>> host: teacher at a jesuit college, georgetown university. if a consecutive catholic student were to take your course on conservism, would he or she emerge thinking you were critical of conservative jim? >> guest: well, many catholic students have taken my courses and conservativism who are pros extents and jews, and that's one of the bulbs on the back of the back is by a writer for the weekly standard. not a left are wing -- left-wing magazine. i like to think as an historian i teach and write epithet include. that is, any subject i teach about. i write about, i'm trying to understand what the people who are involved in at the time were thinking and doing and why they

did what they were doing. so i'm not interested in teaching -- make it bad for anybody to teach history as if one can be referee saying, ah, he was doing the right thing, or the wrong thing. i believe it's my place to -- it's already happened so we have to understand it. and -- i think even though students know i don't agree with their politics today, i'm trying to understand ex-when i teach conservativism, why the movement went from not existing in the 1930s and '40s basically to becoming now probably the largest social movement in america. and a very powerful one. how did that happen? whether i like it or not, it happened, and so it doesn't make any sense to me to say, that was terrible what they were saying. i mean, you teach what happened.

you teach different points of view about and it you let students decide what they think. >> host: we have been talking with georgetown university professor and author, michael kazin. his most recent book "american dreamers: how the left changed a nation." >> guest: thank you. >> come >> host: professor thomas farr. his book is world of faith and freedom. why international religious liberty is vital to american national security. professor farr, why is it vital? >> guest: for two reasons. one is that religious freedom is

a fundamental human right. most people accept that proposition. and it's under siege around the world. the pew forum on life and they said 70% of the world's population lives in countries in which religious freedom is severely restricted. that's almost three out of four people on the planet. and what's associated with this is a lot of violent religious prosecution, torture, rape, ungist imprisonment, injust execution. so it's a humanitarian crisis, and the united states has traditionally stood with the persecutor, but it's also a strategic crisis, because the data show -- and i would argue both history and common sense confirm it -- that without religious freedom you cannot, particularly in a highly religious society -- have a

stable democracy. so, you think of this countries in the arab spring, all of them highly religious societies. are countries we invested enormous amount office blood and treasure -- afghanistan or iraq or pakistan -- other countries that are struggling to have a stable democracy. it's in our interests for them to succeed but they can't succeed if they don't get the religion-state issue right, they've don't get religious freedom right in addition, i would say that the data show that when religious freedom is absent, you have violence, extremism, terrorism. that is a major issue for the united states bought is has reached our shores. it affects our military deployments. it affects what we do all over the world. so this is on the one hand a humanitarian issue. on the other, a vital national interest. >> host: what has been the traditional or historic role of

religious freedom in u.s. foreign policy? >> guest: historically it has played a muted role. part of our policy. we always stood for human rights. sometimes more rhetorically than in terms of our actual foreign policy, but that's okay. we have interests as a country, every country does, and human rights, while important to us, can't always be at the top. during the soviet period, we were very concerned about human rights but we were also concerned about those missiles. what i'm arguing is this remains true with religious freedom, but it has taken on a -- whether you and i like it or not its irrelevant whether american diplomats like it or not. rather the point, it is religious, and our job as

american diplomaats is to engage the world with american interests. if religious plays a part, nothing wrong with -- sometimes its good. ideas have consequences, speeches, particularly presidential speeches, and speeches by secretaries of state are important but they have to be followed by policies, and my argument in this book is we aren't doing enough in terms of concrete strategic planning, policy development, program development, actually to advance religious freedom on the ground. we have a lot of words. some of them very fine words. we don't have enough action. >> host: why did you specifically research through the american diplomatic corps? >> guest: i spent 21 years as an american dip plot, and i got into the issue in the 1990s when congress passed a law called the international religious freedom act.

