Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break with
guest Ambassador Robert Seiple.
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We had started off
talking about the Arab Spring
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and we're getting
very philosophical I think,
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we're endeavoring some
parallels to the reformation
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and all parallels
break down eventually
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but they could perhaps shed
some light on the situation.
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And many people have said
it's not new to this discussion
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that perhaps Islam
and the Islamic world
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the Arab world
certainly might need
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something dynamically
like the reformation.
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But what do you
think about that is,
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what could change
the status quo oh,
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not the status quo
there are no status quo
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what could change
these intractable dynamics
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in the Middle East?
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Well, of course meant properly.
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On a religious front? Yeah.
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These are
always difficult issues
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if we haven't been able to
figure it out in 2,000 years
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and may be its
going to take a little bit
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more than the next 20 minutes.
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But of course we
always wanted to try the...
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something has to happen
in the leadership overall
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of the Islamic
faith and they have to get
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to that point on their own.
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If they're
plotted by non-Muslims
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it just won't happen.
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So they've got a come
to a point where they say,
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look, if we're going to
make any sense out of our faith
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and have it be
an attractive faith.
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So right now it's
not an attractive faith.
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You're told what you can't do
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and if you do a certain
thing then you're cast out
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or you're head
comes off or something.
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And it's hard to turn
into attractive faith.
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I had a, I had a
discussio in Moscow once
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with head of the
Orthodox Church though,
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the Russian Orthodox
Church and the Islamic head
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Imam of Moscow.
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And there was a time
when we were bombing Kasimov.
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So people were
against the United States
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for doing what it was doing
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and not doing enough
of what they were doing.
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And so I was talking to both
someone from the orthodox faith
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and someone
from the Muslim faith
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what should have had different
points of view towards to me.
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But in Russia they hung
together, they stand together
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and conspire
sometimes with the government
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to get put
something into motion.
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And I remember the Imam saying
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we need to get
our market share up.
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And I said what does it
say about your theology?
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When you are
talking to market share.
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Yeah, about market share
self interest from the unity.
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Yeah, and so the
theology it had nothing to do
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with the direction he wanted
his faith to go and vice versa.
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And somehow this
is true of all faiths.
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All faiths have to be
making a positive contribution
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because values and interest
come together for the individual
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who wants to be a practitioner
of that particular faith.
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And it if that
happens you can be pulled off
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in many, many directions.
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And this has what happened
in the Sunni, Shia divide.
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Something that
happened back in the 6th Century
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is pulling people apart
and creating an identity
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that is not amenable to other.
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And that's true and even
as you're saying market share
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it just strikes me
that's heading peerlessly
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close to what even we
have tried within this country.
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Religious groups seeking
in essence political power
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I think if it's ever to
sold it will have to be sold
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on the personal level not
by the leadership of Islam
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any more than the
leadership of Christianity.
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You know the reformation
could never be resolved
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by the Pope and Martin Luther
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personally discussing something.
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It was bigger than that.
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And even if in some
magic way that I think
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this of have
interest in your comment.
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If some key figures in
Islam and its hard to find them
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because there is no Pope,
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there is no head of
the southern Baptist
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or whatever the best you
can come up with in qualm
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they might be a
recognized seminary
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that trains most of the
clerics in one country in Iran.
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But even if you could
if the people are on chase
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you would have the
same trouble, wouldn't you.
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The issue as it I
believe with Islam
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its community attitude
and cultural expression
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of their religious faith.
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And from our
religious liberty perspective
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we somehow need to
communicate to large swats
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of the population
in the whole world
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but we are
talking about this part
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that it should be
more than tolerance
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which Quran does talk about.
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You know this Dhimmi the tribute
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that you had to
pay to Islamic country.
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There should be
recognition that another faith
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has the same human
dignity right under heaven
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and under Allah or
God then anyone else.
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1948, the nations of
the world got together,
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the religions of
the world got together
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and they put
together something called
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Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
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Yeah, I was gonna
have you reiterate that
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when you
mentioned at the first time.
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And in that in the Article 18
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it talks about
religious freedom.
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It talks about the
ability to share ones faith
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to change ones faith.
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Which is very important.
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And now today, I
mean that was voted, voted
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and after a lot of discussion
Eleanor Roosevelt voted to do
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and we go that voted in.
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Today that would be voted down.
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We couldn't put it to a vote.
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We can't even talk about it.
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Apparently that's because
we never talked about why.
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We talked about the
what it had to incurred
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but we never talked
about the motivating factors.
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Why do you believe this?[]
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And so that was left out.
