MA in Democracy and Governance student Samuel Tadros argues that lack of religious freedom in Egypt lies at the heart of the New Year’s Eve terrorist attack on a Coptic Church that killed 23 Copts:

The current attack is attributed to Islamist anger over the alleged kidnapping by the Coptic Church of a Priest’s wife whom they claim converted to Islam. The general context is Islamist anger at what they perceive as the humiliation of Islam at the hands of Copts by asking to build churches…In all of this there is no alternative provided. There is no argument for the right of an individual to choose his religion, there is no defense of the right of people to build churches, and there is no public sphere opened to Christians.

This seems like a pretty solid argument to me. Placing the communal feelings of the followers of a state’s dominant religion above the ability of an individual to practice the religion of his or her choice is only a small step away from legitimizing oppression of those who don’t adhere to the dominant religion.

In line with my last post on relationships between development and diplomacy,I feel compelled to discuss the relationship between human rights and foreign aid. Studying any of the Social Sciences, eventually one ends up tangled in the question of why people allow so many obviously horrible things to happen to other people?  We tend to pursue this question of human rights with such a measure of outrage, blended with bewildered naiveté, that by the time one stumbles into foreign policy it’s hard not to expect the worst to happen.  Yet governments around the world continue to discuss human rights as a central issue of international relations regardless of how unlikely it might seem based on policy.  As in so many other policy areas, the issue of human rights is clearly one of words vs. actions.

If one relied on press releases, official remarks and speeches alone for their information, it might seem only a matter of time until human rights violations are a thing of the past.  Human rights is perhaps one of the best examples of the divide between public diplomacy and changes in policy.  Particularly in the more influential nations of the world, human rights tend to conflict with many of more noteworthy policy concerns like economics and security.

In a way, stable yet less-powerful nations have the ability to be more sincere in their support of human rights, as obviously do non-government organizations.  From the European Parliament to Human Rights Watch, Freedom House to the government of Ecuador, strong commentary on human rights should be expected.  It’s easy enough to express outrage over government support of violent repressive groups, or state support of cultural or ethnic prejudice, but until powerful nations decide to shift from words to actions we shouldn’t be surprised by the current state of affairs.

Image courtesy of worsttech.com

So, in the wake of the most recent WikiLeaks scandal, the diplomatic cabletastrophy, the MasterCard “cyber attacks” and the attack on the Iranian nuclear program lots of new language has been added to the media vocabulary.  Until just a few weeks ago the vast majority of Americans had no clue what a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, nor certainly viewed internet crime as any sort of national security issue.  Now it seems politically motivated cyber attacks are all the rage, and though these are the newest forms of political attacks popularized in news media, they’ve been a popular  weapons against human rights organizations for ages.

Yet, not surprisingly, one rarely if ever hears about cyber attacks on human rights organizations and sources of independent media.  Perhaps at least in part because excluding major efforts of governments and the like, they tend not to actually be that big of a deal.  Contrary to the sea of tweets and TV news stories, cyber attacks, while certainly pretty fierce and frightening displays of political beliefs, tend not to cause earth shattering meltdowns.  As with more traditional political attacks, these recent attacks have had an impressive impact in bringing public attention to a host of differing political ideologies.

If not for sharp manipulation of mainstream media sources, WikiLeaks probably never would’ve stood out among the sea of nerdy political sites.  Whatever the WikiLeaks scandals amount to in history, the organization certainly will have had a profound impact on the US populace and international community in bringing the influence of technology into the public eye.

Last week the State Department released its 2010 Report on International Religious Freedom (IRF Report), our government’s annual assessment of the state of religious freedom around the world.  The release of a new IRF report has never been a particularly grand media event, typically receiving limited coverage and going largely ignored domestically outside the limited sphere of human rights organizations.

Perhaps in part these reports go ignored due to an issue we’ve tangled with in the past, the difficulty of impacting change through public diplomacy without the support of policy change (or words without actions).  In many ways this appears to be a typical difficulty faced by the State Department, particularly in the area of human rights there’s little intention to take action beyond the status quo of economic sanctions.  Sanctions, which are pretty widely recognized as being ineffective or counterproductive and further seem to contrast the words of Secretary Clinton and past officials, asserting that the report is not an attempt by the US to judge other nations.

Internationally the reports earn little more press than they do domestically, save among those nations criticized in the report.  Largely in nations like Iran and China, which can be expected to remain in the report for the foreseeable future, these reports either go ignored or elicit responses which revolve around the assertion that we’ve neither the right nor the moral high ground to criticize other nations on issues of human rights.  In either case the reports seem only to illustrate the mutual hostility we have with these nations refracted through the lens of human rights.  Among our allies and those nations with tenuous US relations however, responses can be more pointed and useful. Nations like Egypt, Israel and Russia might be valuable in assessing whether or not these reports have any worth or tangible effect on future religious freedom policy.  Here as in other areas, public diplomacy only seems effective in nations where some manner of positive relationship already exists, if even there.

