Welcome to 'The
Liberty Insider.'
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This is a program
bringing you discussion, news,
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up-to-date information
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and general analysis of
religious liberty events
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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 is
ambassador John Nay,
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retired from the Civil Service
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from the-- From
the Foreign Service
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Foreign Service, which I guess
is under the Civil Service.
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But you were last
ambassador to Suriname.
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Yes.
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But I-- in one of
our other programs
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you flitted through some
of your other experiences
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and I know you told me you're
in Singapore for a few years.
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Yes.
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We spent 2 years in Singapore.
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Now Singapore, like Suriname
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is a mixing pop
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of many different
cultures and religions
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and it's close to Malaysia
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which I know struggling
with Islamic fundamentalism.
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As someone in the
diplomatic service,
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they're representing the US
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and I'm sure watching
all of this very closely,
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what's your take on
what we can do in the west
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from the United States
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and as Christians
dealing with other faith?
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How can we interact in a way
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that inhibits this clear
rise of fundamentalism in Islam?
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Or put it another way,
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any religion sort of
reverting to its worst aspects?
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Yeah.
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If I had the
answer to that question--
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Well, I know but I want to hear
your brain storming at that.
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Nobody has the total
answer. It's obvious.
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Right, it's a tough--
that's a tough, tough question.
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But what part was the U.S. doing
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from your
observation to counteract that?
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You know, part of
the problem was also that
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when a country or a
culture feels under threat,
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people will then begin to react
and try to find ways to counter
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what they perceive as the threat
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and I mean, even
if you go back to
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when there were
Christian martyrs,
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in fact it caused
growth in the number of people
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who were Christians.
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Right.
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Because it drew
all sorts of attention.
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And there's no question
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that some of the
Islamic cultures,
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Arab culture and--
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They feel threatened.
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Muslims, they
have felt threatened.
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And they have been threatened.
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Well, and during
the colonial period
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there was no question
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that they were
under the domination
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of western powers
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and now with a new
found wealth of oil-wealth
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and with some of the
other events that took place.
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Everything from the Russian
invasion of Afghanistan to
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of course, unfortunately
the American invasion of Iraq
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it has provided an
excuse for reactions like this,
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even if not justified.
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And so I think one of the things
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that we need to
keep very much in mind
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is that just as in physics,
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to every action
there is a reaction.
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When we begin to
make decisions on
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what we're going to do
in the international arena,
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we have to realize that
there will be reactions,
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and we need to
think those through
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maybe better than
we have in the past.
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The comment you make
is historically proven
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and we're living through it now
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that the religious
group feeling under threat
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had actually seems
to attract adherence
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and as Seventh-day
Adventist Christians,
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we are very aware
of the persecutions
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of the early Christian era.
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We were very
aware of the conflicts
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during the Reformation there
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between Christians that were bad
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and yet different
groups grew as a result.
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And we look
forward, not anticipating
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but expecting
end time persecution,
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and I wonder about that dynamic.
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It seems consistent with that.
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We could expect
a remnant movement
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to actually flourish
under a certain opposition
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and it's
counterintuitive to most people.
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You know it's possible and--
or total numbers might shrink
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but become a
muchmore dedicated group.
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I mean, it's not
something to encourage
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I think and as you said.
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And I think
there's been at times
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too much emphasis on
the persecution aspect,
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perhaps as a way of trying
to scare people into the church.
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I think that
the best thing to do
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is to think
about where we are now
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and what we can do now to--
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No, no sane
person would want trouble
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for it's-- for trouble sake.
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I do think many dedicated
Christians over the years like,
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wasn't it-- was it
Peter crucified upside down?
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Oh, yes, that was the truth.
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And you know, sort of seeing
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this moment of truth is exciting
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because he gets
to emulate the Lord.
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But I'm not sure even the
apostles that were martyrs
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would have chosen at per
se, but it was coming up,
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there was an inevitability
and they gloried in it
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that they were
called to do that.
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But no sane
person wants trouble,
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I'm just certain of that.
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They don't want physical harm
and all those sort of things.
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We need to be careful of that.
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And I'm not even really
sure some of these Jihadis,
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you know, they're
not as one dimensional
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as we have imagined
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but they've
been put to the wall,
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they've been
polarized to the point
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that this is their transition
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that their faith
calls them to it.
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But I don't think
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it comes
naturally to any human being
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to just snuff
themselves out like that.
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No, not at all.
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Although I don't know that
I would agree with the line
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about no sane
person because that implies
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that some of these
people are actually insane
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and not responsible.
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And of course, they
are absolutely responsible
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for what they do.
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Unfortunately
many of the extremists
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on any-- in any group
who engage in violence are--
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they haven't a broad education,
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they wind up with a
very narrow education in fact
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and get pumped
full of propaganda
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and to the point where
they may be believe it.
