Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Robert Seiple
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000247A
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00:22 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:25 This is a program brining you news, views and discussion 00:28 and up-to-date information on religious liberty issues 00:31 in the United States and around the world. 00:33 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:37 And my guest on this program, 00:39 my special guest is Ambassador Dr. Robert Seiple 00:44 and when I say ambassador that's for real 00:47 because you were the first ever 00:49 ambassador-at-large for Religious Freedom 00:52 for the United States. That's right. 00:53 So you had a great privilege 00:55 from a religious liberty perspective 00:57 to represent not just religious liberty 00:59 but your country. 01:01 Yes, it was a great privilege 01:02 and I won't trade it for anything. 01:05 I have to say, if you're the first 01:07 there is some positives that go with it 01:08 because nobody knows, what to expect. 01:10 Yeah, probably thinks that you wouldn't want 01:12 to share on this program with 01:13 but it was a wonderful experiment I think, 01:15 more than an experiment an initiative 01:17 that United States took to place 01:19 religious liberty on this, this high status. 01:22 It was good initiative. 01:23 Just think if you're one of the 600 million people 01:25 being persecuted because of your faith around the world 01:29 and here, at the time the last reigning super power 01:33 it's tough to say that to a Nazi, 01:34 but the Russia remain super power then 01:37 it is taking up their cause. 01:39 Speaking for them in the house of power in Washington, D.C. 01:43 these nameless, sometimes faceless people 01:47 are been advocated for and that's a very positive fame. 01:50 Yeah, you know, wonderful. 01:52 And as you are saying this, you know, I'm reminded 01:54 of what's come out recently from the pew forum. 01:57 They've researched 01:59 at least quantified that say as not many 70 percent 02:02 of the world's population live under regimes 02:05 or in a context of repression of religious freedom, right. 02:09 So you had a big challenge ahead of you 02:11 when you went out selling forth 02:14 on behalf of the United States and religious liberty. 02:17 Ones like working for the poor, you'll never be out of the job. 02:21 No. 02:22 Because you have the poor 02:23 and unfortunately we have persecuted 02:26 and you are right, there are tremendous vulnerabilities, 02:29 when people are coerced. 02:32 I mean faith is, for faith to be authentic 02:34 and has to be freely embraced. 02:36 So anything that is coercive whether it's a government, 02:39 some imposition, a conflict, a famine 02:43 whatever begins to work against 02:45 that kind of inherent freedom is wrong 02:50 and has to be challenged. 02:51 You've really kept to the chase, 02:52 because-- Are we're done? 02:54 I don't even-- No, but I don't always say that on this program 02:56 but that is the ultimate criteria 02:59 of the religious freedom. 03:00 If this coercion involved, even coercion to a correct 03:04 from my perspective even if someone with-- 03:06 I'm Seventh-day Adventist so if someone was coerced, 03:09 the government did it or even the church force 03:12 someone to worship on Saturday that would be still wrong, 03:14 wouldn't it, even though it's perhaps a right activity. 03:18 So when we're dealing with religious liberty 03:19 we have to really keep our radar on 03:23 is there force involved, is free will restricted. 03:27 Well we have to do that, 03:28 but also governments have to do that. 03:30 Governments have to understand that, 03:31 this issue if you look at identity get large 03:36 one of the primary components of the identity 03:38 is how people feel about their faith. 03:41 I mean its stronger, it's more passionate than ethnicity, 03:45 then gender than anything. 03:47 I mean that's why religious wars 03:49 are so destructive. Absolutely. 03:50 We got this very powerful, 03:52 passionate people going out one another 03:54 and taking them as prisoners normally, 03:56 literally and we end up with wars 03:59 that are longer and more brutal and less predictable. 04:03 Yeah, on this program we have discussed that before 04:06 and you're bringing the essential distinction, 04:09 most wars are fought over control of territory 04:13 or excess to resources, water was the classic one. 04:16 You can attain that, you know beat the others, 04:20 gain the water hold or whatever in the walk in we're 04:22 but when you are talking about religious conflict, 04:25 it's more existential, isn't it? 04:26 And internal. 