Continuing the trend from my previous post on President Obama’s Asia trip, I find myself pleasantly surprised that democracy promotion continues to be a public subject of this tour.  Most recently the President spoke in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim state, and a center of democracy in South East Asia.  While in Indonesia, Obama praised the country as an example of how developing nations could improve the lives of citizenry by embracing the principles of democracy and diversity.

Contrary to the focus on trade and economics during his trip to India, the President’s speech in Jakarta focused primarily on the subjects of democracy, development and religious tolerance.  Not only did his speech bring the subject of democracy in development to the forefront, but of at least equal importance, it returned to past efforts by the administration to strengthen the US relationship with the “Muslim world”.  Who can say for certain if there’s much tangible worth to these latest comments on the role of religious tolerance in foreign policy? I would argue that there is value,  but that’s an easy conclusion to reach given my appreciation for public diplomacy.

As in the President’s call for a new beginning between the US and Muslim communities last year in Cairo, the Jakarta speech displayed the innate value of public diplomacy.  Often we who study this field argue that public diplomacy and rhetoric without substantial change to support it is effectively meaningless, but I disagree, particularly in situations of ideological struggle.  I would assert that the promotion of democracy and religious freedom is worthwhile regardless of tangible changes to policy, due to its ability to influence the populace, if not the policy makers.  There is substantial value to discussion of these subjects, and to the continued support of our allies abroad who uphold religious freedom.  Further, in light of our own issues with religion and freedom of expression, it is important that policy makers continue to make clear that the US led struggles in the Middle East are not struggles against Islam.

Regardless of its relative successes, Indonesia’s history of tolerance and human rights is far from spotless. As such I’d hardly be surprised to see criticism of Obama’s words in praise of the country, either by his domestic and international political opponents, or human rights activists.  Many of the criticisms of Indonesia’s history of tolerance will be valid, a weakness of public diplomacy, which necessitates strong often hyperbolic statements contrary to the minutia of realities on the ground.

Recently on reading current literature on the role of religious freedom in promotion of democracy, I’ve come across a good number of  interesting if fiercely contrary arguments on the subject .  Certainly religious freedom has always been a critical issue in American interpretations of democracy, but until the tail-end of the 20^th century the issue arguably served a relatively minor role in US foreign policy.  Since we entered fully into the field of democracy building however, the subject of religious freedom has been raised time and time again though no consensus has yet been reached.

On one hand it is argued that religious freedom is a minor issue in the shadow of political, social and economic freedoms; while on the other it has increasingly been promoted as a foundation for functioning society.  These arguments can be found in the halls of academia, on fabled “American main street” and even among our policy-makers, and in all three areas both sides are well represented.   However we may feel about the issue, since the passing of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998 for better or worse religious freedom has existed as a portion of United States foreign policy.

Given that promotion of religious freedom isn’t going away I think most would agree that this is an issue to handle with care.  In light of recent pushes against the growth of democracy and the difficulties now faced by NGOs abroad it must be of utmost importance to take care in the potential politicization of religion.  In promoting religious freedom we must be careful not to leave religious communities marked with the same type of “westerner” stigma that currently plagues NGOs. Though often we have an approach of rushing in and dealing with problems as they arise I think a few questions must be asked before we commit too deeply to any particular path to developing religious freedom.

• What link if any exists between religious freedom, freedom of expression and democratic growth?
• How should US articulate its policy in the area?
• Should the US government address issues of religious freedom purely through public channels?
• Can private actors and NGOs safely play a role in the development of religious freedom?

There is plenty of good post-election analysis out there – although far more bad – so I don’t want to repeat anything that’s already been said.  I did, however, want to note what happened in Iowa, as I think it displays a strategic error on the left.   The three Iowa judges who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage were defeated yesterday, thanks to a massive influx of money from outside of the state.  Turnout by itself can’t explain this; all vulnerable House Democrats managed to keep their seats in the state.

I’m not going to comment on whether judges should be elected, a worthwhile debate in itself, but I would like to chastise liberal organizations like Human Rights Campaign for their overall strategy.   It seems to me that groups like HRC would be better off spending their money in races like these: state judicial and legislative races, where a lot of their battles are fought.  Instead they like to waste money donating to national Democrats who win by 20 point margins.   I’m sure there was plenty of money out there that could have been spent defending those judges, and I’m confident there are people out there who could run an organization that would be able to strategically target such races.  Is anything like this actually being done?

On a personal note, the one Congressman who I somewhat knew, Bob Etheridge, of North Carolina’s 2nd district, lost his race yesterday.  His opponent, Renee Ellmers, ran the following commercial during the race.

Etheridge is a lot better than this women, and the country is worse off for the switch.