Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Tina Ramirez
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000216A
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00:22 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:24 This is the program that's bringing you discussion, 00:27 news, analysis and up to date information 00:31 about religious liberty developments 00:33 in the United States and indeed around the world. 00:36 For this program, I'd like to welcome you to a discussion 00:39 with my guest Tina Ramirez. 00:42 Hesitating on your name, I'm sorry. 00:44 That's okay. But I know 00:46 you have a lot to share, 00:48 in particularly for this discussion. 00:50 You can fill in so many gaps, 00:52 because I want to talk about religious freedom 00:54 around the world, in the United States 00:58 even though I was born in Australia, 00:59 I've really got into it because we talk about 01:01 the constitution in U.S. history, 01:03 it's--of course it's unique in some way 01:06 but it's so tied up to religious freedom, 01:08 because of the constitution, pilgrim fathers, 01:11 you know, that whole thing, 01:12 but when you go global, it's a mixed bag, isn't it. 01:15 Oh, absolutely, yeah. 01:17 And religious freedom is not to be taken 01:19 for granted in many, many countries. 01:21 No, no. For most people their faith 01:23 is a matter of life and death. 01:25 It's interesting about 74% of the world's population 01:28 of 5.1 billion people live under governments 01:31 that severely restrict their religious freedom. 01:34 So it's, that's a lot of people to be oppressed. 01:38 Because of many of them don't know it. 01:41 They are in whatever state to found themselves 01:43 but if they chose to change 01:45 their religion in Saudi Arabia, their life is at stake. 01:47 Yeah or like North Korea for instance is a great example 01:50 because they're so brain washed by the government 01:52 that they think that's normal, but it' just horrifying 01:56 what they do to people out there 01:57 in order to stamp out religion. 01:58 Give me your reaction to something 02:00 I've told people at meetings, talking about 02:02 this I've said, just because everyone around you says, 02:04 you live in a free country, does it mean and so I said, 02:07 most countries unless you're political dissident 02:09 or having actual religious freedom problems. 02:13 You judge yourself by your peers, and if that echo-- 02:16 into that echo chamber everyone is saying, 02:18 this is the--most countries do, this is the greatest country, 02:20 the freest country, its self reinforcing. 02:23 Oh, absolutely and the problem is that you can 02:26 tell the status or the litmus test for religious freedom 02:30 in any country is really how do you treat the minorities, 02:32 and the people that dissent from majority faith. 02:35 And so whether it's in the United States 02:36 with small percentage of the population, 02:40 very small population that want to object 02:42 to the new health care mandate over the contraceptive 02:46 and abortifacient drug issue or if its, 02:49 in a country like Saudi Arabia where you have 02:52 small percentage that worship privately in homes 02:54 because they are not allowed to do anything publicly. 02:59 Those minorities are the ones you can judge 03:02 the freedom for the broader public by. 03:05 That's the interesting point, yeah. 03:07 I mean it's not a strange point to me but I've never 03:11 really narrowly expressed it that way 03:12 and at the end of the day that's probably it. 03:14 I remember Hillary Clinton, talking at our liberty dinner 03:17 once said that you can judge general civil liberties, 03:20 by how a country treats religious liberties. So I think 03:23 that statement is true. Oh, absolutely. 03:25 And then on religious liberty, yes. 03:26 It's how the smallest minority, 03:29 the minor issues that are treated, 03:31 if there's no diligence there likely extends on a broad front. 03:36 Well, on religious freedom isn't just about the freedom 03:38 of a religious person to go to church. 03:42 It's really about the freedom of every individual in society 03:46 to seek the transcendent in whatever form 03:50 that might be and to exist 03:52 as a spiritual and a rational being. 03:54 And it's act of freedom. 03:56 It is, it has to be active, it's not just inside 03:58 of our heads to express it. In religious liberty 03:59 here we actually horrified when someone talks about toleration. 04:04 Because what a lot of people think 04:05 of as religious liberty is only toleration. 