04:28 Yes, you're often dealing with the absolute other, 04:30 the absolute evil 04:31 and when you've got religious fanaticism 04:34 by want to cease until as an extermination. 04:38 And normally the conflict itself, 04:40 the tensions embodies in a conflict 04:42 will make this identity even stronger. 04:45 I use to go to Bosnia in the early 1990s. 04:48 You never saw a woman wearing a burkha in Sarajevo, 04:52 five years later you saw them all over the place. 04:55 Because the war had got into place 04:59 of destructive behavior where people were taking stands 05:03 and making stands and saying, "hey this is my identity." 05:07 Now, Bosnia is a good example of something bad, 05:10 you have people who were passionate about their faith. 05:12 There are few different groups 05:13 and ethnic cleansing some times two 05:16 and three times over in a particular village 05:19 taking place because people were not prepared 05:24 to understand the diversity of the neighborhood 05:29 and the other became a challenge to them 05:32 and the other sometimes have to be eliminated. 05:37 Yeah, I remember the Bosnia conflict 05:39 and the background as you say. 05:41 At what point were you appointed 05:44 at this position was Bosnia underway at that point? 05:48 Because it's fairly early in the Clinton-- 05:50 No, this came out of my World Vision experience, 05:52 but soon after I came-- 05:54 And our viewers should be aware that 05:55 before that you were president of World Vision. 05:58 Yeah, and then went to the state department in 1998. 06:03 And one of my first trips was back to Bosnia. 06:07 Bosnia is kind of key because it has so many things about us. 06:12 It says that we don't remember what happened in World War II 06:18 and the elimination of an entire race 06:20 because as they thought differently, 06:22 they looked differently, they worship differently-- 06:24 Throughout the Serbs and the Croats. 06:26 So you had the Serbian orthodox, 06:29 you have the Catholic Croats and you had the Muslims. 06:33 But I think it goes further back. 06:35 I don't think the modern world remembers very well 06:37 that this is the leftover debris of the clash of empires 06:41 in religions with the Islamic inroads at the Europe. 06:45 Well, it certainly goes back to the 1300s. 06:47 Yeah, absolutely. 06:48 Yeah and some of the things that happened then in-- 06:52 again a lot of this is religious in nature 06:55 and it says something about the long memory, 06:58 the long historical memory 06:59 when something happens that put your religious views at risk. 07:05 Its one thing to forgive it's another thing to forget 07:08 and those folks never forgot. 07:10 Now when you went back to that area 07:12 did you see evidence of reconciliation 07:16 about these religious factions? 07:19 That's interesting. 07:20 And we compare with Rwanda which also was very traumatic. 07:25 And we saw evidence of reconciliation 07:27 right afterwards. 07:28 You could use the word in Bosnia, it was too raw. 07:32 People had seen what it had been done to them, 07:35 had done to what to what they'd done to others 07:38 and you couldn't talk about reconciliation. 07:41 So what we did and again we are talking about 07:44 World Vision's involvement there 07:46 is to work on parent teacher's associations. 07:49 The point of commonality is my children, 07:52 my children and education they're getting. 07:54 We also worked in terms of athletics 07:57 and so we had a volleyball team 07:59 where you consciously choose some Croats some Serbs 08:03 and some Bosniaks, Muslims to go against the other team 08:08 and to see how that can begin to work. 08:10 But they were long, long way, 08:12 this is hardly traumatized nation. 08:15 So, you know that's a wonderful 08:16 sense of community reconciliation 08:18 but it seems to me in that area 08:21 there is really been more partitioned 08:23 than community heeling, unlike South Africa and Rwanda 08:29 that you mentioned where there was the truth and reconciliation 08:31 and the healing of the community. 08:33 I don't really think that's happen in the Balkans. 08:36 No, and the sad thing is 08:38 if you look at the date and codes, 08:40 first off all we have a date and peace agreement 08:43 because fatigues sadden. Where did it sadden? 08:46 It sadden because of ethnic cleansing. 