Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Robert Seiple
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000251A
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00:23 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:25 This is a program bringing you up-to-date news, 00:27 views information, analysis and opinion on religious liberty 00:32 events in the United States and around the world. 00:35 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:39 And my guest on this program is Dr. Robert Seiple 00:43 among many other accomplishments 00:45 the first ever US ambassador-at-large 00:48 for Religious Freedom. 00:50 Welcome to the program. Thanks, good to be here. 00:52 And I can think of probably no more appropriate discussion 00:56 after that introduction. 00:57 Let's talk about what the US ambassador does 01:02 and did when you began it. 01:03 Because you really forged the way on that, 01:05 it's been two others since you arrived 01:08 and we, we're now currently waiting for the fourth. 01:12 Yeah, fourth. 01:14 But it's in a larger context, isn't it? 01:15 You're out of the state department, right? 01:19 Well the-- Explain the structure. 01:22 The act itself which is now law as if October 1998 01:27 and by the way, this act was passed 01:29 unanimously by both houses. 01:32 Which is a rare thing now that's. 01:33 Well, it just doesn't happen and remember this was at a time 01:36 when Monica Lewinsky was adding poison to the well 01:40 and nothing got passed. 01:42 This got passed unanimously. 01:44 So I have said something 01:45 who can be against religious freedom 01:47 and trying to preserve it 01:48 but it also said something about an issue 01:50 that can bring a lot of different 01:52 disparate ideas and folks together. 01:55 So this got passed and it included 01:58 an ambassador-at-large in the state department. 02:01 It included an independent or someway independent, 02:04 some like governmental group called the commission outside. 02:09 You know, and please explain that. 02:11 You know, I deal a lot of with 02:12 different individuals in that group 02:14 but I have never really understood how they 02:18 I mean how that semi independence functions 02:21 and who pace them for example. 02:23 Well, the only way to talk about it is honestly. 02:26 So I'm gonna tell you from my prospective. 02:28 It's the best way to talk about anything. 02:30 In my perspective the US, the US commission, 02:33 the outside group was specifically designed 02:37 to make sure the state department did its job 02:40 which is to say there are people in Washington 02:43 who didn't trust the state department to do its job. 02:46 Initially they wanted 02:47 this whole office to be in the presidents office 02:50 may be the National Security Council that didn't happened. 02:53 So the balance of power arrangement was it. 02:57 You know, that's was and while there are people 02:58 who thought strongly about this issue 03:00 there are also people who wanted to see a very vigorous bill. 03:05 A bill to punish offenders 03:08 implemented with the same figure. 03:11 Now that works in Washington. 03:13 You get people standing up 03:14 on their tip toes and pounding their chest 03:17 and speaking with verbal bomb blast 03:19 to trust on wars work in Washington. 03:23 But the issue for me was 03:24 they don't work anywhere else in the world. 03:25 No. 03:26 So all that bomb blast doesn't mean as 03:29 to who it's when you're out there. 03:30 Really more in a persuasion aren't you. 03:31 So you're trying to promote religious freedom. 03:34 So yeah there's these two camps punish and promote. 03:37 I came down on the side of promote 03:39 I don't think that's the only think that would work. 03:41 I think history has proven its other thing that will work. 03:44 You have to be very, very careful. 03:47 The United States sanctions more countries 03:51 than all the rest countries combine. 03:54 And when you have a unilateral sanction 03:57 it doesn't work very well. 03:58 People find as their friends to work around the issues. 04:00 Well, it's too much sanctioning 04:03 that leads to further conflict I think well I-- 04:06 Yeah, so how do to you go into a country 04:09 that's had a problem with protecting its people 04:12 in terms of the religious beliefs. 04:14 Finding a vested self interest, 04:16 finding something that's a point of communality 04:18 in promoting a more excellent way, 04:22 a better way to do business, a better way to govern, 04:25 a better way to implement justice in a country 04:30 and I think that's what will stick 04:32 if you can find that. 04:33 If you can't find that obviously you are you stay at square one 04:37 and you have people who are remained 04:39 very vulnerable to bad government. 04:41 So there was your position 04:43 it was established by this unanimous vote? 04:45 Yeah. 04:46 And then there was the US commission 04:48 it was ninth commission wasn't it? 04:50 Nine commissioners and then myself as a ex-officio. 