and my specialty during the 80 asks was the cold war. i negotiated with the soviets. i served in geneva, i worked on greece, turkey, cypress, and then they created this department of international freedom and it said the united states will not formally advance religious freedom around the world. so i was privileged to be asked by the first head of the office, called an ambassador at large for religious freedom, and i was asked to be the chief of staff. i served under twod ambassadors at large, and i concluded it was important and we weren't taking it seriously enough. so i wrote this book, and the american diplomatic corps is really gait -- quite good, but it has been trained, i might

argue -- most of. the elite universities but in foreign service training -- traditionally religion is not something to get involved in. it's like your mother told you, don't talk about religion at the dinner table. well, keep it off the policy table. an example of this is syria -- an american diplomat and in 1994 he wrote his opus on diplomacy and it was a tour of the entire history of diplomacy in the western world. 1,000 pages. an index of 135-40 pages. the word religion does not appear in the index. it's as if after the wars of religion in the 17th century it simply disappear, and even during the period when henry kissinger himself, the national

security adviser to the president, when john paul ii, was transforming and reagan what was going on in the -- when khomeini was on the rise in iraq, it's as if'll had nothing do with international affairs. that's not a criticism of kissinger per se and it isn't -- it's a default position that it's private. after 9/11 we can no longer conclude that religion is something we shouldn't be engaging on, in a diplomatic policy. >> host: thomas farr is -- when we do emphasize religious freedom, is it christian-centric? >> guest: that's a good question. the perception is, yes. the perception in the muslim world, perception among some here in the united states.

absolutely not true. the law is the blueprint for this. it doesn't mention religion, much less christianity. of course, through people -- has strong feelings about it and christianity is a pros the let tieing'ing. but the idea here is not to make a world safe for christian missionaries. to focus on religious liberty as a constituent element of human dignity after societies and politics. it really is something that can be talked about and implemented irrespective of what the religious demography is. the reality is that christians around the world, as minorities, are in big trouble. they are freeing countries in

the middle east. what happens to the christian minority in egypt has something to do with -- has a great deal to do with the future of that country. so it isn't that christians are irrelevant or christianity is relevant but the notion is not about christians. if you talk about where does the notion come from? christianity and the jewish understanding of god and man and so forth, plays a role, but islam, a number of muslim scholars that work today who argue that religious freedom is required by the -- not only consistent with it but required by it. unfortunately these brave men and women are not as central in much of the muslim world. if they where are would we have far fewer problems. >> host: what or some or the national security problems witness play face in the -- looking at the two largest

countries in the world, china and india? >> guest: that's an excellent question because it helps me make the point that this is not simple play problem of the muslim majority world. both of these countries have tremendous problems with religious liberty. let me begin first with india, which as most people know is a hindu majority nation and also has a huge muslim minority. so, what happens to the issue of religion and state in that country is of great importance, not only for india, which is huge and growing and of enormous economic importance to the united states and its neighbors -- it's also a nuclear weapons country, next to a muslim majority country, pakistan, which also -- what happens to india is of enormous importance the united states, on an economic basis, and a national security basis. that is very much affected by the way religion is handled in

india. by and large, the indians have been successful at this. with some important exceptions. if you look at the birth of india in 1948 and 1949, some of the worst violence in history occurred with the birth of that nation. now it's a fairly stable democracy. a few problems with poverty. enormous economic growth. some of this is due to the fact that the indian, influenced primarily by the notions of religion that were there with gandhi and neru and others and an understanding of the way democracy ought to work. they still have persecution of christians in india, persecution of muslims. but by and large india is a success story when you look at some of these other countries

and it's important because of that muslim minority. china, very different problem. officially an athiest state. no religion is invited to flourish in china, except as it is part of sort of bureaucratic understanding of the state. socialists, communists. christian isn't an official communist apart. the motor -- most important thing to understand about china is that the communist party allows capitalists to be part of it but not religious believers. what does that tell you? it tells you, first of all, that it's a very practical strain of communism. communism by definition is anticapitalist. but in the 1980s the chinese decided they wanted to develop economic enterprise within their country so they said, to get