08:49 Where the lines drawn? 08:51 Well, the lines now are functional 08:53 how successful you were 08:55 in ethnically cleansing the other. 08:57 That's a good point. 08:58 It's a bad point but-- 09:00 So it mix for a lousy map. Yeah. 09:02 But the map makes for terrible history. 09:05 Yeah. 09:07 Even as you're saying that 09:08 I was just reading article about the Euro troubles 09:12 and I am wondering how that's-- 09:14 have you heard anything how the economic, 09:17 the economic malaise in Europe at the moment 09:19 is that destabilizing that area further. 09:21 I don't know I just came back from Athens. 09:23 And it seemed like everybody wanted euros. 09:26 And the things are going on as normal there. 09:29 Well, yeah, they are going on as normal 09:31 and it's an expensive country. 09:33 I was surprised I thought, with all the problems 09:37 this would be the last great bargain, it's not a bargain, 09:40 and Europe is fighting all kinds of issues. 09:44 What, what to do with Turkey. Is Turkey in, is Turkey out? 09:47 So as Greece is going to be a viable partner and so on. 09:51 It's one of those grand experiments of history. 09:55 Absolutely. 09:56 And may, may not have enough logic 10:01 and simplicity to make it work. 10:04 And I know some of our Seventh-day Adventist 10:07 evangelists are starting to invoke 10:09 the image of Daniel 2 again. 10:10 You know those feet of iron and of clay 10:13 that had bond too well. 10:15 But it's certainly got a high goal to unify 10:20 all of these so often warring factions in Europe. 10:24 But even though I'd be interested in comment on this. 10:26 Even though Europe appears to be 10:28 a thoroughly secular mosaic state 10:33 I think religious forces are bubbling along 10:36 just fine in Europe and every now and again is in 10:41 and on the friends there in Bosnia things pop up. 10:45 It's hard to say, because I am not sure what's bubbling means. 10:49 I'm not sure how optimistic one should be. 10:51 Well no, not bubbling in the bubbly sense 10:55 but what trust of a mind as you are talking, 10:57 you know, this the sense of existential threat 11:00 in Germany and France 11:02 and few other countries from all of the immigrant workers 11:07 many of whom come from Middle East 11:12 not technically the Middle East 11:13 but from Turkey and Islamic countries 11:16 and North Africa, usually Muslims. Yeah. 11:19 And so religion, first of all 11:21 just like in the US with the Irish Catholics. 11:26 Yes, there is immigrant other that the people object to 11:29 but religious label that accentuates the difference. 11:33 You know, the problem is someone said that 11:34 difference between an optimist and the pessimists 11:36 is that the pessimists always has more facts. 11:39 And I think you look up you're today, 11:40 and probably this is true at any part of the world 11:42 that pessimist has more facts 11:44 and you can draw the very pessimistic point of view. 11:47 It's not inconceivable that in Arab springs 11:52 that was so destructive 11:54 and so much of hope differed euphemistically speaking 11:59 and its so chaotic now in its aftermath 12:02 in terms of the structures that remain 12:04 and who's doing the governing and who is been hurt by them. 12:07 It's hard to imagine-- 12:09 it's easy to imagine that this could spillover 12:12 into other parts of, old and new Europe 12:16 and have some of the same problems. 12:19 Those things are scared. 12:20 That would be interesting development 12:22 and I agree with you. 12:24 But that you can't really 12:25 project easily what would happen. 12:27 But the other well, wasn't it Tennyson 12:30 he said "The old order changeth." 12:33 But we don't know what the new order. 12:34 Wow, but that's where we're headed, I know them. 12:37 Yeah. That's the great joy. 12:38 What I am afraid of from the point of history 12:41 is that new Europe sounds a lot to me 12:44 like the alliances that preceded World War II. 12:48 It was and World War I for that matter primarily World War I. 12:52 You know, whole series of alliances 12:53 when something kicked then automatically this country would 12:57 fight this country until the whole groups were at-- 13:00 We have something thing brings up 13:02 those kinds of discussions. Yeah. 13:05 And religion is not only potential problem 13:08 but it can be a plus. 13:10 This is time for a break so stay with us 13:11 and we will continue this very interesting discussion 13:14 with Ambassador Seiple. |
Revised 2014-12-17