04:07 No, it's absolutely not. Just to allow 04:09 someone to exist with the divergent opinion, 04:11 that's no freedom at all. 04:13 When a test comes and that minority view 04:16 challenges the majority, you aren't allowed, 04:18 because you're just merely tolerating them. 04:20 If you hold as a deep, deeply held viewpoint 04:24 that this person has innate rights as a human being, 04:27 you're going to go to great lengths to insure 04:29 that they have those rights. Oh, absolutely 04:31 and when you have religious freedom, 04:33 when you have the freedom to have an internal forum, 04:37 where you are communicating with an eternal, 04:40 you know with God. 04:42 And to think through moral absolutes and moral decisions 04:45 right and wrong, when you're able to judge what is true, 04:48 that affects how you express it and live it out, you know, 04:52 who you associate with, and where you go and travel to, 04:56 how you train your community, your children, your leaders. 05:00 Who you can marry and how you marry them. 05:02 It affects every aspect of your life from cradle to grave. 05:06 It's not just something internal; 05:08 it's an external form as well. 05:10 And one of the important things to understand 05:13 with religious freedom and coming back 05:15 to that idea of litmus test and well, 05:17 you've mentioned about secretary Clinton's 05:18 comment about it, get tying into the civil rights, 05:20 is that religious freedom is inextricably intertwined 05:23 with every other human right that we have, 05:26 and so you can't just say, a religious freedom 05:29 is just for religious people. 05:30 No, it's a matter of how societies 05:32 and communities operate civilly and have a public discourse 05:36 that debates truth, whether it's political truth 05:39 or religious truth or any other kind of truth, 05:41 that aspect of family and how families 05:43 should exist or marriage or anything. 05:46 You used the word before transcendent. 05:48 Clearly it's the society 05:50 that's thinking on a transcendent level. 05:52 In absent of that what if you are just a collection 05:54 of beings could be, I mean we're not animals 05:58 but it's tending towards just the animal, human, 06:00 a humanism on an animal level, and all societies 06:04 aim higher than that. Oh, absolutely. 06:06 Even if they don't state it as religion. 06:08 The human spirit yearns for something high, 06:11 so religion is the highest sensibility of humans 06:14 and we should grant that to others of our species. 06:17 Yeah, so I wouldn't just say that how you treat a minority 06:20 is indicative of the larger freedom in society, 06:24 but how you treat religious freedom is indicative 06:26 of larger freedom in your society as well. 06:29 And we, I just mentioned talking about, 06:31 kind of globally what's happening around the world. 06:33 Yeah, picking a few places, 06:34 I know you've been to many, many places, 06:36 where as, and I've thought of this before 06:39 as we were doing this program. 06:41 Unfortunately, religious freedom usually 06:43 is expressed in the negative. 06:45 Because we are finding places where it's struggling 06:47 or it's restricted, but I don't think 06:50 there's any way around that, but we need to acknowledge 06:51 there are many places, I wish there were more 06:55 where there is religious freedom but we generally 06:57 talk about problem areas. 06:58 What are some of the areas that you've seen recently 07:00 and think it's worth bringing to people's attention? 07:04 Well, I like to think of it more as a global struggle 07:07 against religious oppression. 07:08 And the reason that I like to think 07:09 of it like this is because, religious freedom sometimes 07:13 has the connotation that we're just dealing 07:15 with religious people but we're not. 07:17 We are dealing with individuals that are fighting for truth 07:20 and for the freedom to coexist with other religious people. 07:23 I mean, there's and to live in a way 07:26 that's free from the imposition of the particular religion 07:30 which in most of the world we're dealing 07:32 with Hindu extremism in India, which I mean, 07:34 it's one of the largest population in the world. 07:36 I think it's nearly a billion people in India, 07:38 so nearly like seventh of the world's population 07:43 in one country where most of the religious 07:46 persecution in the world is happening. 07:47 And it's directed against Muslims and Christians. 07:50 It's Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, everybody, Sikhs. 07:54 I mean they're all attacked and some Hindu seculars 07:58 are attacked as well, but there is this idea 08:01 in Hindu for extremism that if you're born in India, 08:05 you're born Hindu, and that's what you are 08:07 and so they forcibly reconvert people back to Hinduism. 08:11 But it's a mentality that if you're-- 08:14 it's a nationalist mentality, it's very destructive 08:16 of individuals and their freedom, 08:20 whether they're Muslim or Christian, whatever they are. 08:22 And so yeah, I mean, that's India is just one example. 08:27 Well, I'm going to hesitate, 08:30 you know make a risk, take a risk her. 08:32 On this program even I've said several times that I believe, 08:36 we're witnessing global shifts and the major shift 08:39 is taking place is the old isms are disappearing. 