Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
bringing you up-to-date news,
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views information, analysis
and opinion on religious liberty
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events in the United
States and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on this
program is Dr. Robert Seiple
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among many other accomplishments
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the first ever US
ambassador-at-large
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for Religious Freedom.
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Welcome to the program.
Thanks, good to be here.
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And I can think of probably
no more appropriate discussion
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after that introduction.
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Let's talk about what
the US ambassador does
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and did when you began it.
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Because you really
forged the way on that,
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it's been two
others since you arrived
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and we, we're now currently
waiting for the fourth.
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Yeah, fourth.
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But it's in a
larger context, isn't it?
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You're out of the
state department, right?
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Well the--
Explain the structure.
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The act itself which is
now law as if October 1998
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and by the way,
this act was passed
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unanimously by both houses.
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Which is a rare
thing now that's.
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Well, it just doesn't happen
and remember this was at a time
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when Monica Lewinsky was
adding poison to the well
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and nothing got passed.
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This got passed unanimously.
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So I have said something
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who can be
against religious freedom
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and trying to preserve it
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but it also said
something about an issue
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that can bring
a lot of different
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disparate ideas
and folks together.
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So this got
passed and it included
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an ambassador-at-large
in the state department.
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It included an independent
or someway independent,
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some like governmental group
called the commission outside.
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You know, and
please explain that.
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You know, I deal a lot of with
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different
individuals in that group
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but I have never
really understood how they
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I mean how that semi
independence functions
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and who pace them for example.
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Well, the only way to
talk about it is honestly.
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So I'm gonna tell
you from my prospective.
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It's the best way
to talk about anything.
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In my perspective the
US, the US commission,
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the outside group
was specifically designed
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to make sure the
state department did its job
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which is to say there
are people in Washington
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who didn't trust the
state department to do its job.
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Initially they wanted
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this whole office to be
in the presidents office
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may be the National Security
Council that didn't happened.
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So the balance of
power arrangement was it.
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You know, that's was
and while there are people
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who thought
strongly about this issue
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there are also people who wanted
to see a very vigorous bill.
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A bill to punish offenders
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implemented
with the same figure.
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Now that works in Washington.
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You get people standing up
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on their tip toes
and pounding their chest
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and speaking
with verbal bomb blast
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to trust on wars
work in Washington.
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But the issue for me was
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they don't work
anywhere else in the world.
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No.
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So all that bomb
blast doesn't mean as
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to who it's when
you're out there.
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Really more in a
persuasion aren't you.
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So you're trying to
promote religious freedom.
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So yeah there's these
two camps punish and promote.
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I came down on
the side of promote
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I don't think that's the
only think that would work.
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I think history has proven
its other thing that will work.
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You have to be
very, very careful.
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The United States
sanctions more countries
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than all the rest
countries combine.
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And when you have
a unilateral sanction
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it doesn't work very well.
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People find as their friends
to work around the issues.
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Well, it's too much sanctioning
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that leads to further
conflict I think well I--
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Yeah, so how do to
you go into a country
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that's had a problem
with protecting its people
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in terms of the
religious beliefs.
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Finding a vested self interest,
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finding something
that's a point of communality
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in promoting a
more excellent way,
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a better way to do business,
a better way to govern,
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a better way to
implement justice in a country
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and I think
that's what will stick
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if you can find that.
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If you can't find that obviously
you are you stay at square one
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and you have
people who are remained
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very vulnerable
to bad government.
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So there was your position
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it was established
by this unanimous vote?
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Yeah.
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And then there
was the US commission
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it was ninth
commission wasn't it?
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Nine commissioners and
then myself as a ex-officio.
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Now the charter for
the one of the better word
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for the commission has
been renewed just recently
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but hasn't they haven't
they cut the number to six.
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I'm not sure the
number right now.
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I think they have cut the number
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or at least
there is an intention
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to cut the number even
if they haven't done it.
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But it brings up a good point.
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The commission was under a lot
of scrutiny during commission
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can't you do this in
the state department?
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You can't go into a country
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without going to
the state department.
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How do you run an independent
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or someway
independent commission?
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So there were problems there
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at the same time I have
to say that the commission
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for great lengths of
time between ambassadors
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when there was nobody
representing that had cloud
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the commission was
calling people to account.
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And so the
commission was doing its thing.
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But I'm always bristled that
little bit at the commission
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because and the
commission had good people on it
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but it was put
together for a negative reason.
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We don't trust the state
department to do its job.
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So this is sort of
big brother for you.
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I take that
personally as a member
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of the state
department at that time.
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And I think that we did our job
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but we did in
concert for the commission.
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So which department or
who was paying the commission
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or who is paying the commission.
