Welcome to Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
bringing you discussion,
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news, views information
and up-to-date information
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that I hope you can
use in your own life
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as we discuss
religious liberty issues
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in the United States
and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln
Steed, editor Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on the
program is Dr. Robert Seiple,
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who among many positions
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though held the first ever
post of ambassador-at-large
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for Religious Freedom
for the United States.
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So that brings us
instantly to our topic
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discussing religious liberty.
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And you bring so
much experience on this.
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But since you have
left office of course
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the so called
Arab Spring has sprung.
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It began a few years ago but now
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we really into
the follow on period
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and how would you characterize
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from what you know
and what you have seen
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and read like all of
us on religious liberty
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in that part of the world?
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Is it improved
or is it causality
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or where are we?
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Well, first of all
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and since I left a
state department in 2000
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we also had the events of 9/11
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which play into any
forward looking history
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but specifically
to the Arab Spring
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why would we
call the Arab Spring.
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We were optimistic about it.
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We felt that this
was a time of change.
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And it turned out to
be a time of change but--
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Revolutionary change.
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Yeah-- Social
meltdown in some ways.
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Exactly. We weren't
able to control events.
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And part of that
is all own mindset.
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Part of that is how
we operate as a country.
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We have got people who
feel they got four years
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for their legacy or may be
eight years for their legacy.
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That's a short period of time.
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I mean its taking us 238 years
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to get to a present
level of imperfection. Yeah.
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In the United
States and yet we are--
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Well, it's there
and as you know--
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Five months ten months.
This is a bit of burden upon.
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I used to be a history major
and then I turned to English
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so I got a bit of mixture
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but it does
trouble me that history
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began with the program far
that sort of there is continuum
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and the effort you talk
about is really been a long one
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through that English history
which I think in some ways
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is not just the
history of the English people
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it's the working
out of Protestantism
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through the Anglo Saxons.
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But it took us a long
time and we were expecting
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in the Arab Spring
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countries that were
under colonial powers
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and then
despotisms of their own.
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And they gonna sort of revert
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to what through our culture took
hundreds of years to refine.
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And it's still a
working process. isn't it? Yeah.
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This would be more
of a political statement
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than a religious
freedom statement.
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But one of the things
that's absolutely essential
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when countries are convulsing
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and they are
changing from one to another
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whether it's leadership,
governance or whatever.
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We've got to be predictable.
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If we are gonna play
the role of honest broker
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may be even partner
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we have to have a
predictable game plan.
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And this is again
where our four and eight year
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mindsets were changed.
Yeah, right we did changed.
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We don't, we don't
have a long term view
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and we don't have
that long obedience
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in the same
direction that is necessary.
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And any time you have
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something that's
less than certain
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it just is like
throwing gasoline on the fire.
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So we are on both
sides of the issue in Egypt.
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We have been on both
sides of the issue in Syria.
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We have gone
around and round with Iran
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and who knows how
that's going to get resolved.
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But sometimes as
you look at these things
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you wonder are
we, are we coherent,
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are we steady, are we credible,
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are we the honest broker,
do we feel strongly both ways,
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are we
contributing to the problem
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because we are kind of
vacillating don't have--
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Well, let me throw something
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and then you don't
even have to give an answer
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but may be you can
nod or shake your head
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but it seems to me you've
represented the United States
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through your office at that time
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as an ambassador
for Religious Freedom.
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But often those high goals
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that we do have in the society
and through this government.
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There are doubts with
our national self interest
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through other policies
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and we are sort of talking
out both sides of our mouth.
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I have never
understood how they can divorce,
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how we could
divorce national values
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from national interest.
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I wanted to see
our national values
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as part of our
national interest.
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Now I realize this
is hard to implement
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and you don't get
many chances to do it well
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and right but in George Bush's
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and second inaugural address
around the third paragraph
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he makes the
statement, "our national values
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and our national
interest are now one."
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Everybody go, ha, ha, ha.
How is he ever gonna do that?
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Just moral rhetoric or
political rhetoric you know--
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Do you think he
implemented that?
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Celebration. Well, let
me give you an example.
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In Uzbekistan in
March of that year,
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March through May
they had some problems
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with workers rights and
workers began to rise up
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against the governing structure.
