Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000291B
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00:02 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider
00:04 before the break with guest Dr. John Graz. 00:06 We were talking about 00:08 the global situation on religious liberty, 00:10 trends and directions and some particular examples. 00:15 What's another country that you want to, 00:17 we talk a little bit about communist support. 00:18 Oh, we can talk about all the country 00:20 where you don't have religious freedom. 00:21 You know, the Arab Spring sprang rather badly 00:25 when all was over but is there any good news 00:28 among those countries? 00:30 Yeah, that is something that we from the beginning, 00:32 you know, we said that to be careful 00:34 you know, what will happen after all? 00:37 That's good, they need freedom 00:39 and so on that's good that people demonstrate saying that 00:41 we need freedom. 00:43 I agree, you know, people need freedom. 00:45 We cannot live if we don't have freedom 00:47 but who is behind and what will happen 00:49 and what would happen. 00:51 And we see today what happened. 00:53 Except one country and we have always 00:55 to mention that Tunisia 00:57 you know, the first country where the Arab Spring started. 01:02 And now its Tunisia is the only country 01:05 where in the constitution, the new constitution, 01:08 you have the right of freedom of conscience 01:10 and for the moments you know the-- 01:12 And it's a majority Islamic society, isn't it? 01:16 Yeah, but the government is longer Islamic 01:18 but the Islamic are very strong 01:20 and even the leader of the Islamic party celebrate 01:24 the democratic system even if they lost the election. 01:28 It means they have still some hope 01:30 but when of course when you look 01:32 to the other country is just the opposite, 01:35 and unfortunately we have to say 01:37 when in term of persecution 01:39 you know, you have the military regime 01:42 in Egypt protect better the Christian 01:45 than the previous one elected by people. 01:48 And what happened now in Syria? 01:51 What happened in Iraq? 01:52 And Iraq you remember we talked that about Iraq. 01:55 We said that a Christian minority 01:58 will be in very difficult situation 02:00 and this what happened today. 02:02 You know, you had in Syria and in Iraq million Christians. 02:06 No, it's just-- 02:07 Over one million just in Iraq. 02:08 Yeah just now, you know they're 02:10 Maybe a little 02:12 and they want to leave and they leave. 02:13 It means Christianity will disappear from-- 02:17 One of the shocking things in recent months to me 02:19 was to read and you can see 02:21 pictures and videos of the treatment of Christians 02:24 in what was that city? 02:26 The second-- Isis-- 02:28 But when Isis took over 02:29 the second largest city in Iraq, 02:33 I don't know how many Christians were there 02:35 but were at least a couple of hundred thousand 02:37 in the country at that point so at a guess 02:39 there must have been something like 50,000 02:41 some tens of thousands of Christians 02:43 not one left, not one left. 02:45 And those who were caught you know, they were persecuted. 02:48 It means they're not just discriminated. 02:50 I remember when-- 02:51 Some were crucified either. 02:52 You know, I start my ministry 02:54 of religious freedom at the world level. 02:56 We talk about discrimination, 02:58 time to time people being arrested 03:00 that was really the big issue 03:02 you know, discrimination of Christian 03:04 or non Christian religious minorities. 03:07 Today you know, the worst is people are crucified, 03:11 they have beheaded, and just because 03:13 they don't have the right religion. 03:15 You know remember what happened 03:16 in northern Kenya where you know the-- 03:20 Boko Haram-- 03:21 Yeah, Boko, I think Al-Shabaab or a group from Somalia. 03:25 Associated group. 03:26 Yeah, came from Somalia 03:27 you know, they invested a university 03:30 and they asked whole student to recite the prayer. 03:34 To recite the prayer yeah. 03:36 Those who did not know how to do that 03:38 they were just killed at once. 03:41 That means you know, you have to go back far 03:44 in history to see things like that 03:47 and this is what we-- 03:49 Unfortunately we can find that in the Old Testament, 03:51 you remember there was that period 03:52 where they asked the-- 03:54 the Israelites ask this group to pronounce a certain word. 03:57 If they couldn't say it. 04:00 But that's a barbarism 04:01 and we thought of another time, isn't it? 04:03 Yeah, exactly and we thought that 04:05 it will never come back again 04:06 and it is what we have to face today. 04:09 And it's not just in a little city 04:12 in a little village you know, it's a more and more and more 04:15 and more country. 