04:56 Now the charter for the one of the better word 05:00 for the commission has been renewed just recently 05:02 but hasn't they haven't they cut the number to six. 05:05 I'm not sure the number right now. 05:06 I think they have cut the number 05:07 or at least there is an intention 05:09 to cut the number even if they haven't done it. 05:11 But it brings up a good point. 05:13 The commission was under a lot of scrutiny during commission 05:17 can't you do this in the state department? 05:20 You can't go into a country 05:21 without going to the state department. 05:23 How do you run an independent 05:24 or someway independent commission? 05:26 So there were problems there 05:28 at the same time I have to say that the commission 05:30 for great lengths of time between ambassadors 05:33 when there was nobody representing that had cloud 05:37 the commission was calling people to account. 05:39 And so the commission was doing its thing. 05:41 But I'm always bristled that little bit at the commission 05:45 because and the commission had good people on it 05:48 but it was put together for a negative reason. 05:52 We don't trust the state department to do its job. 05:54 So this is sort of big brother for you. 05:56 I take that personally as a member 05:58 of the state department at that time. 06:00 And I think that we did our job 06:02 but we did in concert for the commission. 06:03 So which department or who was paying the commission 06:07 or who is paying the commission. 06:10 Well, I'm not exactly sure who has to, budget that money. 06:13 Yeah that's really. 06:14 But it really a part of the state department. 06:18 The staff and I always use to covet the staff 06:22 they had really, really good staff 06:24 and they had a lot more than I had. 06:26 And when you're the commissioners 06:27 sue your volunteers 06:28 they get podium 06:29 when they could show up in Washington and so on. 06:31 But that's, that's they're volunteers. 06:34 And there are people of cloud 06:37 they're people of great experience 06:39 and they're significant folk. 06:41 Oh, I have been impressed 06:42 in my dealings with some of them just 06:44 the type of people they are there. 06:46 Everyone-- I would travel with them 06:48 or they will travel with me. 06:50 But it always was a kind of an interesting thing 06:52 when we are sitting at the same table 06:55 at the UN in Geneva or at a country 06:58 that's not playing by the rules 07:00 who is gonna talk first, who is gonna talk last, 07:02 who are they gonna listen to, who are they gonna invite 07:04 but you have all those kind of issues. 07:07 So it's a sloppy way to do business. 07:09 It comes out of the negative initiative 07:13 but in fairness to where we have been 07:15 for the last 12-13-years, 14 years now. 07:19 There are times when they were the only people in town 07:22 because the office had been so demoralize. 07:27 Let me ask you a really loaded question 07:29 and its not political but its politics of this. 07:33 You know there was an interregnum 07:37 if you like recently where that it looked like 07:39 the Commissions Charter might not have been renewed. 07:42 So from your perspective you were saying that 07:45 we might not have lost too much 07:47 if we kept the strong role for the ambassador. 07:51 I think if you keep a strong role for the ambassador 07:54 you don't need the commission. 07:55 Yeah. 07:56 But again there was a discussion 08:00 in the first meeting we had the commission 08:03 where one of the committee members, 08:04 a guy I like a great deal, said what's our role? 08:08 Are we to light a candle? Are we to curse the darkness? 08:13 And then there was silence. 08:15 And he said I guess 08:16 it's we're supposed to curse the darkness. 08:19 Yeah. And that's the two-- 08:21 Yeah, you better light the candle. 08:22 Promoting and lighting the candle 08:24 punishing, cursing the darkness 08:26 and put your at loggerheads here in the around the world. 08:31 Now I think you know we're talking about 08:33 the United States in another, in another program. 08:37 And I think the value of the United States 08:40 is not direct military or political leadership 08:44 per se its moral leadership. 08:46 And lighting that candle is what the US could do 08:49 and US own constitution is a candle 08:51 even when it doesn't always follow perfectly itself 08:55 but that, that could be taken out into the world 08:57 and I like the way that you saw the role of the ambassador. 09:01 Two ways the expectations and to think well of people 09:04 and to project on them 09:07 these higher values rather to punish them. 09:09 One of the positive unintended consequences is the role of hope 09:14 that was felt by an awful lot of nameless faceless people 09:18 who now realize that America was gonna take their part 09:23 could stand up for them. 09:24 And demand that they have 09:26 the same kind of religious freedom 09:29 that in the best chance 09:30 other people were allowed to have. 09:32 So that, that hope, hope keeps people alive. 09:36 I have been in situations where a lack of hope can be where 09:40 deleterious to oneself and then not having food or drink. 09:43 Hope is extremely important. 