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Karimov the
president of Uzbekistan
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sent in the troupes
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they killed somewhere
between 500 and 1,500 Uzbeki.
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George Bush said, we want
an international investigation.
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Karimov said, stay out
it's none of your business.
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We want an
international investigation.
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Karimov said, if you
continue to push this point
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we will kick your
military base out of Uzbekistan.
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Well, that was very
important. I remember that.
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That was national,
that was national interest
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because were
fighting a war in Afghanistan.
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George Bush went back and
said, we will leave the base
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we want an
international investigation.
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Well, that's the
principle of the action.
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Yeah, but tis hard.
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It's hard. It's hard to do that.
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It hard in a
world where we got to be
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interested in real politic
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as well as our values
but I still think that values
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and interest can
become one of the same.
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It certainly can
move closer together
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and depends what you
mean by national values
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but if you're
talking about biblical values
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I think in this imperfect
world it's almost impossible
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for a secular
regime to exemplify them
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totally then we would have
the kingdom of God on earth.
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So you think that Satan wins?
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I think Satan has got a
stranglehold on this full.
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Evil is gonna win out over good.
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Well, and you know--
You don't believe that.
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No, but it came to
my mind rather than
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when we are talking
about how does that happened.
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You know Christian
people came to the new world
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and their interest
was to get a good deal,
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get a foothold
and they even though
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they had Christian values
they didn't have compunctions
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about striking a
very lopsided deal
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with credulous natives.
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And this is because
it happened 300-years ago
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it doesn't mean
it has to happen.
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Well, our interest is to
get the best deal possible.
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I don't see the US
and I'm very pro US
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I don't see it as a
military power primarily.
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In fact, I had a debate
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with one of our
religious liberty directors
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James Sander said
you know it very well,
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on the way down on
he has Sam Huntington
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and we were talking
about whether the US is empire.
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And I said I don't think
it is in the classic sense
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what the US is
parallel to is Venice.
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It was a strong power that
had a bit military over time
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but it generally was a
mercantile interest in it
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manipulated world events
to guarantee its markets.
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And that's what we are
about and it's not evil
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but the national
interest in doing that means
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Commodore Perry
sails into the harbor,
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you know, trade
with us the sorrels.
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It means that when we
deal with an other country
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we have an interest
that really involves us
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getting the better
deal of the business back.
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And that's on
easily reconcilable
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with the ideal national interest
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or national value of,
you know, Christian charity
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and concern for the fellowman.
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I think there is an
inherent conflict there.
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Well, Christian
is a conflict. Yeah.
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I mean, the
conflicts between good and evil
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and that we have with us always
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until the second coming.
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But that doesn't
mean we succumbed to it.
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No, we need-- we
shouldn't give in.
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And, you know, there
is no reason to give in.
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I think that's where
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the testimony of
the individual Christian
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has to rise up in
faithfulness and obedience
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and say now here we stand.
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And I'm glad you brought that
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because that's the
point I wanted to make.
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Yes, we could hope and as an
aggregate of individual citizens
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we can change and direct that
national values such as country
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but its starts and ends
really with the individual.
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We need to exemplify
those values in our own role
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and whether its
going about a daily job
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or as you have for a while
or representing your country
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you have those values. Yeah.
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And you could
put those into action
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but to expect the government
to somehow exemplify them.
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I think that's could
be disturbing illusion.
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Inexpensive thought
that's why it didn't bother me
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when the prayer
came out of the school.
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Prayer should be in
the home we should teach.
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Good point. Yeah.
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We don't want to
wait for the government
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to make a decision
pro-war for against prayer.
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We got to role to play
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and the longer we wait
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and the longer we expect
government to do something
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we are just
giving away the store
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when it comes to faith issues
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and may be in
many issues as well
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but certainly faith issues.
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Yeah, now a very good point.
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So back to the Arab Spring.
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Yes.
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It has sprung and
religion is a big part of it.
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And the question
I want to ask you is
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have we inadvertently
through things like
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US intervention
in Iraq and other
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better be careful
our characterize it
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but other involvements
in that part of the world.