08:42 Communism is by and large discredited, disappearing, 08:46 and Chinese communism is a very hybrid thing, 08:50 and capitalism I believe is not seen as well. 08:54 Imperialism is long gone. 08:57 Nationalism is not really that alive and well. 09:00 And what I see all around the world is groupings 09:03 of people either and it's usually either or somewhat 09:06 both ethnicity and religion, there are religious groupings. 09:11 Well, there is no doubt that religion and ethnicity 09:14 are very prominent but I would say that communism 09:17 and nationalism are still on the rise, 09:22 they're so vibrant taking place. 09:23 Oh, they are still around but they are not the major model. 09:27 And so when religious sensibility rises to the floor, 09:32 it's recipe for some comfort. 09:34 Yeah, I mean religion is definitely 09:36 been used more and more, 09:38 but what you see is that religion, 09:41 religion and ethnicity are being 09:43 intertwined with national identity. 09:45 Well, it's national identity, that's not throughout 09:46 the same as nationalism. 09:48 Well, it's similar but so in Turkey and in India, 09:51 and let's say Burma even with the Buddhists 09:54 have a culture there, in Sri Lanka. 09:56 You do see this movement towards, 10:00 if you are of this country, then you are this ethnicity 10:05 and this religion and if you're not and if you're not, 10:08 then you're not-they're not part of the country. 10:10 Is Sri Lanka. Oh, absolutely. 10:12 And that's what I see development, 10:13 that whole civil war was a religious on a group in-- 10:17 And this is very dangerous because what it does then, 10:19 is if you're not in the majority in that country, 10:22 then you're automatically ostracized, marginalized. 10:26 And so then that gets back to what we originally said, 10:28 which is the minorities, you can tell the status 10:30 of freedom by how they treat the minorities. 10:32 Something you gave me a cue on before and I know 10:35 we need to discuss it. 10:37 Since religion is rearing its head all over the world 10:41 in alliance with sort of national interest. 10:44 Where do you see this movement, through the UN, 10:47 I know particularly on the defamation of religion. 10:50 This is, I don't think many Americans 10:52 in particular are aware of this. 10:54 But it has huge ramifications for just a day to day operation, 11:00 you know, an easy coexistence of religious forces. 11:04 Yeah, I mean essentially what is that issue, 11:06 in this movement at the United Nations 11:09 to make this idea of defamation of religion a universal concept. 11:15 And it's taken a number of forms, 11:19 since the defeat of those resolutions 11:20 a couple of years ago. 11:21 But essentially what's happened is that it's for the intention 11:25 of the countries like Egypt, Pakistan and a number 11:28 of other dictatorial regimes, to restrict 11:33 freedom of speech and expression, 11:34 particularly on religious issues. 11:37 And particularly to provide legal justifications 11:40 for blasphemy laws in their countries, 11:42 so this is really the problem at hand. 11:44 And what you see right now at the United Nations is that, 11:46 a couple of years ago, the U.S. and the organizations, 11:50 Islamic Conference got together 11:51 with some other western countries and they negotiated 11:54 a new resolution that took out the defamation language 11:58 and tried to basically appealed to this a new movement 12:05 and discrimination of religion. 12:07 Well, behind all of it was the same thing and so. 12:11 That's right. Though I see countries 12:12 still have their opinions and the western countries 12:14 have their opinions but what started 12:16 was secretary Clinton in Istanbul and I think 2011, 12:21 launched this initiative called the 'Istanbul Process', 12:27 and that brought several different countries together 12:30 to begin to think through how can we implement 12:31 this new resolution and religious discrimination 12:35 and it really focused on religious discrimination. 12:37 However, at the same time there was a parallel process 12:41 that was initiated by some officials from Egypt 12:45 and other countries called that has ended most recently 12:48 in about February they announced a declaration 12:51 called the Rabat Declaration or Rabat process. 12:53 And this declaration clearly condemns blasphemy 12:56 but it tries to continue to move it into 12:58 these restrictions on speech codes. 13:01 The restrictions on speech 13:03 and the caution against blasphemy, 13:05 I think the flash point of all of this is a desire 13:09 to restrict people from changing their religion. 13:12 Oh, absolutely. To protect their religion 13:13 from an outside influence. 13:15 We've reached our mid point 13:17 and we do need to take a break. 13:19 And so I'd ask you to wait by and come back 13:23 and hear more of this discussion 13:24 on religious freedom around the world. |
Revised 2014-12-17