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So-
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But still, I know a lot of it--
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I don't disagree
with that statement.
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I just would define sane
because a person can be sane
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but at that particular
moment acting very irrationally,
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so they're not--
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There's, other
factors, there's other factors
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that are giving
them a temporary madness
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I think that's real.
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Not rational in our
view but they see it--
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Oh, yeah.
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No, it's
consistent with the viewpoint
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and I would hope even
as a Seventh-day Adventist,
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when and if, if
it's in my lifetime
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a great moment of truth comes
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that I hope that I would,
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you know, keep my
eyes fixed on heaven
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and grit my teeth and do
what I have to do for my Lord,
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that's not insanity
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because that's
usually a funnel toward it.
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But for someone
to make the choice
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to throw away their life,
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usually it's to
take someone else's life,
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that is a very negative.
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Yes.
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I think at times--
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Well, by
definition, a satanic emphasis
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because God is not--
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never encourage us
to destroy other people.
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God is the
creator, not the destroyer.
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But I think a lot of the
time when you hinted at it,
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in these situations
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people's
life-choices are very limited
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and I've been to Indonesia,
been to many countries
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and Pakistan and so on.
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And I've seen
very, very poor people,
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malnourished, no
real life-choices,
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surrounded by an
oppressive religious viewpoint
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as well as a historical
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or a take on
history that sees them
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as they hardly done
by, they've been repressed.
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It's sort of where
do they go from here?
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Just like in the Middle
Ages, it's obvious to me
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that a lot of the battles
and the social developments
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were all premised on the idea
that their life was not sure
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from one day to the next,
they're not gonna live long.
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So you're more likely to
want to be a hero in a battle,
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to go out in glory.
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You might die
next day from a cold.
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And so I think a
lot of that's at play
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with the radical
violent fundamentalists.
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But what I'm
thinking more about is
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just in societies
that are relatively stable,
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people are rational not in
the fanatical-radical fringe
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but how do-- Did you observe?
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How do large communities
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of Christians,
Muslims, Buddhists in there,
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what are the
elements that can work toward
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a common humanity and
at least respect for--
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Well, I think
getting to know each other
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makes a big difference.
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And when I lived in Toronto
and saw the communities there,
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there's quite a
lot of interaction,
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there was an opportunity to
work with Muslim communities
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in that area and all
the different ethnic groups.
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It's truly-- they use the
term a mosaic of cultures.
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And so I would say that,
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that that is excellent
way of working together,
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there were imams
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who were seeking to
help their communities
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understand others.
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But even there
sometimes you wound up
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with youths who felt disaffected
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and the internet of
course is a great resource
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but at times it
also becomes a problem.
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And so they even
there had a few youths
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who would wind up linking
up with extremist elements.
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It's not something
that's the community's fault
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so much as
something to try to work
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to ensure that
youths don't feel that way,
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give them alternatives and--
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It is a phenomenon that
we're going to have to face.
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It is.
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I was in Australia,
last summer, within the year.
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Don't quite know
when this show was shown
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but it's relatively recently.
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And they were having trouble
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with young people from Australia
00:11:10.23\00:11:12.13
signing up with ISIL,
about 500 Australians,
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and there are
some Muslim communities
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but they're very well integrated
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there by and large.
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Radicalism is
not part of society
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even if in the
mosque they discussed a bit,
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but the appeal from the internet
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and I think
testosterone surge of teenagers,
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"I want to go out
and have an adventure."
00:11:32.99\00:11:35.06
Well, I think that--
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And in some ways I feel--
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well, not sorry
but I feel sympathetic
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with what's going on
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because from my
study of history,
00:11:43.97\00:11:46.07
lot of Americans went over
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and fought in the
Spanish Civil War.
00:11:47.47\00:11:49.77
It was like an
adventure to help someone else
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and the French
Lafayette came over here
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to have a bit of a good
time and help freedom here.
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I wonder how much of it
is not youthful enthusiasm
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and idealism
00:12:03.28\00:12:04.62
but being subverted
by some canny old guys
00:12:04.65\00:12:08.62
that have rather darker visions.
00:12:08.66\00:12:11.06
I think that's very possible.
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Again, looking at
00:12:12.46\00:12:13.80
how our own
frontier worked westward.
00:12:13.83\00:12:17.30
A lot of it was
very young people
00:12:17.33\00:12:19.40
going out and moving
forward and having adventures,
00:12:19.43\00:12:25.51
often getting killed doing it.
00:12:25.54\00:12:27.71
Now we're running out of time,
00:12:27.74\00:12:29.64
so maybe it's a good
time to make the break.
00:12:29.68\00:12:32.88
We'll be back
with this discussion.
00:12:32.91\00:12:34.42
Stay with us.
00:12:34.45\00:12:35.78
We'll talk about maybe some ways
00:12:35.82\00:12:37.99
to counter what's happening
in the world around us.
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