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Have we signaled or suggested
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a new line of a
religious intolerance
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because it a significant
to me that Christians
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and other religious minorities
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where a early casualty
of the conflict in Iraq
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in other word one
million Christians there
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and now they're down to 200,000.
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And I notice that in
Egypt the first signal of the
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so called Arab Spring was--
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were attacks on
Christians in Alexandria
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or Coptic Christians
and its serious same thing.
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And I think
majority of the refugees
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at the moment are Christians.
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They have been
picked on by all factions.
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A, that's true.
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B, to ascribe it to
role of the United States.
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Well, I said may be I
don't think it's definitely.
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I think it's too strong.
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The real religious battle
going on in the Middle East
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is between Sunni and
Shia it's internal to Islam.
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Yeah.
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Islam is at war with self.
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Now who gets
caught in the middle?
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Anybody who is in minority.
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It could be a Baha'i. Yeah.
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It could be
almighty it could be Druze
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but it also could be a
Coptic Christian in Egypt.
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Yeah And a Christian in Damascus
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or a Christian any
place else in the Middle East
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but I think that's a one
of the potential outcomes
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of all this that
would be absolutely tragic
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when you take the
Christian out of the place
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where Christianity start.
00:12:17.22\00:12:18.28
Let me throw a
really wild curve at you.
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It's true the, Sunni,
Shiite divide is huge in Islam
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and it's all over
the prophetic succession.
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In other words who is
the authority in Islam?
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What tradition do you follow?
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It seems to me
that's no more ingrained
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in that religious
tradition than the reformation
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divide in Christianity
between the church of Rome
00:12:42.90\00:12:46.70
and the protestants
over the church authority
00:12:46.73\00:12:49.77
and its role or
rejecting the Pope and so on.
00:12:49.80\00:12:53.23
And I don't think it's all good
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but we have reached
the stage post reformation
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where there is sort of a
drift if not in the union
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then in distinctions
that are disappearing.
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Are we to expect that drift
in Islam, is that the solution?
00:13:01.93\00:13:05.54
And first of all in 2014 we are
not killing each other because--
00:13:05.57\00:13:08.63
Oh, no.
00:13:08.66\00:13:09.69
You know, there
is difference in--
00:13:09.72\00:13:10.77
Well, we did in the
wars of religion in Europe
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on post reformation
there was 200 wars--
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200-years I think of war. Yeah.
00:13:16.15\00:13:19.59
And it may be that
what we are seeing in Islam
00:13:19.62\00:13:22.69
is a following by
two or three generations
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or two or three
centuries of what has happened.
00:13:26.07\00:13:28.74
I don't know I'm not prepared,
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I don't even want
to one of to say that
00:13:31.24\00:13:32.31
and probably would offend
a lot people by saying that
00:13:32.34\00:13:35.03
but there is no
question that we did things,
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Christians did
things to one and other
00:13:41.78\00:13:44.00
including breaking this under
00:13:44.03\00:13:46.27
that what became
known as the reformation.
00:13:46.30\00:13:51.45
Which I'm not denigrating.
00:13:51.48\00:13:53.39
My church and yours for
that matter these are direct
00:13:53.42\00:13:56.22
attacks of the
reformation on very clear
00:13:56.25\00:13:59.61
understandings of scripture.
00:13:59.64\00:14:00.85
They went just you
know parting of the ways
00:14:00.88\00:14:03.31
because it couldn't get along.
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I mean, they were, they
were deeply study differences
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But there was a part of a group
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that worked on bringing
the two thoughts together
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and Cardinal
Cassidy was representing
00:14:12.86\00:14:15.02
the Catholic Church,
00:14:15.05\00:14:17.19
Chuck Olson and
others were representing.
00:14:17.22\00:14:18.90
And yes and I
think on a human level
00:14:18.93\00:14:21.51
some dialog is not
only good it's necessary.
00:14:21.54\00:14:24.05
We will be back
after short break
00:14:24.08\00:14:25.63
to continue this
discussion very interesting.
00:14:25.66\00:14:28.33
The Arab Spring
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and even reaching
back to the reformation.
00:14:29.90\00:14:32.63
Stay with us.
00:14:32.66\00:14:33.74