Welcome back to
'The Liberty Insider,'
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with our
ambassador from Suriname.
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John, we were
solving the world's problems.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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But as an ambassador
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and working in
different embassies
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around the world,
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under the auspices
of the U.S. government.
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You must have seen and
participated in efforts
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that our country
has tried to initiate to
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inform young people
that there are better ways
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than religious
extremism and poverty and so on,
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trying to improve their life
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because the answer
lies in the next generation,
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doesn't it?
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Well, the United States
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has a very active
public diplomacy program
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and it's an effort
to reach out to people
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at all levels, including youth.
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We have youth exchange programs.
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And for example,
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one of the ones
that we had in Suriname
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is part of the Yes
Program Youth Education.
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I've never heard
about that before.
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And we were able to send
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roughly eight students to
the United States for a year
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at a US high
school for each year
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and then they would come
back and another group would go.
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A wonderful program
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and definitely a way
of acquainting these kids
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with the United States.
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You would see them come back
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mature, much more
outgoing, much more confident
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but of course you can only reach
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a limited number
of people that way.
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We had other programs going on
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where we would work with people.
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You and I spoke separately
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about our environmental outreach
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and that was a part of our
public diplomacy program too.
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We had Women In
Business outreach programs
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to try to help small businesses
that were led by women
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and lot of these efforts.
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That's changed whole societies.
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You talk about encouraging
very small business loans for--
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Yes. Yeah.
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I followed that for years.
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And it-- it can
make a huge difference.
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And in India particularly
for one example that I remember
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that's transform village
life for many of these people.
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And there is no question
that if women get an education,
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it's good for society,
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it's good for
children of both genders
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as they grow up.
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Of course something
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that the Taliban and
Afghanistan had fought.
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Sadly. Yeah, very sadly.
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But, as far as the
answer, one has to keep working,
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you're never going to--
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you're never going
to make Utopia on earth,
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but at the same time
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we need to keep
doing what we can
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and trying to help not only
the people of those societies
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but help their--
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help them avoid
some of the extremists.
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Although I do
believe that on religion,
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first of all I believe that
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they are inherent
with any religious system,
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there are some
theological positions
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that sort of follow
through on civil life
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and you can't
change those root positions
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and they may be more or
less benign or troublesome
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depending on the group
and yet we can't change that.
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I also think there's
a slight fallacy at work
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within the U.S.
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that we extrapolate overseas,
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the idea that
if someone is poor,
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this whole basket of problems
and conflicts can be taken away
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if you just give them jobs
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and improve
their economic outlook.
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I mean, it does
tend to improve it
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but is poverty
the cause of that?
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Well, again,
there's no single cause.
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Poverty is part of the problem.
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Education is
part of the problem.
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As you see societies
develop economically,
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you also tend to
see birth rates go down
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and that has an advantage
of improving prosperity.
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But, yeah,
there's no single answer.
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And again, we're not
going to solve every problem.
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But religion should
be part of the solution,
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that's what I'm fishing for.
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And ironically, it's
often a big part of the problem,
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but it should, by the
claims of all religions,
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not just Christianity.
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Religion claims
to be good for people
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to sort their life
out, to give them security,
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to give them morality even.
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I mean most religions--
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Well, their morality might
differ from another religion,
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they do have a moral construct
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that they're calling people
toward for their betterment,
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I suppose.
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And I do believe
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that religion makes
a positive contribution
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and too often we
ignore the effects of religion
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as we're reviewing a society
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in what direction they're going.
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At the same time so
often religion winds up
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being an excuse and
as people have other--
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there are political
issues, economic issues,
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ethnic conflicts and
then one begins to focus on it
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as if it's a religious problem.
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And in fact, at times
that gives religion a bad name
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when if you were to go
back to the Ireland problem
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between the
Protestants and the Catholics,
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was that really a
religious problem?
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Well, probably not exactly.
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But it began to be focused
on as a religious problem.
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It was on several levels.