04:16 Like you know, you have more and more country 04:19 applying the sharia as the law of their country 04:23 or even if their sharia has a good thing 04:26 but then also two thing 04:27 which really create the problem for the religious freedom, 04:30 many other but two are the most important. 04:33 One is the law on apostasy. 04:35 It means if you change your religion 04:38 you're punished, sentence to death. 04:40 By civil well, yes. 04:41 In the civil court that's exercising religious power. 04:43 It means you become really 04:45 it's really you cannot follow your conscience. 04:48 You can be executed if you do that. 04:51 Secondly the law on blasphemy. 04:53 The law on blasphemy create a pressure, 04:57 a high level of discrimination on religious minorities. 05:01 Proof required is minimum, just an accusation. 05:04 And it has to come from someone 05:06 who has the same religion as the-- 05:08 Remember there was the case, I'm trying to think-- 05:10 Asia Bibi. You remember Asia Bibi-- 05:12 Yes, but there was a case-- 05:13 She's still in prison. 05:15 It was the case of this imam 05:18 that made a charge against this woman 05:20 and she was stoned and killed and then it turned out 05:24 that the imam was trying to cover up 05:27 for his personal immorality. 05:28 Oh, there are many cases like that 05:31 where people are arrested and we know one, 05:34 we try to help him 05:36 but he still in prison totally innocent 05:39 but have been accused. 05:40 When you are accused you have no way. 05:43 If you're a member of a religious minority, 05:46 there's no way to defend you. 05:48 They will arrest you also to protect you 05:51 because crazy people fanatics will kill you. 05:54 But of course the issue was sharia, 05:56 it's not just that innocent people get killed, 05:58 guilty people get killed. 06:00 Look, where there's a law 06:02 against defamation of religion say or blasphemy. 06:06 Yes, by being a Christian and just saying certain things 06:09 that's taken as a blasphemy against Islam. 06:11 Absolutely. 06:12 Which it might be on their criteria 06:13 but why should any modern society 06:16 be able to exercise even a death penalty 06:18 against someone for such a minor 06:20 offence that comes with their religious status automatically. 06:23 So they're "guilty" 06:26 but it's still a great injustice. 06:28 Yeah, you are-- anyway in some part of world 06:30 you are guilty just to be there 06:32 and when it has been your country for thousand years 06:36 you know, that's a tragedy. 06:38 Suddenly you know, people say 06:40 you have nothing to do in your own country. 06:42 Why? 06:43 Because your religion, you have one possibility 06:46 if you change your religion we will welcome you. 06:49 If you keep your religion, 06:51 we kill you or you have to leave. 06:54 And you know which is interesting to see 06:56 unfortunately is the reaction in some other country. 06:59 Like now the Buddhist react 07:01 against these extreme in some religion 07:05 and the Buddhist went to impose Buddhism 07:08 in some countries like Sri Lanka and Myanmar 07:11 and they also attack extremist Buddhist 07:14 attack Muslim to kill Muslim or Christians. 07:17 It does seem we're in a period 07:19 of ratcheting up of religious tensions and prerogatives, 07:24 don't you think? 07:25 Like what is historically we always thought that 07:28 they were rather indifferent to other belief. 07:31 They are most of the country they are, 07:34 but they also, they can become criminal too. 07:36 They can kill people, kill all the people. 07:38 But also, you know, what we have to understand is 07:41 when you have these 07:43 extremist religious fanaticism violent in one side, 07:48 you feed another religious fanaticism in other side. 07:53 And I think that one day we will a religious fanatic, 07:56 Christian religious fanatics also doing things, 07:59 really bad things and we don't know 08:00 where we are going if we don't do anything. 08:02 So what's the answer you were thinking about 08:06 heading this direction but I'm reminded 08:07 of Christopher Hitchens' book. 08:10 He had a title that I don't want to repeat 08:12 but he subtitled was 08:14 how religion poisons everything. 08:16 Yeah. 08:17 Is religion you could-- you could come 08:19 to a simplistic conclusion like you say, 08:22 one extremist breeds another 08:23 and one religious violence leads to another. 08:25 Would the answer be to remove religion 08:27 from the equation? 08:28 But you know, we tried to do that 08:30 the 20th century is not a religious century 08:34 and what happened? 08:35 You have communism, you have Nazism, fascism, 08:39 and you have a lot of people 08:41 who are killed during this time. 08:42 And you have also the extremist people 08:45 in ideology you know, that was not about religion 08:48 that was about ideology. 