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Well, I'm not exactly sure
who has to, budget that money.
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Yeah that's really.
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But it really a part
of the state department.
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The staff and I
always use to covet the staff
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they had really,
really good staff
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and they had a
lot more than I had.
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And when you're
the commissioners
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sue your volunteers
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they get podium
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when they could show up
in Washington and so on.
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But that's, that's
they're volunteers.
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And there are people of cloud
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they're people
of great experience
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and they're significant folk.
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Oh, I have been impressed
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in my dealings
with some of them just
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the type of
people they are there.
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Everyone-- I
would travel with them
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or they will travel with me.
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But it always was a
kind of an interesting thing
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when we are
sitting at the same table
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at the UN in
Geneva or at a country
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that's not playing by the rules
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who is gonna talk
first, who is gonna talk last,
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who are they gonna listen
to, who are they gonna invite
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but you have all
those kind of issues.
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So it's a sloppy
way to do business.
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It comes out of
the negative initiative
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but in fairness
to where we have been
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for the last
12-13-years, 14 years now.
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There are times when they
were the only people in town
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because the office
had been so demoralize.
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Let me ask you a
really loaded question
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and its not political
but its politics of this.
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You know there
was an interregnum
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if you like recently
where that it looked like
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the Commissions Charter
might not have been renewed.
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So from your
perspective you were saying that
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we might not have lost too much
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if we kept the strong
role for the ambassador.
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I think if you keep a
strong role for the ambassador
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you don't need the commission.
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Yeah.
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But again there was a discussion
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in the first meeting
we had the commission
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where one of the
committee members,
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a guy I like a great
deal, said what's our role?
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Are we to light a candle?
Are we to curse the darkness?
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And then there was silence.
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And he said I guess
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it's we're supposed
to curse the darkness.
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Yeah. And that's the two--
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Yeah, you better
light the candle.
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Promoting and
lighting the candle
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punishing, cursing the darkness
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and put your at loggerheads
here in the around the world.
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Now I think you
know we're talking about
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the United States in
another, in another program.
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And I think the
value of the United States
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is not direct military
or political leadership
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per se its moral leadership.
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And lighting that
candle is what the US could do
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and US own
constitution is a candle
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even when it doesn't
always follow perfectly itself
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but that, that could be
taken out into the world
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and I like the way that you
saw the role of the ambassador.
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Two ways the expectations
and to think well of people
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and to project on them
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these higher values
rather to punish them.
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One of the positive unintended
consequences is the role of hope
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that was felt by an awful
lot of nameless faceless people
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who now realize that America
was gonna take their part
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could stand up for them.
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And demand that they have
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the same kind of
religious freedom
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that in the best chance
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other people
were allowed to have.
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So that, that hope,
hope keeps people alive.
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I have been in situations where
a lack of hope can be where
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deleterious to oneself and
then not having food or drink.
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Hope is extremely important.
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And coming from a power source
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where in the house of power
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these things
are been articulated
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and these name
of faceless people
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were being lifted up.
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That was very
hopeful to lot of folks.
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It's interesting you say that.
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It was two responses
I got to the hope thing.
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One from Australia I think
you probably know about it.
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May be some of our viewers do
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the aboriginals
the first inhabitants
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of the continent down there
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they had their own
animistic sort of beliefs
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but one of their characteristics
is the witchdoctor
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might decide
that someone was enemy
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and they would point
the bone at them literally.
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And the person
will go off and die.
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Well, I don't necessarily
think there's no evidence
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that the spirits and
there is a spirit rule
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but that they didn't
necessarily kill them.
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The person believed
that they were gonna die.
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They lost hope and they died.
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I think the human
body is so powerfully
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and totally controlling,
without hope people die.
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That's a very interesting.
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I'm gonna use
that in some message
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does it very much handsome.
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Yeah, but people
read up in Australia
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it was a common
think to point the bone
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and they would just go off.
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They would literally go
off out of the village and die.
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Yeah. Just fade away.
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And the key to
hope for me is to,
00:11:01.06\00:11:02.73
is to have something
tangible in the present.
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I mentioned in our faith
00:11:04.74\00:11:07.21
the resurrection
is that tangible faith
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and that gives us
legitimate and credible hope.
00:11:09.34\00:11:11.54
But remember when Babylonians
were about to come across the,
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the walls of Jerusalem
and Jeremiah was saying,
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you know, you all
gonna you know die
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or you going to be
carried off for 70-years.
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God says Jeremiah
wants to run by a field.
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Yes.
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What a strange time to--
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Show your faith
in the future, yeah.
