Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
with guest Tina Ramirez.
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We're talking about Iraq
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and in particular
what you are doing,
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dealing with reeducating
or educating the young people
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to get past the past, right?
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Yeah, it's really exciting
to see what's happening.
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I mean, you have these examples
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as I mentioned where kids
are identifying and reacting,
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oh, reenacting
things that they have heard
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or witnessed on the playground.
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And at the same time
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you have teachers
and government officials
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that are
terrified that they know
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that these
traumatized or affected youth
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have to be reeducated
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if they want to have a future
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that involves
peace and stability
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and unity in their country.
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So that's the space
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that Hardwired is
filling right now.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, I must say
even editing Liberty magazine,
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I love it.
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I love talking and
writing about religious liberty.
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But sometimes I think,
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you know, it's all
great and theoretical.
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But what...
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just words and
meetings and all the rest,
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but you're really
involved in making a difference
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on the ground.
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You know, it's great to
be on the ground because...
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For freedom in
the future. Right.
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Well, and I think that...
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You know, as we
kind of started with this
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that the future of
religious freedom in Iraq
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hangs the balance right now.
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We've seen...
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We've seen one of the most
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nihilistic forms
of religious bigotry
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in our history or in our time,
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in ISIS, in the last decade.
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Now, and in...
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You know, the past three years
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it's just
ravaged the Middle East
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and the Christian
community in particular
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is on the verge of extinction,
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the Yazidi community is
on the verge of extinction.
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Mandaean community on the verge
of extinction and you name it.
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You've got Turkmen,
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number of different communities
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that have just been
decimated by the violence.
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And Iraq is now at a
point where they realized,
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we cannot go
forward, we cannot even...
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It's all or nothing.
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If either we all fall
together or we, you know,
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we're gonna
have to take a stand.
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So just as an example,
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we had a judge that went
through one of our trainings
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and he came back a
couple months later,
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they go through
a rigorous process,
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so several cycles of training
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until they can really
sustain leadership on their own.
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Now whereabouts in
Iraq have you been?
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So, all over but
this was prominently
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in the north and inner
field of the Kurdish areas.
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So this judge was
from an area that was
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controlled by ISIS at the time.
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And when he left he
was so moved and he said,
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"I'm gonna go and I'm
gonna fight for the justice
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for the Yazidis
and the Christians
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and all the
different communities
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that are persecutors,
it's a Sunni Muslim judge.
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So he comes back a
couple of months later
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and we asked him
how things were going.
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He served on a court
that was very important.
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And he showed us his phone
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and on this phone was this image
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of his youngest
17-year-old brother
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being beheaded by ISIS.
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And, I mean, of
course, we were shocked
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and we asked him,
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"Are you gonna
be able to continue
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defending religious freedom
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and helping these
persecuted communities,
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if, you know, if this is
what's gonna happen to you?"
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And he said, "Well,
this is clearly a warning
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to me from ISIS, and
this is what they do,
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they send you a
photo to scare you."
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But he said,
"If I don't do this,
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if I don't stand up for justice,
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if I don't bring justice
to the victims of terrorism,
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then this is the
reality in the faith
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that awaits
every person in Iraq."
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And so Harwired definitely works
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in some of those
difficult parts of the world.
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Scary stuff, isn't it?
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But we work in places
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where people
have hit rock bottom.
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And in Iraq they realized
that there's only one way up.
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And so we have
this amazing opportunity
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now in Iraq that the
government in Kurdistan
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has actually invited us
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to reeducate the
entire youth population,
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you know, school children.
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And it's about 1.8 million kids.
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Because they realized
that if they want to overcome
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the ideologies of hate
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and intolerance that are fueling
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these recurrent
cycles of violence
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that are
destabilizing their country,
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that they have to
ensure that there is a respect
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for the freedom of each
other embedded in their culture.
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And so that's what Hardwired
has the opportunity to do.
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The Kurdish area
has been in a bad story,
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it's been a
relatively positive development.
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But do you have any
understanding why this is so?
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I mean, before Saddam Hussein
was overthrown, you know,
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he was at war against the Kurds.
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And of course in the larger
region there had been a war
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with separatist Kurdish elements
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or war with Turkey.
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Yeah, the Kurds have a
checkered past I guess...
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Yes, but the Kurds... Yeah.
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As I see it the Kurds are
overwhelmingly Islamic, right?
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Yeah, they're
predominantly Sunni Muslim,
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but I think it's hard to...
