Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), John Nay
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000297A
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00:20 Welcome to 'The Liberty Insider.'
00:22 This is the program that brings you up-to-date 00:25 news, views, discussions, insight 00:27 and an analysis of Religious Liberty events 00:31 that you probably won't get anywhere else. 00:32 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine 00:36 and my guest on the program is Ambassador John Nay. 00:41 And that's really opens up a lot of discussion 00:43 just to talk about your background. 00:46 Your last position, your retired now. 00:48 But your last position was US Ambassador in Suriname, 00:53 almost like Shangri-La for most people. 00:55 They wouldn't even know where it is. 00:57 Where is Suriname? 00:58 It is on the north shoulder of South America. 01:02 And it was the former colony of Dutch Guiana. 01:06 Received its independence in 1975 01:09 and it was a wonderful job, 01:11 very enjoyable country, wonderful people. 01:13 Now there's like, what's the country next door? 01:15 Is that-- 01:17 Directly east of it is French Guiana. 01:22 Directly west of it is Guiana 01:24 which used to be British Guiana. 01:26 And then on the other side of Guiana is Venezuela. 01:29 And I brought that up for a reason 01:31 when you talk about religious issues 01:34 and one of the most aberrant cases. 01:37 Remember the Jonestown? Yes. 01:40 There it was probably not too many hundred miles 01:42 from where you were based there in Guiana. 01:44 Yeah, I never made it over there to Jonestown but. 01:48 Well, probably not good for-- 01:51 'Cause I thought this was quite some time 01:52 before you were there. 01:54 Yes. 01:55 But I remember U.S. congressman made the mistake of going 01:59 and shaking on them. 02:03 When I think about your experience 02:05 and you've told me a little bit privately, 02:07 you know, I can't help thinking about 02:09 some of the Biblical figures 02:11 that has distinguished themselves in government, 02:14 you know, Seventh-Day Adventist 02:16 from a prophetic view point. 02:18 I think can study a lot on Daniel. 02:20 But we sometimes don't really think 02:22 what his government service meant. 02:23 That was a position of trust. Yes. 02:26 Through the different administrations 02:28 so even though he didn't move around much 02:30 in essence he was the foreign service there, wasn't he? 02:33 Representing of morality and honesty 02:38 because of his position. 02:40 Did you find any tension between your faith 02:44 as a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian 02:46 and what you were called upon to do 02:48 in representing your country? 02:51 Not much really and there are people 02:54 from every background in the foreign service. 02:56 There are many other devout Christians. 02:59 There is a regular weekly prayer breakfast 03:02 by some of them in the State Department 03:06 and so no I would say that you walk the line 03:12 because of course you're working for the government 03:14 and you're not out there to be spreading 03:18 the gospel actively on behalf of the government. 03:21 But it was a great job, a great career. 03:25 I really enjoyed it. 03:26 Yeah, now maybe I think we can delve into a little 03:29 if not your career then 03:30 than what in the course of that career 03:32 what you saw in different parts of the world. 03:35 It does seem to me that no so much diplomatic service 03:41 but public government service 03:43 has certain risks like at the moment in the U.S. 03:46 There's a lot of furor and discussion about 03:48 those you want to be president 03:50 or in the sort of a pre-condition it'll get. 03:53 The disease will become more advanced yet. 03:57 And there's even a Seventh-Day Adventist 04:00 running for the top office and I feel badly for him 04:03 because I think hurly-burly of parties 04:06 and political campaigning there's always the risk 04:09 that someone will compromise their personal morality 04:12 and perhaps even compromise 04:16 or disgrace the faith that they identify with. 04:20 I see that is very dangerous. 04:21 But I do believe that career politicians 04:25 are in a different moral level. 