Welcome to 'The
Liberty Insider.'
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This is a program
bringing you up-to-date news,
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views and discussion on
religious liberty concerns
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in the United States
and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed
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and I'm Editor
of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest is
Ambassador John Nay.
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Welcome, John. Thank you.
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May be we'll get
into some of your career
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but your last job
before your retirement
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was ambassador to Suriname.
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Yes.
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That's not as beach as
another occasion you tell me
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that there's not the
surf in the sand there like
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I'd imagined but
a very nice climate.
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But you also had
some responsibility
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at one point for the
US looking toward pacific,
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the pacific region.
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And I'm from that area
and I'd like to talk to you
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a little bit about mission--
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Okay.
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For you in your job,
mission was representing
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the Untied States--
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But as Christians our
mission is to represent
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the kingdom of
heaven and reach out.
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And when I grew up in Australia
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that was the
mission field for Australia
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was the South Pacific region.
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You know and I would--
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Didn't seem like
a tough thing for me
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but I know many
of the missionaries
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really sacrificed and usually
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the wife's health suffered
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and sometimes
they have to come back.
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But what was
interesting a little different
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from your service
I think it used to be
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when someone
went as a missionary
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that was a lifelong
calling, they never came back.
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Right.
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And I'm sure you accepted it
as a career to always represent
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wherever you were
sent in the United States.
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But how do you think we can--
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Can you see any parallels
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or lessons from your own service
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and thinking about the
Pacific Whale Mission field
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still continue strongly?
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How can we
project, in particular
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that part of the
world religion generally
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but our
religious liberty values?
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What is the challenge?
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Well, there-- I
mean there are certainly
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some parallels too in terms
of whether you're in diplomacy
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in the Foreign Service.
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You're wanted to make sure
that you learn the culture,
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interact well with the people.
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These are good points.
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That's exactly
what I had in mind.
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Preferably learn the language.
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Be understanding
about cultural differences
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and engage and outreach.
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So all of those would hold
true also for missionaries.
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Now in the Foreign
Service we never stayed
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in one place more than
four years consecutively
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and part of that is
because they wanted to be sure
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that we didn't go
native, so to speak,
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that we didn't
become more empathetic
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with the country
where we were living--
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That's the part
I'd have imagined.
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Than with our home
country because of course,
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we were
representing the United States.
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With the missionary
this would be one difference
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where if somebody
dedicates their life to one area
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and builds up the
church and becomes converse
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into the language that
may be isn't used elsewhere,
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there'd be more
reason to stay long term.
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But I can
remember as a kid seeing
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a few missionaries
that had gone native in it.
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Whether it harmed
their outreach I don't know,
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but I think it
limited them personally.
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That's not really
an ideal situation.
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Certainly for their children,
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I knew, some of the
kids came back and--
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Yes, kids will
have trouble adjusting.
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They were not really Australians
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in particular where I was.
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But I thought a lot
about mission service
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and how it might
relate to or projecting
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our religious liberty ideas.
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And you gave a couple
of very practical points.
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It's not enough just to proclaim
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that you have rights
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and that they should grant them.
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You've really got to
get onside with people
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and understand the
governmental system in it,
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if it's in another country.
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Understand the society.
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May be not always
speak the language,
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but speak the language
enough to speak on that level
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in the context that they have.
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Even within the United
States its just strikes me
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a lot of the
public disagreements over
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how religious
liberty will be applied
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really talking
across at each other.
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Its not true communication.
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Well, and so often
its so easy to tell people
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how to do something
and you almost come across
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as if you're
shaking your finger at them
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unless you're
really doing it by example,
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you don't windup having
the kind of effect you want.
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And you'd
mentioned in an earlier,
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previous program
that the United States
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could be seen that way
sometimes in its far ordeal--
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Sometimes.
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And area inconsistencies
could catch up this,
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so it means that
we need to make sure
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that we apply these
principles within our own system
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as well as overseas.