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So what's going
on? Why is it better?
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Why they have a
more positive feel?
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I think it's hard to look
at the Kurds as one monolith,
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because if you
remember pre World War I,
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the Kurds encompassed different
Kurdish tribes across Iran,
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Syria, Turkey, and Iraq
and they were separated.
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So, and even within the Kurdish
tribes that you have in Iraq,
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there are different
factions you've got.
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You know, Talibani
family and the Barzani family
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and so it's different factions.
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But what we've seen
in Iraq in particular is,
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because of
Saddam's hatred of the Kurds
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and fear of their power,
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you know, ability
to have a power base
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in the country,
he did attack them.
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And so, then
when the US came in,
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in the Persian Gulf War
we established a no fly zone.
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The Kurds became
kind of an isolated area
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that was very pro western,
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because the West
is really the one
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that came in to protect them.
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And so they've been
much more open to democracy,
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to some of these ideas
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their freedom of religion belief
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that we're talking
about, because of that.
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And they're not...
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There are Kurds
that are very religious
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but for the most
part Kurds in general
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are not super religious,
they're more cultural so...
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That's the impression I've got
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and that's sort of
what I was fishing for.
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Yeah.
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Perhaps more
than some in that area
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there nominally of
a religious identity,
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but not defined by
religious identity.
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Well, I think their...
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I think they define
themselves more ethnically.
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Yeah, I think
that their ethnicity
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and their Kurdish identity
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is far more
important in many ways.
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But that's definitely
changed in the last decade.
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You see a resurgence of
Islam and Islamic identity
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in certain parts of the country.
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But we've even been
invited by the government
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to do trainings with the Imams
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and the Imams
are very responsive
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to religious freedom.
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So we have one Imam
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that has his
own religious school
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and he is just the best example
of religious freedom advocate
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that you could
have in any country.
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He supports women's rights
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and he's just
the sweetest person
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and he's really
done a lot of great...
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He's created lessons
now on religious freedom
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that he's using in his school.
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So it's very exciting
to see what, you know,
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what can happen in that country
or in that part of the country.
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You mentioned women's rights,
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you know, one of
the visual images
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I have of the
Kurdish people's lately,
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their military
units, men and women.
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Now you don't see that
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in the whole
Middle East normally,
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women are not
involved with the military.
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Yeah. But the
Kurds are fighters.
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I mean, one of my best friends
is a Kurdish woman who...
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She even served
with the US military
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and was blown up
twice in different,
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you know, Humvee accidents
and resilient, resilient,
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but they're strong people,
they're mountainous people,
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so they're just
naturally strong people.
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That's the
impression... I can beat them.
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That's the
impression that I've had that
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they are generally in
the mountainous areas.
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Well, we have had a
great working relationship
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with the Kurdish government.
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So in the past few years
that we've been able to run
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trainings in Kurdistan
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because it's the
safest part of Iraq.
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We've been able to
build a strong relationship
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with the Ministry of Education
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and the Ministry
of Religious Affairs.
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And the head of those ministries
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or the director
of those ministries
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has been very supportive of
the religious freedom rights
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of all the different religious
communities in Kurdistan.
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So he's even established
seven different positions
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for religious leaders
that includes a leader,
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a position for the Bahais,
for the Zoroastrians, for...
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Christians? Yes. For Christians.
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For all of the
different religious communities
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and even a Jewish leader.
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So I think you
may recall we brought
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this Jewish
leader to Washington D.C.
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a couple of years
ago, so that Congress
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could see this
progress that's being made
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in Kurdistan that,
that they're recognizing
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the religious diversity.
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They just transformed
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their whole
religious education curriculum,
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so that they recognize
that diverse religious history
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that exists there.
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This is something
that we don't see happening
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anywhere else
in the Middle East.
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No, it's unique,
it was very positive.
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That they have a Jewish leader,
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that they've
incorporated Jewish history
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into their
textbooks, in their curriculum.
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I mean, this is very diverse.
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So it's continue...
You know, that was what,
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at least a year or
two ago, wasn't it?
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Yeah, and we've even met...
So it's worked well since then?
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Well, it hasn't
been implemented yet.
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They have just...
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They revised
the whole curriculum
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and so now they've
actually invited Hardwired
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to help them with
the implementation.
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So we're gonna be going
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in the next couple
of months to trainthe,
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all of the teachers that...
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that are
responsible for this curriculum.
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To teach in a way
that teaches children
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to value religious freedom.