08:49 I think the problem is a human nature. 08:51 It's not the religion itself. 08:53 And religion is such a powerful force that 08:54 it perhaps magnifies the tendency to human nature. 08:57 Of course you have people knowing how to use 09:00 and how manipulate people on behalf of religion. 09:03 It has always existed. 09:05 Think about the crusade 09:06 you know, these poor people coming from France, 09:09 coming from England going walking to Jerusalem 09:12 you know, for nothing 09:14 and that's the power of religion. 09:17 And of course when someone can manipulate people 09:20 using religion, he become like you know, half God. 09:25 Now, we're gonna see a little bit of that-- 09:27 this period of another US presidential election 09:30 and depending on when this program is shown 09:32 will be perhaps right at the middle of it. 09:35 It's fairly benign in the western country like 09:37 the United States but religion is one of the-- 09:40 the triggers of human behavior 09:42 and politicians use it big time. 09:44 Religion could be the most beautiful things in the world 09:47 because you have so many good thing done 09:49 on behalf of religion. 09:52 Look if suddenly where the people decide that 09:55 every religious institutions around the world 09:58 should close their door, 10:00 that would be a tragedy for the world. 10:02 How many hospitals, schools, orphanages 10:06 and nursing home would be close? 10:09 And I think the human spirit 10:10 what sort of shrinking on itself. 10:11 Absolutely. 10:13 A new secular Dark Age. 10:14 Exactly but you have the other side too 10:17 and it has always existed in the history of Christianity 10:20 who have the fanaticst, fanaticism 10:22 which is the human nature or which express 10:25 you know, in such a away that 10:27 they exclu-- in a exclusivity, 10:30 they don't want to live with the people. 10:33 They don't accept the difference. 10:34 I know you understand it but for our viewers 10:37 I need to explain fanaticism is often 10:41 defined by the person making the charge. 10:44 Now someone that's serious about 10:46 their faith can easily be accused of being a fanatic. 10:48 Yeah, absolutely. 10:49 So I think it's better to say religion 10:51 within the constraints of not being violent and all the rest. 10:55 They can be as fanatical as they want, 10:57 but they have no right to inhibit someone else. 11:00 Yeah, yeah, because we are, 11:01 you know, people can accuse you of fanaticism, 11:03 I talk about those-- 11:05 I might be a fanatic to them, but not to myself. 11:06 Yeah, exactly. 11:07 But I talked about those who use violence 11:10 to impose their point of view. 11:11 Yes, absolutely and we do live in an era 11:13 where violence is gratuitously used against religious 11:17 or even the secular others, isn't it? 11:19 Yeah, you know the world where we are living today 11:22 is not really the ideal one 11:24 and sometime people ask question about religion. 11:27 Is it religion necessary? 11:29 Yes, I meant in religion bring hope 11:32 but you know something which is very important 11:34 for everyone is to accept that 11:37 people have the right to choose their religion. 11:40 Even to have no religion, 11:41 if they don't want to have no religion 11:44 we have to respect this right because this right it's a gift 11:48 and this gift comes from God. 11:50 This is what we call religious freedom 11:52 and this is why I believe really, 11:54 religious freedom is not maybe the only answer 11:57 but it's probably the main answer to the problem 12:01 we can see in the world today 12:02 in term of relation between religion and people. 12:09 I would say it's impossible for anybody to say that 12:13 religious liberty is not a frontline 12:15 headline issue today. 12:17 After seeing what happened in Mosul 12:19 with the takeover of the Islamic State 12:22 of Iraq and the Levant. 12:25 It's obvious that persecution religious liberty 12:28 in the negative is a headline issue. 12:32 In a city that had tens of thousands 12:35 of Christians in a country 12:36 that once had one million Christians 12:38 and to know that today 12:40 there is not one Christians left in Mosul, 12:43 after they had been crucified, beheaded 12:46 and chased out of town on pain of their life. 12:49 And it lost of all of their funds. 12:51 It's obvious the persecution 12:54 is so widespread not only in the Middle East 12:57 but all around the world that religion 13:00 and the right to practice one's faith 13:02 is being challenged as never before. 13:05 That means to me that the proclamation 13:08 of true religious liberty, the freedom from everyone, 13:11 for everyone to practice their faith untroubled 13:15 or to be faithless as they wish. 13:18 This must be guaranteed in our day. 13:21 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2015-07-30