rich is glorious. well, this tells you that if they were to make this kind of decision about religion, they could -- the problem is they don't see it as part of the chinese understanding of reality. they see religion as a threat. and in some ways it is. because religious people, whether they're christians or tibetan buddhists or muslims have a higher authority than the state so in that sense it's a threat to any kind of state. what we should be saying the chinese, and we don't do this very well is, look, back off on this people. you don't have to have full religious freedom. you don't have to adopt the american understanding, but if you -- what do you want? this is really what you use for any country. what are your interests? what do you want for yourself? you don't have to do this because we're wagging our finger at you, because the united

nations says you have to what do the chinese want? they want stable economic growth. they have had huge economic growth but they're worried about stability. they want social harmony. they want political stability. religious freedom can help them with this. because religious individuals are not rebels. unless you suppress them and crack down on them. if you allow them a little bit of freedom, which means backing off with the state administration for religious affairs, allowing them to develop their own theologies, doesn't mean you have a change your laws about violence or rebellion. it means you have to give a little slack to do that. what will happen? they will become farmer economic productive and will contribute to the social causes within china. look at all the terrific internal problems with aids and

lepracy. and there was an earthquake and the chinese noticed it was religious people who came in and helped. we need pick up on this notion. that's what religious freedom is about. not about christians or any particular religious group. it's about letting people be religious as they'll see the duty themselves. if you do that, it will be good for them but, more importantly, good for your society on your own terms. we just don't communicate that very well. part of it is a deficiency in our training. remember, the henry kissinger example. part of it is we don't have the leadership from the secretary of state and the president of the united states to say hey, we need to make this a serious effort of our foreign policy. >> host: any lessons learned from the fall of the soviet union and the opening up of religious freedom there?

>> guest: yes. some tough lessons by and large. when the soviet union was overthrown, we were successful in getting the soviet to pass a law -- a religious freedom law, and my friend and colleague, bob, who was the first ambassador for religious freedom -- the way he tells the story, as soon as the law was passed opening up russia, all the christians in the world threw their bibles into their wagons and went off like it was the gold rush in the 1900s in the -- 1800s in the united states. without regard, in other words, to the culture of russia and particular the culture of the russian orthodox church which views itself as part of mother russia and they have been suppressed, many of them, horribly, during the period of

the communist domination. and here all these other christians of all denominations came rushing in. there were muslims. never really talking to the russian orthodox church, never trying to be sensitive about this, and it became less a peaceful competition than sort of a scrum. this has led, among other things, to the russian orthodox church said we don't like this religious freedom stuff. let's go back to that authoritarian mother russia so we will be the stakeholders, we'll be the religious representatives of russia, and the result of this was antidemocratic development. so it's a good question, because it tells you is that religious freedom requires a little sensitivity. you have to be sensitive the culture whether it's china or russia or pakistan. people feel very strongly about

religion. if you don't take it into account you're not going to be successful. so, this is part of what american diplomats seem to be missing. i you're going out to rich as an american diplomat, what you ought to get for training, yolanthe russian language, russian history, the government, the economy and so forth. you ought to learn about all of this history in order to be a very, very important role in the education. it isn't. as a consequence, when we get out there, we just don't do this very well ask that needs to change. that's what the book is about, changing this. i've always been a bit of a religious person but i knew that there's something you didn't talk about in the foreign service. didn't play a role in what i did. but here was an office where you had to do it. and i could tell that people didn't -- people weren't taking well to it. people in the building there at

c street, which is our state department. they were looking kind of askance at this. i was intrigued by that. you have to put this down and convince people that this isn't something -- a lot of people thought this was just an outpost of the christian right, you know, that had been imposed by congress and the christian right. those or two very bad things for the state department. congress is telling us what to could and the christian right is telling us what to do. neither one of them were very good interpretations in my view, so i was delighted to be there. president clinton was a master. that was 1999. he was gone in 2000. in came president bush. it took a couple of years to get bush's ambassador in. john handford. during the period where there was no -- i was the acting ambassador. i described myself in the book as the admiral of a leaky row

