Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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before the break
with guest Dr. John Graz.
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We were talking about
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the global situation
on religious liberty,
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trends and directions
and some particular examples.
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What's another
country that you want to,
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we talk a little bit
about communist support.
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Oh, we can talk
about all the country
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where you don't
have religious freedom.
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You know, the Arab
Spring sprang rather badly
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when all was over but
is there any good news
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among those countries?
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Yeah, that is something
that we from the beginning,
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you know, we said
that to be careful
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you know, what
will happen after all?
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That's good, they need freedom
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and so on that's good that
people demonstrate saying that
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we need freedom.
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I agree, you know,
people need freedom.
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We cannot live if
we don't have freedom
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but who is behind
and what will happen
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and what would happen.
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And we see today what happened.
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Except one
country and we have always
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to mention that Tunisia
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you know, the first country
where the Arab Spring started.
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And now its
Tunisia is the only country
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where in the constitution,
the new constitution,
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you have the right
of freedom of conscience
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and for the
moments you know the--
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And it's a majority
Islamic society, isn't it?
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Yeah, but the
government is longer Islamic
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but the Islamic are very strong
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and even the leader of
the Islamic party celebrate
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the democratic system
even if they lost the election.
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It means they
have still some hope
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but when of course when you look
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to the other country
is just the opposite,
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and unfortunately we have to say
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when in term of persecution
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you know, you have
the military regime
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in Egypt protect
better the Christian
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than the previous
one elected by people.
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And what happened now in Syria?
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What happened in Iraq?
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And Iraq you remember
we talked that about Iraq.
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We said that a
Christian minority
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will be in very
difficult situation
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and this what happened today.
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You know, you had in Syria
and in Iraq million Christians.
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No, it's just--
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Over one million just in Iraq.
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Yeah just now, you know they're
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Maybe a little
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and they want to
leave and they leave.
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It means Christianity
will disappear from--
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One of the shocking
things in recent months to me
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was to read and you can see
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pictures and videos of
the treatment of Christians
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in what was that city?
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The second-- Isis--
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But when Isis took over
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the second largest city in Iraq,
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I don't know how
many Christians were there
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but were at least a
couple of hundred thousand
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in the country at
that point so at a guess
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there must have been
something like 50,000
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some tens of
thousands of Christians
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not one left, not one left.
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And those who were caught
you know, they were persecuted.
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It means they're
not just discriminated.
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I remember when--
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Some were crucified either.
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You know, I start my ministry
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of religious
freedom at the world level.
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We talk about discrimination,
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time to time
people being arrested
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that was really the big issue
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you know,
discrimination of Christian
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or non Christian
religious minorities.
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Today you know, the
worst is people are crucified,
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they have
beheaded, and just because
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they don't have
the right religion.
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You know remember what happened
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in northern Kenya
where you know the--
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Boko Haram--
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Yeah, Boko, I think Al-Shabaab
or a group from Somalia.
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Associated group.
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Yeah, came from Somalia
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you know, they
invested a university
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and they asked whole
student to recite the prayer.
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To recite the prayer yeah.
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Those who did not
know how to do that
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they were just killed at once.
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That means you know,
you have to go back far
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in history to
see things like that
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and this is what we--
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Unfortunately we can find
that in the Old Testament,
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you remember
there was that period
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where they asked the--
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the Israelites ask this group
to pronounce a certain word.
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If they couldn't say it.
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But that's a barbarism
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and we thought of
another time, isn't it?
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Yeah, exactly
and we thought that
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it will never come back again
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and it is what we
have to face today.
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And it's not
just in a little city
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in a little village you know,
it's a more and more and more
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and more country.
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Like you know, you
have more and more country
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applying the sharia as
the law of their country
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or even if their
sharia has a good thing
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but then also two thing
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which really create the problem
for the religious freedom,
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many other but two
are the most important.
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One is the law on apostasy.
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It means if you
change your religion
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you're punished,
sentence to death.
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By civil well, yes.
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In the civil court that's
exercising religious power.
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It means you become really
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it's really you cannot
follow your conscience.
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You can be
executed if you do that.
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Secondly the law on blasphemy.
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The law on
blasphemy create a pressure,
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a high level of discrimination
on religious minorities.
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Proof required is
minimum, just an accusation.
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And it has to come from someone
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who has the same
religion as the--
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Remember there was the
case, I'm trying to think--
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Asia Bibi. You
remember Asia Bibi--
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Yes, but there was a case--
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She's still in prison.
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It was the case of this imam
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that made a
charge against this woman
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and she was stoned and
killed and then it turned out
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that the imam was
trying to cover up
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for his personal immorality.