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You're getting close to--
In our private discussion,
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I mention that I'm very
partial to Oliver Cromwell.
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At least in our lifetime,
Ireland was all about religion
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and all about what Cromwell did.
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Remember, in the
aftermathof his victory
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in the civil war,
he took an army of,
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I think it was 50, 000 men
and put Ireland to the sword.
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Killed every
Catholic he lays hand on,
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brought in English
Protestant aristocracy
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and it was basically
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a sort of a
plantation mentality.
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Absolutely.
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And not at all a good thing
that he did in that regard.
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No.
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No, he's a great hero in my mind
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but that's the huge blot
against Oliver Cromwell that
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you can see it as in
the spirit of the times
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but he did it better or
worse than anyone at his time.
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I mean, that was
a great black act.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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But your point is correct,
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there's more
going on than just--
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1960s and 70s problem was
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there were religious aspects
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but as much as anything it
was economic and political--
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Well, economic because--
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Nationalistic fight.
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The Catholics
thought that the Protestants
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had access to the
money and jobs and so on.
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So split along religious lines
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even though religion
didn't cause their problems.
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Exactly.
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And that is a point that
I want to make is so often
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religion gets the blame
when it doesn't deserve it
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but then people, you know,
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that fight would have happened
quite possibly, quite likely
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regardless of whether it
was Protestants or Catholics,
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there just would have
been other flashpoint.
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Is it Nigeria with northern--
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Yeah, the northern are Muslim
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and the southern
are more Christian.
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As you were saying that I
thought, there were reasons
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that they would
have been an antipathy
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between those two halves anyhow.
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But religion made it
worse in their cause,
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as in other cases I think.
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It becomes one other
way of dividing groups
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and pitting them
against each other.
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Now, the world is
a complicated place,
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but the faith that we
have, we see it as a solution
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very often as part of
the problem for people
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and that's very unfortunate.
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What are the areas in the
world where you were posted
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did you see a situation
where religion was at work
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or perhaps a solution?
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We spent 3 years in India.
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Well, all the gods
there, many, many gods.
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A fascinating
country, fascinating culture.
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I thought it was
a wonderful time,
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very
interesting time to be there
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but indeed religion comes up.
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There are Hindus
who are wonderful people
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and I had some very good friends
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who were Hindus.
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I enjoyed going to
Hindu temples with them
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and seeing that
aspect of the culture.
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But there are also
those who feel under threat
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because of the expansion
of the Christian community
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in parts of the country.
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You're seeing the whole
panoply of religions there.
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Again, they have very
significant Muslim minority.
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Yeah.
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And then the Jains, the Sikhs,
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all of the rest, so--
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Yeah, not all of the
Muslims went to Pakistan.
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No.
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You remember the number,
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there's tens of
millions of Muslims in India.
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Oh, absolutely.
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Actually there are probably
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about 200
million Muslims in India.
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I believe it's
the second largest
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Muslim country in the world
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in terms of the number of people
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who are Muslims in that
country after Indonesian.
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More than are in Pakistan.
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You know that,
most people don't know,
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Indonesia is the
largest Muslim country.
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That's right.
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And it's about 200 million so.
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Yeah, even a bit more now,
240 or 250 million, I think.
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But there are about 95% Muslim.
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Australia is well aware of that
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it's this dark-- it's
not because they're Muslim
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but this dark cloud
hanging over the country
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and there's been several
10 stand-offs over the years
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between
Indonesia and the British
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when they were
moving out of Malaysia
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and then as the Dutch's,
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they're moving out
of New Guinea there.
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Yes, well I know--
00:10:09.80\00:10:11.17
I know it's a foreign
policy issue for Australia.
00:10:11.21\00:10:14.64
Oh, big time.
00:10:14.68\00:10:16.34
But you know, on the other hand
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Indonesia has its
own viewpoint on that.
00:10:20.28\00:10:23.55
Oh, yeah.
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You sound like my wife.
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Whenever we hear some break-up,
00:10:26.32\00:10:28.19
she says it takes two to tango.