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Let me ask you something,
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I'd believe it was
after you had well,
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may be not quite but you would,
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pretty much at the
end of your service
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but I was taken
in a negative sense
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with then Secretary of State,
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Hillary Clinton's
comment at one point
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that they would be
requiring countries
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that we deal with to
at here to our principles
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of granting gay
rights and so on.
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That this would be
a prime requirement
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and I saw a danger
in this superseding
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or obscuring, I
previously stated emphasis
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on civil rights in general
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and religious
liberty in particular.
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Well, she is an advocate
for human rights in general.
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She's been a
very strong advocate
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for woman's
rights and I think that
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she would've viewed
this as just as she says,
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"Woman's rights
are human rights."
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That is her general perception
of human rights in general
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and that would include
what you're referring to.
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At the same time
the United States
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has multiple
interests with every country.
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There are countries including
very friendly countries
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that we're allies with that
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don't view religious
liberty in the same way we do.
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Whether you're
speaking of France
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or Germany or Belgium or Israel.
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We had-- we
take a different view
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and this gets written up
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in the International
Religious Freedom Report.
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But it doesn't mean
that we destroy our relations
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with these
countries over one issue.
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What limitedly committed again
and I would agree with you.
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And it would seem
to me quite a platform,
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the prioritizing difference
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which could mean
religious liberty
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but probably not you would say,
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because she would personally
still be committed to it.
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There are many countries that
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that statement
alone would alienate them
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because they would not
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being inclined
to see that issue.
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Whereas I haven't
yet found any country
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or people or an individual,
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nobody's against
religious liberty.
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They all see it
very differently.
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So when you get
down to defining it,
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but as a concept, its positive.
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I don't think I
mean, its negative
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to a country like Saudi
Arabia, when we come at them,
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but you know, they don't
say, they're never gonna say,
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"We're against
religious freedom."
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Well, of course, yeah,
if it meant the freedom
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to convert away from Islam.
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Is that--
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But they believe they
have religious freedom.
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Like I remember years
ago hearing a BBC interview
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with the foreign
minister of the Maldives
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and they asked him
about the religious freedom.
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He says, "We have
full religious freedom
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in our country,"
and then he said that,
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you know, its not
really an issue in our country
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because the
overwhelming majority
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are one faith and so the--
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Whole Maldives are--
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I didn't wanted to
spell out what they--
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If you convert
away then you can lose
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your Maldivian citizenship.
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Yeah, so the interviewer said,
"Well, you know, that's good."
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He says, "Now I'm a Christian,
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if I visited then
would I be granted
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my full religious freedom?"
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And that minister
said, "Certainly not."
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He says, "We must well invite
Al-Qaeda into our country."
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I thought it was
like hyped terribly.
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But what he really meant
was everyone's comfortable
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with what they have.
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We call it religious liberty
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even that doesn't match up
much with anyone else's view.
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So I don't think
anyone's gonna say
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they're against it.
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In practice there's
some problematic areas.
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So I don't think
that the US insisting
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on religious freedom
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is automatically
an alienating thing.
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But insisting on something that
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we've done is
let's just a say a moral
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or societal experiment
many countries that's aberrant,
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they're not
gonna feel comfortable.
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I just wonder if
that would get in the way
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of then pushing the
real universal value
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of religious
liberty at the same time.
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You know, when
you have a principle
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of believing in human rights,
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again you don't want to
destroy your relationship
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with that country over one issue
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but neither should you,
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if you believe it's a principle,
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neither should you say, well,
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because it might bother you
we therefore won't raise it.
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And during the
apartheid era in South Africa
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when we would say things about
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criticizing the
social system there,
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yes it offended the government.
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When we sent an African-American
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a black
Ambassador to South Africa,
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they weren't
very happy about it.
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Do you think that was by chance
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or really tried to
approach like that?
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We would want to
make it that way.
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It was deliberate.
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And the point is at
times you do need to go ahead
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and say, "Our principle is this,
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this is what we
believe is right."