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And I think once you leave
out that motivating factor,
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you know, for the
Christian it's very clear.
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God loves me has a
plan for our lives.
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Okay, it's very
clear but if you take
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that out together it
begins to fall apart.
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It begins to lose its power.
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And so you have a document
today that is not only powerless
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it won't pass
muster in a global vote.
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Well, and the UN as
even come up with that
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I don't think they were passed
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but wasn't they were deformation
of religion initiative
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that it seemed
be rank added to it.
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They would severe
international penalties against
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speaking or acting against
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the interest of
another religion.
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That is very close to the
blasphemy laws in Pakistan.
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Right, yeah.
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Well, had its origin in
some of the part of the world.
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And the blasphemy
laws are terrible.
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If you have a score
to settle with someone
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all you have to do is
say he desecrated the Quran.
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And then crowd of
youths whatever comes
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and they burned
down the man shop.
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Well there goes the competition.
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I accomplished what I wanted.
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And that sounds
simplistic but unfortunately
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that's how they
work to put them.
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But we have a case of
a Seventh-day Adventist
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in Pakistan.
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At the moment he is jail
on-appeal for a life sentence
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for blasphemy he is very
lucky because the penalty
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could have been death.
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But it was just
over a romantic rivalry
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he fell in love with this girl,
he wasn't able to marry her
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because the parents promised her
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to some more wealthy
person living in England.
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He made the mistake of
making a few phone calls
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to his once fiancA  and
the husband reported him said
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that he'd maligned Islam.
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And it's unclear to
us how he really did that
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but on that alarm that charger
alarm to get a rid of rival
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he was sent to prison
and convicted for life.
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Well, what you have
in Pakistan unfortunately
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and some parts of India
an environment of impunity.
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You can do these
things and get away with it.
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And when you use
that sense of justice
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you lose a great
deal of hope in all kinds
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of intolerant behavior
are allowed to go forth.
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And so the blasphemy
law is not good for anyone.
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I think your
point is very correct.
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The universal
declaration wonderful statement
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in someway its small
far reaching and high minded
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then the religion
clauses in the US Constitution.
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We know what lies behind them.
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But it's a wonderful statement
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but may be its not enforceable
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or universally
accepted as it once was.
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And yet is there room for hope.
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I you have told me
already you're a great optimist.
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Well I have been optimist.
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In the Middle East Arab
Spring has gone a bit sore.
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But is there any light
at the end of the tunnel
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that we can see out of
this, this maelstrom perhaps
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there is some yearnings toward
some sort of religion freedom,
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some sort of-- we
needn't to be happy
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they have tolerance
wouldn't we in some places
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which is a bad word
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for religious
freedom, generally.
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The question is
where do you look for hope.
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Now if you look to the
United Nations for hope
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we just
described in 1948 agreement
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that were no longer past muster.
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And if you look
at the agreements
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that came since then
international covenants
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they all began to
kind of slide down
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the slippery slope.
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Now do you think part of it
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and we are
running out of time here
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but when the
universal declaration was passed
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there was a much more
membership in United Nations.
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It's the mix now and not.
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Probably it also came
out of the horrific situation
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of World War II.
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And so what can we do?
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Well, it's a desperations,
yeah, to do something
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coming together and
supposed to kill each
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other in the ways
that we destroyed people
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millions of
people in World War II.
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You know, where
do we go now I mean,
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at least philosophically looking
at the, at the Arab Spring.
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Can we hope and see some
sort of improvement there?
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We never lose hope
but the key to hope
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believing that
tomorrows expectations
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are better than
reality of today.
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The key to hope is to make
sure that we got enough time
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to do diligence and
to work with the system
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and to give it our best shot
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and their hope may have a
chance otherwise may be not.
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A few years ago when
I was studying history
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I remember I had a nicely
bound book of European history
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and it was under the overall
title "An Age of Revolution."
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When I look at the Middle
East particularly I see there
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that we are living
indeed or witnessing indeed
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an age of revolution.
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There was change in the air
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but unless there
are values presented,
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unless people seek
a positive direction
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it will not go
in a positive way.
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When I look at Islam
and the challenges that,
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that faith has in
coming to groups with itself
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and to the modern world
and relating to other religions
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I hope and pray
that the Arab Spring
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turns into a new beginning
not just the apocryphal story
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about the law and his groan.
00:11:06.70\00:11:08.51
And I don't know
where my law moral is
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not a weedy patch
of civil meltdown.
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We need religious
liberty spread far and wide
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and matter of faith no matter
of the political situation
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and even the
Arab Spring gone wrong
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it can't go right eventually.
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