked as well,
but there is this idea
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in Hindu for extremism
that if you're born in India,
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you're born Hindu,
and that's what you are
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and so they forcibly reconvert
people back to Hinduism.
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But it's a
mentality that if you're--
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it's a nationalist
mentality, it's very destructive
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of individuals
and their freedom,
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whether they're Muslim or
Christian, whatever they are.
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And so yeah, I mean, that's
India is just one example.
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Well, I'm going to hesitate,
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you know make a
risk, take a risk her.
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On this program even I've said
several times that I believe,
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we're witnessing global
shifts and the major shift
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is taking place is the
old isms are disappearing.
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Communism is by and large
discredited, disappearing,
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and Chinese communism
is a very hybrid thing,
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and capitalism I
believe is not seen as well.
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Imperialism is long gone.
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Nationalism is not
really that alive and well.
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And what I see all
around the world is groupings
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of people either and it's
usually either or somewhat
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both ethnicity and religion,
there are religious groupings.
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Well, there is no doubt
that religion and ethnicity
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are very prominent but
I would say that communism
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and nationalism
are still on the rise,
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they're so vibrant taking place.
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Oh, they are still around but
they are not the major model.
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And so when religious
sensibility rises to the floor,
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it's recipe for some comfort.
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Yeah, I mean
religion is definitely
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been used more and more,
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but what you see
is that religion,
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religion and ethnicity are being
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intertwined with
national identity.
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Well, it's national
identity, that's not throughout
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the same as nationalism.
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Well, it's similar but
so in Turkey and in India,
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and let's say Burma
even with the Buddhists
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have a culture
there, in Sri Lanka.
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You do see this
movement towards,
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if you are of this country,
then you are this ethnicity
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and this religion and if
you're not and if you're not,
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then you're not-they're
not part of the country.
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Is Sri Lanka. Oh, absolutely.
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And that's what
I see development,
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that whole civil war was
a religious on a group in--
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And this is very dangerous
because what it does then,
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is if you're not in the
majority in that country,
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then you're automatically
ostracized, marginalized.
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And so then that gets back
to what we originally said,
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which is the minorities,
you can tell the status
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of freedom by how
they treat the minorities.
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Something you gave me a
cue on before and I know
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we need to discuss it.
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Since religion is rearing
its head all over the world
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in alliance with
sort of national interest.
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Where do you see this
movement, through the UN,
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I know particularly on
the defamation of religion.
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This is, I don't
think many Americans
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in particular are aware of this.
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But it has huge ramifications
for just a day to day operation,
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you know, an easy
coexistence of religious forces.
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Yeah, I mean
essentially what is that issue,
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in this movement
at the United Nations
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to make this idea of defamation
of religion a universal concept.
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And it's taken
a number of forms,
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since the defeat
of those resolutions
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a couple of years ago.
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But essentially what's happened
is that it's for the intention
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of the countries like
Egypt, Pakistan and a number
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of other
dictatorial regimes, to restrict
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freedom of
speech and expression,
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particularly on
religious issues.
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And particularly to
provide legal justifications
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for blasphemy laws
in their countries,
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so this is really
the problem at hand.
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And what you see right now
at the United Nations is that,
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a couple of years ago, the
U.S. and the organizations,
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Islamic Conference got together
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with some other western
countries and they negotiated
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a new resolution that took
out the defamation language
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and tried to basically
appealed to this a new movement
00:11:58.58\00:12:05.05
and discrimination of religion.
00:12:05.08\00:12:07.84
Well, behind all of it
was the same thing and so.
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That's right.
Though I see countries
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still have their opinions
and the western countries
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have their
opinions but what started
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was secretary Clinton in
Istanbul and I think 2011,
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launched this initiative
called the 'Istanbul Process',
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and that brought several
different countries together
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to begin to think
through how can we implement
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this new resolution and
religious discrimination
00:12:31.93\00:12:35.01
and it really focused on
religious discrimination.
00:12:35.04\00:12:37.46
However, at the same time
there was a parallel process
00:12:37.49\00:12:41.67
that was initiated by
some officials from Egypt
00:12:41.70\00:12:45.06
and other countries called
that has ended most recently
00:12:45.09\00:12:48.45
in about February they
announced a declaration
00:12:48.48\00:12:51.16
called the Rabat
Declaration or Rabat process.
00:12:51.19\00:12:53.81
And this declaration
clearly condemns blasphemy
00:12:53.84\00:12:56.44
but it tries to
continue to move it into
00:12:56.47\00:12:58.95
these
restrictions on speech codes.
00:12:58.98\00:13:01.26
The restrictions on speech
00:13:01.29\00:13:03.57
and the caution
against blasphemy,
00:13:03.60\00:13:05.79
I think the flash point
of all of this is a desire
00:13:05.82\00:13:09.48
to restrict people from
changing their religion.
00:13:09.51\00:13:12.06
Oh, absolutely. To
protect their religion
00:13:12.09\00:13:13.83
from an outside influence.
00:13:13.86\00:13:15.52
We've reached our mid point
00:13:15.55\00:13:17.42
and we do need to take a break.
00:13:17.45\00:13:19.08
And so I'd ask you
to wait by and come back
00:13:19.11\00:13:23.11
and hear more of this discussion
00:13:23.14\00:13:24.45
on religious
freedom around the world.
00:13:24.48\00:13:26.73