04:28 You know, I think there are, 04:30 highly ethical career politicians 04:33 and the there are people who are non-politicians 04:37 who also are highly ethical and then of course 04:39 some on both side who are not. 04:42 So I probably wouldn't characterize 04:45 politician or not as inherently unethical or-- 04:50 No but it's more dangerous. 04:51 I think it's inherently more dangerous 04:53 than an appointee or some one that's in the, 04:58 with the bureaucracy itself rather than running 05:02 for the rough and tumble of the election process. 05:04 I think has become so rough. 05:07 And one of the terrific things is of course is fund raising. 05:09 And there is no question that 05:12 for those who are having to raise funds, 05:15 they are going to wind up having to give access 05:19 to those who have donated to their campaigns. 05:22 There was a wonderful statement that our viewers might know 05:25 who it was about but I want to mention 05:27 but national politicians raising funds 05:30 in front of wealthy people. 05:31 He says, you know, here he says, 05:32 "I'm happy to be here 05:34 in front of my natural constituency, 05:36 the haves and have mores." 05:37 Yes. 05:38 And you know, he was free to say that 05:40 but apart from anything else 05:42 on a Christian level of morality 05:44 I can't imagine a responsible Christian 05:46 normally saying that. 05:48 That's just sort of stepping outside 05:50 what I would be comfortable with. 05:52 I think you want to have an approach of being, 05:56 having a lot of concern for the have not 05:59 or the have less people, so-- 06:03 Now I mentioned Guiana that was next door 06:05 to where you were in Suriname 06:06 and that was a Religious Liberty situation. 06:10 Those people supposedly went willingly 06:12 but in the name of religion to either kill themselves 06:16 or allow themselves to be terminated 06:19 in the name of religion. 06:20 That's a pretty amazing thing. 06:22 How did you find though 06:23 'cause that was an imported situation, 06:26 how did you find the religious community 06:29 and the mix of religious sensibilities in Guiana? 06:33 Well, of course I was in Suriname next door. 06:35 Sorry, in Suriname. That was my mistake. 06:38 Suriname was actually very diverse society amazingly 06:43 so, both ethnically and religiously. 06:46 It has 15 to 20% of its population is Muslims 06:51 and that is percentage wise the highest level 06:54 of any country in the western hemisphere. 06:57 You have another 20 to 25% who were Hindu, 07:00 about 25% Catholic, 07:02 about 20 some percent Protestant 07:05 and then a number of other smaller faiths 07:08 including a very long standing Jewish community. 07:13 And remarkably they get along very well. 07:18 There is religious freedom 07:20 and ethnically the various groups, 07:25 they do often tend to vote for various parties, 07:29 political parties somewhat based on ethnicity. 07:33 But I was very impressed. 07:35 People actually get along very well. 07:37 Yeah, in advance of this program 07:39 I looked up Suriname even though I said Guiana. 07:42 I looked up and I saw that instantly that this was 07:45 very diverse population and it was almost like 07:49 everybody came from somewhere else 07:50 and brought their religion and their ethnicity with them. 07:52 Yes. 07:54 That must have been a sort of a test case, 07:57 you know, unusual situation to observe that. 07:59 Well, it was and that was one of the aspects 08:03 of Suriname that I as I was 08:05 asking to be considered for that position. 08:08 I had noted that there were 08:11 all of these different communities 08:12 and that I have served in Africa 08:14 and there was a very large Afro-Surinamese community. 08:18 I served in South East Asia 08:20 and there was a Javanese community. 08:23 I served in India and there's a large 08:25 Indo-Suriname community. 08:28 There's a growing Chinese community. 08:30 And so I had made a pitch that I would like to be 08:34 considered for the job based partly on that 08:36 and it worked. 08:38 Well, let me really cut to the chase. 08:39 What were the beaches like in Suriname? 08:42 Actually you know, actually Suriname doesn't have 08:45 much in the way of beaches. 