boat that was kind of a crew of hearty souls four, fewer you'vely pedaling to keep from sinking beneath the waves. it was a lot of fun, cut -- and john hanford asked me to stay on, i did. he did terrific things. he had eight years to do his job. so, we're still not doing this well. and i think the book itself is a plea. not just to look at the humanitarian part office this but to look at it from our own interests. countries have interests, the united states does, and our interests are in stability around the world and defeating religious led terrorism and if we can promote religious freedom better than we do it will go down to the credit of the american people and their safety and well-being. >> host: you has your work in this area changed your faith at

all? >> guest: it's deepened it. i happen to be roman catholic. i'm a converted catholic. so i'm interested in conversion and conversion as an aspect of religious freedom. but my own sort of personal blueprint is what i consider a magnificent document called the declaration of religious freedom which came out of the second vatican council in the catholic church. i wasn't a catholic at the time. but i had become an aficionado and devoted to this, to the dignity of the human person. that is a lot if not all that needs to be said about religious freedom. human beings want to know the answer. so it is a religious thing for me. and of course, as a catholic, i invite all people to be catholics but this is not about that. it's about human beings. it's not about the catholic

church or any other church. it's about a religious understanding of what human beings are, and if they don't have religious freedom, they can't really have religious life, and that's why societies don't get it tent -- tend to be up stable. we have problems in our own country but we're a long way from the terrific problem you see in egypt or iran where people are literally killed because of their religious beliefs. but the root of the problem may be the same and that you have to credit the religious nature of people, and i don't mean to say that people are religious if they don't think they're religious. christopher hitchens was a self-professed athiest but he was a person who was religious in my definition of the term in terms of he wanted to know the answer. he thought he found, there is

no god. i think that's a preposterous answer but that was his answer. it was a religious question. i presume he knows the answer to those questions now. it's about human dignity. not about imposing my beliefs on you. but to answer your question, i believe that what i just said is entirely consistent with the catholic faith. so it has deepened my faith. as a catholic i believe i am being catholic in making these arguments. >> host: what this book has been published by oxford, world of faith and freedom. what is the witherspoon institute? >> guest: it's a privately funded think tank in princeton, new jersey. it is -- it has a whole host of

programs that intersect between religion and public life. i am fortunate to be the director of their task force on international religious freedom, and i have been now for about three years. people who are interested in witherspoon can find itit on the web site. we are coming out with a volume on this vary subject, it turns out, on march 1st of this year. we will have at georgetown university on the campus, a conference to bring out the book, entitled "religious freedom. why now, defending on embattled human rights" a product of my task force and written by my colleague at georgetown, timothy shaw. tim shaw has written a terrific book which gives the case for religious freedom across all religions and the strategic reasons which we have been talking about. why aimportant to the united states and any country, which is

interested in stability and harmony and peace. so i think it's a blockbuster of a book. it's a small book. not a henry kissinger thousand pages, it's probably 80 pages. so it's accessible to anybody beside in the subject and i invite anybody who is interested in coming to the conference to either go to the witherspoon institute's web site or to the web site of my other half, which is the berkeley center at georgetown university. you can find that by google is, and you can find this march 1st event here on the campus of georgetown university, and we invite all of your viewers to come and enjoy with us. we're going to have a keynote address by robert george, who is a professor of political science and political theory at princeton university. one of the preeminent public intellectuals in the united states on many subjects but especially on the subject of

religious liberty. we're going to have a number of panels, including one of american muslims, who are going to talk about this as it impacts american islam and islam around the world. again, this isn't just a christian operation. this is something that i think impacts all human beings. we'll have a panel that sort of talks about, why now? that's part hover the title. then we'll have a panel about, okay, once we have established that, what is the relevance to the world out there? especially the muslim majority world which i think is terrifically important subject for the country and for muslim around the world. >> host: you're watching become tv on c-span2 we have been talking with professor thomas farr about his book and an upcoming book by the witherspoon institute. professor farr, thank you for joining us here at georgetown university. >> guest: thanks for the pleasure.

...