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It's always that--
00:10:29.59\00:10:30.93
Yes.
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There's not just
one side to an issue.
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But you were asking about
religion in other countries,
00:10:33.70\00:10:36.10
and India, I think
it's a good example
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of a hugely diverse
religious community in a country
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where you see
occasional flashpoints
00:10:43.74\00:10:47.61
and you know, so
often in fact, the--
00:10:47.64\00:10:53.78
when the Muslim community
has had a problem there,
00:10:53.82\00:10:56.18
at times it has been because
they are a small minority,
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even though they
have many, many people--
00:11:00.86\00:11:02.19
Oh, I know the Hindus
00:11:02.22\00:11:03.56
have attacked
Muslims many times.
00:11:03.59\00:11:04.93
It's not a one way street.
There have been communal riots.
00:11:04.96\00:11:06.90
And one thing that I
like you to comment on,
00:11:06.93\00:11:11.63
one of the flashpoints
00:11:11.67\00:11:13.00
between Hindus and Christians
is over the untouchables
00:11:13.03\00:11:17.64
in large numbers
joining Christianity.
00:11:17.67\00:11:19.94
Well, that's a real
dynamic and a real flashpoint,
00:11:19.97\00:11:22.71
but I see that as a
root of sociological shift
00:11:22.74\00:11:26.08
that religion just
sort of stepped into.
00:11:26.11\00:11:28.28
Well, I think you're
probably right on that.
00:11:28.32\00:11:31.45
In any case the--
00:11:31.49\00:11:33.02
I see religion as
something that is a real plus
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and something that
as we look at religion,
00:11:36.89\00:11:40.80
we want to keep in mind
that it's not the fault,
00:11:40.83\00:11:45.03
it is a benefit.
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But again, we
believe in religious liberty
00:11:47.67\00:11:50.77
and as we spread our
own view, our own religion
00:11:50.81\00:11:56.41
we want to do it in a way
00:11:56.44\00:11:57.78
that is mindful of
other people's sensitivities.
00:11:57.81\00:12:02.62
A few decades ago
00:12:02.65\00:12:03.99
there was much talk of
the ecumenical movement.
00:12:04.02\00:12:06.86
My own church,
00:12:06.89\00:12:08.22
the Seventh-day Adventist church
00:12:08.26\00:12:09.59
was not much interested in this
00:12:09.62\00:12:11.39
because we saw by observation
that the ecumenical movement
00:12:11.43\00:12:15.20
as then constituted
was more about dumbing down
00:12:15.23\00:12:20.67
or diluting the
differences between religions.
00:12:20.70\00:12:24.91
And a religion to be
important, to be significant
00:12:24.94\00:12:27.54
must stand for something.
00:12:27.58\00:12:29.78
But in the
post-ecumenical movement
00:12:29.81\00:12:33.31
what is needed
in this modern world
00:12:33.35\00:12:35.55
I think is more communication,
00:12:35.58\00:12:38.32
more explanation
between religions.
00:12:38.35\00:12:41.26
In my observation,
00:12:41.29\00:12:42.62
much of the conflict
arises from misunderstandings
00:12:42.66\00:12:46.29
about different faiths,
their agenda, their doctrines,
00:12:46.33\00:12:50.93
their worldview
because like it or not
00:12:50.97\00:12:54.97
globally, religious forces
00:12:55.00\00:12:57.14
are conspiring to
destroy the peace and harmony
00:12:57.17\00:13:01.74
that doesn't always
exist but that should exist.
00:13:01.78\00:13:05.71
We need to talk to others,
of course share our faith
00:13:05.75\00:13:09.58
but in sharing
information about our faith
00:13:09.62\00:13:12.15
and listening to others
share their information,
00:13:12.19\00:13:15.06
we can have clarity of
purpose and understanding
00:13:15.09\00:13:18.83
in all religious
activity globally.
00:13:18.86\00:13:23.73
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:23.77\00:13:27.40