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Okay, they go on by a field
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and he said take
something with you to sign
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make sure you have witness
make sure you have a deed,
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make sure you take that
deed and protect that deed.
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Why, because in 70 years
you're going to comeback.
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Seventy years you're going
to reconstitute your guardians
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you're gonna rebuild your home.
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And further70-years
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when you're locked
in Babylon in exile
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I want you to have something
very tangible and hope for him.
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Well I don't want to equate that
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with International
Religious Freedom Act.
00:11:58.76\00:12:01.34
But that was a source of hope.
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That was
something very tangible.
00:12:03.02\00:12:04.77
Well, hope is a big
factor and how humans behave.
00:12:04.80\00:12:09.04
And in other
program you and I discussed
00:12:09.07\00:12:10.78
the little of the Arab Spring
00:12:10.81\00:12:12.45
and I think we are
at a turning point.
00:12:12.48\00:12:15.51
You know and now
jump to something else
00:12:15.54\00:12:17.02
when the Soviet Union fell
people had incredible hopes
00:12:17.05\00:12:21.85
for, for a new democratic
free market if you like future
00:12:21.88\00:12:27.60
which hasn't
totally been fulfilled
00:12:27.63\00:12:29.41
and I have
worried and I still worry
00:12:29.44\00:12:30.74
a bit unreal expectations
perhaps in their case
00:12:30.77\00:12:34.09
when those hopes to dash
00:12:34.12\00:12:35.87
and then now
there is no real hope
00:12:35.90\00:12:37.51
what comes beyond
and in the Arab Spring
00:12:37.54\00:12:39.21
I think is the same.
00:12:39.24\00:12:40.54
They threw off
the Mubarak Regime
00:12:40.57\00:12:43.88
and several others in that area
00:12:43.91\00:12:45.51
and as
descendent the chaos again.
00:12:45.54\00:12:47.76
I think there's a real danger
as the society of those people
00:12:47.79\00:12:50.98
see there is no hope then
I don't know what follows.
00:12:51.01\00:12:54.33
Let me give you
a positive example
00:12:54.36\00:12:57.63
to buttress your
negative example.
00:12:57.66\00:12:59.74
Well, I'm sorry
it's a negative one
00:12:59.77\00:13:00.84
but history that leads you
to some negatives, sometimes.
00:13:00.87\00:13:05.92
Well by thinking
positive way in China
00:13:05.95\00:13:08.35
you had people who were
promised a lot to communism
00:13:08.38\00:13:11.66
that betrayed them,
they lost that hope.
00:13:11.69\00:13:15.36
Then they were promised
law through consumerism.
00:13:15.39\00:13:18.29
Build up every
chance to make money.
00:13:18.32\00:13:20.64
And that proved to be empty.
00:13:20.67\00:13:23.20
There is a great deal of
spirituality in China today.
00:13:23.23\00:13:26.35
Yeah.
00:13:26.38\00:13:27.71
Supportably out of the out
of the result of expectations
00:13:27.74\00:13:32.66
that were never met any places.
00:13:32.69\00:13:33.98
Even that's true,
and that has to be that
00:13:34.01\00:13:37.56
when all human endeavors failed
00:13:37.59\00:13:39.32
and people are
forced back on God
00:13:39.35\00:13:41.93
and spiritual aspirations
so yeah that's a good point.
00:13:41.96\00:13:45.12
I would like to say
00:13:45.15\00:13:46.18
I would agree with you
in terms of the Arab Springs
00:13:46.21\00:13:48.68
that's much to soon to determine
what's gonna happen there
00:13:48.71\00:13:52.31
and in terms of the
downfall of the Soviet Union,
00:13:52.34\00:13:56.67
you know, again you
take two steps forward,
00:13:56.70\00:13:59.10
you take one step back.
00:13:59.13\00:14:00.16
But there were
unreal expectations
00:14:00.19\00:14:03.16
with the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
00:14:03.19\00:14:04.94
You know they believed that
00:14:04.97\00:14:06.77
this was now the
consumer paradise
00:14:06.80\00:14:09.14
that was coming upon them.
00:14:09.17\00:14:10.20
And instead
there was criminality
00:14:10.23\00:14:12.14
and gangsters and
then and brutalism.
00:14:12.17\00:14:17.81
Anyhow we need to take a break
00:14:17.84\00:14:19.27
we will back for a
little bit more of explanation
00:14:19.30\00:14:21.82
of how the office
of the US Ambassador
00:14:21.85\00:14:25.76
for Religious
Freedom and the US Commission
00:14:25.79\00:14:27.91
on Religious Freedom work
00:14:27.94\00:14:29.99
to project those values
from the US. Stay with us.
00:14:30.02\00:14:32.63