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And the
president, now you mentioned
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Secretary Hillary Clinton--
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It was been a good
support of religious liberty.
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I'm just generally
speaking, I'm not--
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And the president also
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and during his
recent trip to Africa,
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even though he knew it would
not be particularly welcomed
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he did also make
statements that it was important
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that Kenya in
that particular case,
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treat homosexuals and
give kindly and treat them,
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give them the same human
rights everybody else has.
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He was correct on
that because our viewers
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may or may not
know, depending on
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where they're watching,
00:10:54.52\00:10:55.85
of course this
is a global program,
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American united--
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Evangelicals
from the United States
00:11:00.56\00:11:02.12
have made some
special missions to Africa
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and several other
countries as well as that
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and they seem to
have promoted heavily
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the idea of heavy
civil penalties against
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gay activity including
even the death penalty for--
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Un-repented gays in-- In Uganda.
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Uganda for one and
another neighboring country.
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Nigeria also I
think its come up.
00:11:22.64\00:11:24.65
Yes, I mean-- Well,
that nobody within--
00:11:24.68\00:11:28.22
Is committing moral
sense should support that.
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I know, but you
know, if one is going
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to promote certain
abridgment of human rights
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then you know,
the question becomes
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where do you stop?
00:11:40.36\00:11:41.83
And Iran has executed people,
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teenagers because they were gay
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and so I agree
how can we say that--
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what I agree with is
that we must not shrink
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from saying our principle
is we believe in human rights
00:11:58.71\00:12:03.32
and in religious liberty also
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and we think you
ought to respect that
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and then
recognize also that we have
00:12:10.73\00:12:14.56
a large
multilateral relationship
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with nearly every
country around the world
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and that you don't
destroy your relationship
00:12:21.74\00:12:24.01
on the basis of one issue.
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You continue labor
together as it worth it.
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And I believe in
the post World War II
00:12:28.64\00:12:30.68
period the US has done
wonderful things in its,
00:12:30.71\00:12:35.28
I was gonna say witness
using a moral spiritual word
00:12:35.32\00:12:37.69
but its
insistence to other countries
00:12:37.72\00:12:39.92
that they make efforts
in the right direction.
00:12:39.95\00:12:42.42
Its not always been
the direct relationship.
00:12:42.46\00:12:44.36
Some countries have
to be dragged kicking
00:12:44.39\00:12:45.99
and screaming others I think--
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I've seen a few cases
where I think US insistence
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gives them cover
even with their own people
00:12:52.37\00:12:54.27
to modify their laws.
00:12:54.30\00:12:57.07
It does.
00:12:57.11\00:12:58.81
You know, one President Carter
implemented the requirement
00:12:58.84\00:13:02.31
to have annual human
rights reports on every country.
00:13:02.34\00:13:07.12
There were a lot of people
who were unhappy about it,
00:13:07.15\00:13:08.98
other countries, many of
them would've been unhappy.
00:13:09.02\00:13:10.79
There were people
in the Foreign Service
00:13:10.82\00:13:12.72
who didn't like this
requirement particularly
00:13:12.75\00:13:17.09
and thought it made
us look a little preachy
00:13:17.13\00:13:19.19
and at times it does.
00:13:19.23\00:13:21.60
But it has turned into
actually a wonderful tool
00:13:21.63\00:13:26.60
of being able to
assess in a similar format
00:13:26.63\00:13:31.24
every year the state of
human rights in the world.
00:13:31.27\00:13:34.74
As I said it's a tool
that our religious liberty
00:13:34.78\00:13:36.54
department uses greatly.
00:13:36.58\00:13:39.38
Stay with us. We
need to take a break now.
00:13:39.41\00:13:41.25
We'll be back shortly
00:13:41.28\00:13:43.18
to continue this
discussion with Ambassador Nay.
00:13:43.22\00:13:46.55
Thank you.
00:13:46.59\00:13:48.56