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Oh, there are
many cases like that
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where people are
arrested and we know one,
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we try to help him
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but he still in
prison totally innocent
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but have been accused.
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When you are
accused you have no way.
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If you're a member
of a religious minority,
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there's no way to defend you.
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They will arrest
you also to protect you
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because crazy people
fanatics will kill you.
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But of course
the issue was sharia,
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it's not just that
innocent people get killed,
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guilty people get killed.
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Look, where there's a law
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against defamation of
religion say or blasphemy.
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Yes, by being a Christian
and just saying certain things
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that's taken as a
blasphemy against Islam.
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Absolutely.
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Which it might
be on their criteria
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but why should
any modern society
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be able to exercise
even a death penalty
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against someone for such a minor
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offence that comes with their
religious status automatically.
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So they're "guilty"
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but it's still
a great injustice.
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Yeah, you are--
anyway in some part of world
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you are guilty just to be there
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and when it has been your
country for thousand years
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you know, that's a tragedy.
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Suddenly you know, people say
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you have nothing to
do in your own country.
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Why?
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Because your religion,
you have one possibility
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if you change your
religion we will welcome you.
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If you keep your religion,
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we kill you or
you have to leave.
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And you know which
is interesting to see
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unfortunately is the
reaction in some other country.
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Like now the Buddhist react
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against these
extreme in some religion
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and the Buddhist
went to impose Buddhism
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in some countries
like Sri Lanka and Myanmar
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and they also
attack extremist Buddhist
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attack Muslim to
kill Muslim or Christians.
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It does seem we're in a period
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of ratcheting up of religious
tensions and prerogatives,
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don't you think?
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Like what is historically
we always thought that
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they were rather
indifferent to other belief.
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They are most of
the country they are,
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but they also, they
can become criminal too.
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They can kill
people, kill all the people.
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But also, you know,
what we have to understand is
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when you have these
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extremist religious
fanaticism violent in one side,
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you feed another religious
fanaticism in other side.
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And I think that one day
we will a religious fanatic,
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Christian religious
fanatics also doing things,
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really bad
things and we don't know
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where we are going
if we don't do anything.
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So what's the answer
you were thinking about
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heading this
direction but I'm reminded
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of Christopher Hitchens' book.
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He had a title that
I don't want to repeat
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but he subtitled was
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how religion poisons everything.
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Yeah.
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Is religion you
could-- you could come
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to a simplistic
conclusion like you say,
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one extremist breeds another
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and one religious
violence leads to another.
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Would the answer
be to remove religion
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from the equation?
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But you know,
we tried to do that
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the 20th century is
not a religious century
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and what happened?
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You have communism,
you have Nazism, fascism,
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and you have a lot of people
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who are killed during this time.
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And you have also
the extremist people
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in ideology you know,
that was not about religion
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that was about ideology.
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I think the
problem is a human nature.
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It's not the religion itself.
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And religion is such
a powerful force that
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it perhaps magnifies the
tendency to human nature.
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Of course you have
people knowing how to use
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and how manipulate
people on behalf of religion.
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It has always existed.
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Think about the crusade
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you know, these poor
people coming from France,
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coming from England
going walking to Jerusalem
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you know, for nothing
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and that's the
power of religion.
00:09:14.90\00:09:17.44
And of course when
someone can manipulate people
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using religion, he
become like you know, half God.
00:09:20.51\00:09:25.14
Now, we're gonna see
a little bit of that--
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this period of another
US presidential election
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and depending on
when this program is shown
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will be perhaps
right at the middle of it.
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It's fairly benign in
the western country like
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the United States but
religion is one of the--
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the triggers of human behavior
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and politicians use it big time.
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Religion could be the most
beautiful things in the world
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because you have so
many good thing done
00:09:47.38\00:09:49.78
on behalf of religion.
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Look if suddenly
where the people decide that
00:09:52.14\00:09:55.16
every religious
institutions around the world
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should close their door,
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that would be a
tragedy for the world.
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How many
hospitals, schools, orphanages
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and nursing home would be close?
00:10:06.95\00:10:09.21
And I think the human spirit
00:10:09.24\00:10:10.40
what sort of
shrinking on itself.
00:10:10.43\00:10:11.88
Absolutely.
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A new secular Dark Age.
00:10:13.01\00:10:14.63
Exactly but you
have the other side too
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and it has always existed
in the history of Christianity
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who have the
fanaticst, fanaticism
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which is the human
nature or which express
00:10:22.58\00:10:25.69
you know, in such a away that
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they exclu-- in a exclusivity,
00:10:27.56\00:10:30.60
they don't want to
live with the people.