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So this is really very exciting
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because it will get to
the root cause of the problem
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and help them
overcome the challenges.
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And I said at the
beginning and I'll say it again,
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that's what's so
special about your organization.
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Oh, thank you. Yeah.
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You know, they
are doing something
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that will make a difference.
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The part of the
process, not observing.
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No, we are all
about getting results
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and seeing things change
in countries around the world.
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I mean, there's...
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For too long we've
seen this trajectory
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that you alluded
to in the beginning.
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You said 70%, but in 2007,
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67% of the world's
population lived in countries
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with severe
repression of religious freedom.
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In 2017 that number was
79% of the world's population,
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that's the Pew Research Center.
00:10:01.76\00:10:03.23
So just in a decade
we've seen a 12% decline
00:10:03.26\00:10:06.50
and we can't afford for that
00:10:06.53\00:10:08.27
to be the
trajectory for the future.
00:10:08.30\00:10:11.57
So this basically tells me again
00:10:11.61\00:10:13.24
that what you're doing
00:10:13.27\00:10:14.61
is what's needed to
make the difference.
00:10:14.64\00:10:16.54
The statistics are
heading in the wrong direction.
00:10:16.58\00:10:20.05
The centre is
falling apart if you like,
00:10:20.08\00:10:22.15
but you have to
start with that individual,
00:10:22.18\00:10:24.29
that impressionable young person
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that can make a difference.
00:10:26.12\00:10:27.46
Oh, absolutely.
00:10:27.49\00:10:28.82
You have to start
with the young person.
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But I think one
of the other things
00:10:30.23\00:10:31.56
that we have to do
is, we have to start
00:10:31.59\00:10:33.63
with building local
leadership in countries
00:10:33.66\00:10:35.60
where there is no
religious freedom.
00:10:35.63\00:10:38.03
Right now we have
far too many countries,
00:10:38.07\00:10:39.80
they have no
sustainable local leadership
00:10:39.83\00:10:42.27
and unfortunately
they can't be the ones,
00:10:42.30\00:10:45.64
we can't have them
always depending on a west,
00:10:45.67\00:10:49.84
whether it's the United
States or other countries
00:10:49.88\00:10:52.41
to be standing in their defense,
00:10:52.45\00:10:54.18
because we may not
always have an administration
00:10:54.22\00:10:56.82
or a government
that is willing to.
00:10:56.85\00:11:02.12
I mean, right now it's
a very, you know, just...
00:11:02.16\00:11:07.50
People don't... It's
a very different time.
00:11:07.53\00:11:10.20
We don't know what to
expect out of government leaders
00:11:10.23\00:11:12.33
and what they will
stand for or not stand for.
00:11:12.37\00:11:13.74
And so it's really
critical that there is
00:11:13.77\00:11:15.57
that local
leadership on the ground
00:11:15.60\00:11:16.97
and that's one of the
things that Hardwired provides.
00:11:17.01\00:11:22.11
Only a few miles down
the river from Baghdad
00:11:22.14\00:11:24.71
is the ancient site of Babylon.
00:11:24.75\00:11:27.88
And all the Biblical
imagery that goes with it
00:11:27.92\00:11:31.19
is worth remembering
and musing on the fact
00:11:31.22\00:11:34.12
that in these later days
00:11:34.16\00:11:36.19
after the
US-led invasion of Iraq
00:11:36.22\00:11:40.30
and the
replacing of a dictatorship
00:11:40.33\00:11:42.96
with a slightly dysfunctional
but democratic regime,
00:11:43.00\00:11:47.17
that not only are we
trying to fix the debris
00:11:47.20\00:11:50.97
and reassemble the
debris of a collapsed kingdom.
00:11:51.01\00:11:55.04
But through
efforts like Tina Ramirez
00:11:55.08\00:11:57.51
and her organizations,
00:11:57.55\00:11:59.08
we're trying to bring
again to a benighted land,
00:11:59.11\00:12:02.82
principles of
freedom and liberty.
00:12:02.85\00:12:05.65
And I respect for what
God has planted in each of us,
00:12:05.69\00:12:09.89
the ability to seek the divine
00:12:09.92\00:12:12.33
and respect others
in that same journey
00:12:12.36\00:12:14.80
and to realize that
at the end of the day,
00:12:14.83\00:12:17.33
religious liberty
is the ultimate liberty
00:12:17.37\00:12:19.97
that we are liberated toward.
00:12:20.00\00:12:23.20
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:23.24\00:12:26.47