09:46 And coming from a power source 09:49 where in the house of power 09:51 these things are been articulated 09:53 and these name of faceless people 09:55 were being lifted up. 09:57 That was very hopeful to lot of folks. 09:58 It's interesting you say that. 10:00 It was two responses I got to the hope thing. 10:01 One from Australia I think you probably know about it. 10:04 May be some of our viewers do 10:06 the aboriginals the first inhabitants 10:08 of the continent down there 10:10 they had their own animistic sort of beliefs 10:13 but one of their characteristics is the witchdoctor 10:19 might decide that someone was enemy 10:22 and they would point the bone at them literally. 10:25 And the person will go off and die. 10:28 Well, I don't necessarily think there's no evidence 10:30 that the spirits and there is a spirit rule 10:32 but that they didn't necessarily kill them. 10:34 The person believed that they were gonna die. 10:36 They lost hope and they died. 10:38 I think the human body is so powerfully 10:41 and totally controlling, without hope people die. 10:45 That's a very interesting. 10:47 I'm gonna use that in some message 10:50 does it very much handsome. 10:51 Yeah, but people read up in Australia 10:52 it was a common think to point the bone 10:55 and they would just go off. 10:56 They would literally go off out of the village and die. 10:58 Yeah. Just fade away. 11:01 And the key to hope for me is to, 11:02 is to have something tangible in the present. 11:04 I mentioned in our faith 11:07 the resurrection is that tangible faith 11:09 and that gives us legitimate and credible hope. 11:11 But remember when Babylonians were about to come across the, 11:17 the walls of Jerusalem and Jeremiah was saying, 11:22 you know, you all gonna you know die 11:23 or you going to be carried off for 70-years. 11:26 God says Jeremiah wants to run by a field. 11:28 Yes. 11:30 What a strange time to-- 11:31 Show your faith in the future, yeah. 11:32 Okay, they go on by a field 11:34 and he said take something with you to sign 11:36 make sure you have witness make sure you have a deed, 11:39 make sure you take that deed and protect that deed. 11:41 Why, because in 70 years you're going to comeback. 11:45 Seventy years you're going to reconstitute your guardians 11:47 you're gonna rebuild your home. 11:49 And further70-years 11:50 when you're locked in Babylon in exile 11:54 I want you to have something very tangible and hope for him. 11:57 Well I don't want to equate that 11:58 with International Religious Freedom Act. 12:01 But that was a source of hope. 12:03 That was something very tangible. 12:04 Well, hope is a big factor and how humans behave. 12:09 And in other program you and I discussed 12:10 the little of the Arab Spring 12:12 and I think we are at a turning point. 12:15 You know and now jump to something else 12:17 when the Soviet Union fell people had incredible hopes 12:21 for, for a new democratic free market if you like future 12:27 which hasn't totally been fulfilled 12:29 and I have worried and I still worry 12:30 a bit unreal expectations perhaps in their case 12:34 when those hopes to dash 12:35 and then now there is no real hope 12:37 what comes beyond and in the Arab Spring 12:39 I think is the same. 12:40 They threw off the Mubarak Regime 12:43 and several others in that area 12:45 and as descendent the chaos again. 12:47 I think there's a real danger as the society of those people 12:51 see there is no hope then I don't know what follows. 12:54 Let me give you a positive example 12:57 to buttress your negative example. 12:59 Well, I'm sorry it's a negative one 13:00 but history that leads you to some negatives, sometimes. 13:05 Well by thinking positive way in China 13:08 you had people who were promised a lot to communism 13:11 that betrayed them, they lost that hope. 13:15 Then they were promised law through consumerism. 13:18 Build up every chance to make money. 13:20 And that proved to be empty. 13:23 There is a great deal of spirituality in China today. 13:26 Yeah. 13:27 Supportably out of the out of the result of expectations 13:32 that were never met any places. 13:34 Even that's true, and that has to be that 13:37 when all human endeavors failed 13:39 and people are forced back on God 13:41 and spiritual aspirations so yeah that's a good point. 13:45 I would like to say 13:46 I would agree with you in terms of the Arab Springs 13:48 that's much to soon to determine what's gonna happen there 13:52 and in terms of the downfall of the Soviet Union, 13:56 you know, again you take two steps forward, 13:59 you take one step back. 14:00 But there were unreal expectations 14:03 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. 14:04 You know they believed that 14:06 this was now the consumer paradise 14:09 that was coming upon them. 14:10 And instead there was criminality 14:12 and gangsters and then and brutalism. 14:17 Anyhow we need to take a break 14:19 we will back for a little bit more of explanation 14:21 of how the office of the US Ambassador 14:25 for Religious Freedom and the US Commission 14:27 on Religious Freedom work 14:30 to project those values from the US. 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Revised 2014-12-17