08:47 But it's pretty close 08:49 to a tropical paradise, isn't it? 08:51 Um, you know, first off, 08:54 it is east of the Caribbean islands 08:58 and so along the shore it's mostly mangrove swamps 09:03 and the water out in the ocean there 09:07 is mostly brown due to the Amazon 09:10 having flown out into the Atlantic 09:12 and then the currents curling it back up. 09:14 Yeah, I wouldn't have thought 09:15 but it would have to go back to Guiana. 09:17 So you don't actually go to the beach too much. 09:19 Now we love going out there to watch dolphins, 09:23 to watch the birds. 09:26 It is completely tropical. 09:29 I spent a good deal of time in the Amazon rainforests 09:32 and tried to promote the idea of protecting 09:35 the environment, protecting the rainforests. 09:39 but no beaches actually no. 09:41 I would say that the total time I spent on a beach 09:44 was maybe 15 minutes once, you know. 09:49 Yeah, well, at least I tried. 09:50 I tried to characterize your posting as a big holiday 09:54 but no I'm sure that was a lot of responsible work. 09:56 You mentioned the environment and you know this discussion 10:00 can go in many different directions. 10:02 But at the moment environmental concerns 10:04 are just worrying everybody. 10:08 I noticed that 2015 was the warmest year 10:13 on record ever of course that in a way that doesn't prove 10:17 that it is because it's only I think in the best part 10:20 of the last 100 years that paid any real attention to it. 10:23 But certainly in our lifetimes it's never been so warm. 10:25 So some thing is happening. 10:28 You made a focus on that probably through dealing 10:32 with the degradation of rainforests and so on. 10:35 There were several things I was concerned about. 10:37 And again, Suriname, most of the population lives 10:41 along the Atlantic coast. 10:43 And once you go inland you can go 10:46 in the tropical rainforests for many miles 10:49 or if you fly over it it's just a beautiful green carpet 10:54 and so I had, I was really happy 10:57 to get the opportunity to go into the interior, 11:00 climb a mountain with the head of Conservation International 11:05 that there was no record of it 11:06 ever having been climbed before. 11:09 But the environment of Suriname 11:12 is being damaged partly by gold mining that is not, 11:19 it's not even large company gold mining. 11:21 It's the small scale miners that have float in 11:25 and are just going in and using some of them 11:29 19th century methods of hosing away hills and-- 11:35 I know this is a huge problem in Brazil. 11:37 And exactly and many of the miners are Brazilians 11:40 who have come over the border 11:41 using mercury to separate gold from the ore. 11:44 And that gets into the rivers. 11:46 What I'm fishing for is you had that concern 11:50 as a representative of a government 11:52 to another government. 11:54 It must be concerning the governments 11:56 but as a Christian and as a Seventh-Day Adventist, 11:58 it seems to me as integral to what our concern should be 12:01 because the First Angels message 12:04 is tied up for the concern for the environment 12:06 or the Creator of the environment. 12:08 And also Paul says, you know, 12:10 God's coming to destroy those who destroy the earth. 12:12 So it's integrally part of our psyche as Christians I think. 12:17 I tried my best to make it something 12:19 of a theme of my three years there 12:21 of protecting the environment 12:25 including we bicycled across the country. 12:30 Promoting the idea that being out 12:33 and bicycling was more environmentally 12:35 responsible than driving. 12:38 The, much higher mileage. 12:41 Yes, and so over the course of four rides 12:46 we bicycled all the way across plus into the interiors 12:49 as far as the roads go. 12:51 Drew attention with TV crews to the illegal mining 12:57 that was going on the national park 12:59 and it really, even the art on the walls of our house, 13:07 we have chosen environmental theme 13:09 trying to choose as many Michigan artists 13:13 or artists who had a connection 13:15 to Michigan and Christians as possible. 13:21 It's obvious as an ambassador 13:23 you can make a statement that work, right? 13:24 You can. 13:26 We better take a break now but please come back 13:28 after the break to continue this discussion 13:31 with Ambassador Nay 13:32 and we're talking about the environment. 13:34 Stay with us. |
Revised 2015-09-10