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They don't
accept the difference.
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I know you understand
it but for our viewers
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I need to explain
fanaticism is often
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defined by the
person making the charge.
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Now someone that's serious about
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their faith can easily be
accused of being a fanatic.
00:10:46.50\00:10:48.42
Yeah, absolutely.
00:10:48.45\00:10:49.48
So I think it's
better to say religion
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within the constraints of not
being violent and all the rest.
00:10:51.61\00:10:55.39
They can be as
fanatical as they want,
00:10:55.42\00:10:57.38
but they have no right
to inhibit someone else.
00:10:57.41\00:11:00.63
Yeah, yeah, because we are,
00:11:00.66\00:11:01.86
you know, people can
accuse you of fanaticism,
00:11:01.89\00:11:03.93
I talk about those--
00:11:03.96\00:11:04.99
I might be a fanatic to
them, but not to myself.
00:11:05.02\00:11:06.67
Yeah, exactly.
00:11:06.70\00:11:07.79
But I talked about
those who use violence
00:11:07.82\00:11:10.60
to impose their point of view.
00:11:10.63\00:11:11.71
Yes, absolutely and
we do live in an era
00:11:11.74\00:11:13.80
where violence is gratuitously
used against religious
00:11:13.83\00:11:17.35
or even the
secular others, isn't it?
00:11:17.38\00:11:19.26
Yeah, you know the world
where we are living today
00:11:19.29\00:11:22.29
is not really the ideal one
00:11:22.32\00:11:24.60
and sometime people ask
question about religion.
00:11:24.63\00:11:27.55
Is it religion necessary?
00:11:27.58\00:11:29.26
Yes, I meant in
religion bring hope
00:11:29.29\00:11:32.76
but you know something
which is very important
00:11:32.79\00:11:34.77
for everyone is to accept that
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people have the right
to choose their religion.
00:11:37.81\00:11:40.31
Even to have no religion,
00:11:40.34\00:11:41.65
if they don't want
to have no religion
00:11:41.68\00:11:44.17
we have to respect this right
because this right it's a gift
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and this gift comes from God.
00:11:48.12\00:11:50.44
This is what we
call religious freedom
00:11:50.47\00:11:52.96
and this is why
I believe really,
00:11:52.99\00:11:54.85
religious freedom is
not maybe the only answer
00:11:54.88\00:11:57.56
but it's probably the
main answer to the problem
00:11:57.59\00:12:01.03
we can see in the world today
00:12:01.06\00:12:02.75
in term of relation
between religion and people.
00:12:02.78\00:12:09.68
I would say it's impossible
for anybody to say that
00:12:09.71\00:12:13.08
religious liberty
is not a frontline
00:12:13.11\00:12:15.47
headline issue today.
00:12:15.50\00:12:17.66
After seeing
what happened in Mosul
00:12:17.69\00:12:19.95
with the takeover
of the Islamic State
00:12:19.98\00:12:22.93
of Iraq and the Levant.
00:12:22.96\00:12:25.18
It's obvious that
persecution religious liberty
00:12:25.21\00:12:28.86
in the negative
is a headline issue.
00:12:28.89\00:12:32.10
In a city that
had tens of thousands
00:12:32.13\00:12:34.98
of Christians in a country
00:12:35.01\00:12:36.55
that once had one
million Christians
00:12:36.58\00:12:38.87
and to know that today
00:12:38.90\00:12:40.34
there is not one
Christians left in Mosul,
00:12:40.37\00:12:43.64
after they had
been crucified, beheaded
00:12:43.67\00:12:46.42
and chased out of
town on pain of their life.
00:12:46.45\00:12:49.24
And it lost of
all of their funds.
00:12:49.27\00:12:51.42
It's obvious the persecution
00:12:51.45\00:12:54.72
is so widespread not
only in the Middle East
00:12:54.75\00:12:57.29
but all around the
world that religion
00:12:57.32\00:12:59.97
and the right to
practice one's faith
00:13:00.00\00:13:02.56
is being
challenged as never before.
00:13:02.59\00:13:05.60
That means to me
that the proclamation
00:13:05.63\00:13:08.07
of true religious liberty,
the freedom from everyone,
00:13:08.10\00:13:11.73
for everyone to
practice their faith untroubled
00:13:11.76\00:13:15.47
or to be faithless as they wish.
00:13:15.50\00:13:18.22
This must be
guaranteed in our day.
00:13:18.25\00:13:21.80
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:21.83\00:13:26.15