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Amanpour

Gun Violence and America's Role in the World; What's Changed in Religious Toleration; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 27, 2015 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Simon Schama is an Ivy League academic who does anything but sit in his ivory tower. A prolific writer, his books on

subjects from Rembrandt to the slave trade have won numerous awards and top best-seller lists.

In the U.K., he's known best for his popular BBC history programs. Millions have watched series like the Emmy-winning "Power of Art," an epic

story of the Jews.

Born in London, (INAUDIBLE) professor of arts history and history in America's Columbia University and a contributing editor for the "Financial

Times." Historian, academic and master storyteller, Simon Schama is tonight's guest host on AMANPOUR.

SIMON SCHAMA, CNN HOST (voice-over): Welcome to the program. I'm Simon Schama, tonight's host of AMANPOUR.

The United States is a global superpower but there are puzzling sides to the famed American dream. The shooting of two journalists live on American

television has reignited the gun control debate. By some reckoning, more Americans have died from gunfire in the United States since 1968 than on

battlefields of all the wars in American history.

We've become accustomed to the massacre of the weak. The only questions are when, where and how many. President Barack Obama says this has to

stop.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we know is that the number of people who die from gun-related incidents around this country

dwarfs any deaths that happen through terrorism. And we're willing to spend trillions of dollars to prevent terrorist activities but we haven't

been willing so far at least to impose some common-sense gun safety measures that could save some lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHAMA: Tonight we ask how gun violence impacts America's reputation abroad. Some say that's already suffering and gun laws are not the only

reason why. Washington's foreign policy has many critics to say that Obama is reluctant to assert American power around the world. They point to his

determination to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as a symptom of passiveness and retreat.

So what is America's role in the world today?

Here in the studio to discuss all this is Matthew Barzun, arguably America's most important overseas representative as the country's

ambassador in London.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAMA: Ambassador Barzun, I remember not so long ago you were telling me that when you were touring Britain early on in your tenure and talking to

young people in schools, who were mostly very enthusiastic about the United States, they all told you that the one thing which really bewildered them

was America's gun culture.

Tell us now how you explained America's gun culture to them and how you would explain it to the world.

MATTHEW BARZUN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.K.: Well, thank you for having me here. Look, I think it's worth starting off just the horror that we feel

as a country for what happened with the shooting in Roanoke. And you know what, we felt that horror in Charleston; we felt that horror in Connecticut

and as you -- I could keep going.

SCHAMA: Well, that's the trouble isn't it? One can keep going.

BARZUN: Well, it is. And I think you heard President Obama say in the introduction that we need to do something as a country. And you know, this

is deeply cultural. It's constitutional, that there's lots to it. And we're grappling with this and we need to grapple with it.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHAMA: -- hard enough? I mean, you know --

BARZUN: -- the president's done some things in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown and put forward some common-sense -- I think 90 percent of the

American public agreed with those common-sense measures to deal with it. It failed in our Senate. I mean, I don't have any easy answers for you on

this issue. It's a big one. It's our struggle.

SCHAMA: The problem is, as always, in this newly feverish political season, politics, the National Rifle Association is just an enormous factor

in American politics. And if it was simply even partisan --

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SCHAMA: -- maybe the use of the presidential pulpit could sway things towards what most of the world thinks of as common-sense. But it's

Democrats as well, who run scared, who don't want to face another election with the hostility of the NRA as rhetorical barrels pointing towards them.

BARZUN: It is something we are grappling with. And I don't have -- if it were easy it would have been figured out right now. It isn't easy. The

president's led on the issue; others have led. It's going to take our whole -- lower case D -- democratic system, activists; everyone's got a

role to play to try to come up with a solution that works for our country - -

(CROSSTALK)

SCHAMA: Let me suggest something: the president is a lame duck president. He actually ought to be a lame duck who quacks loudly.

He has nothing to lose. I suppose it could be said that he'll be undercutting the interests of his own party going into a situation where

the Democrats need to try and recover the Senate. But it is an exceptional opportunity where his own electoral prospects are no longer on the line, to

be much louder, much fiercer, much more resolute than he has been.

How about it?

Going to tell him that from me?

BARZUN: Well, I think he's already doing it. I think if you listen, as many did around the world, to his very powerful eulogy in Charleston, and

he talks about it and he actually invokes grace. We've gotten through a lot. We abolished slavery. We extended the right of women to vote.

And when we said, "We, the people," back in 1780, it was we, the white male Protestant land-owning people. And we've been on a journey as a country --

and it's been a painful journey, but it's been one of increasing the circle of who's included and changing how we act. And that change takes time. It

takes activism and fights and discussions and a debate. And you're catching us in the middle of one right now with President Obama, I think,

very forcefully leading on this issue.

He can't do it alone, the way our system works, as you know. So he's got a role to play. We all have a role to play.

SCHAMA: You raise history quite rightly; one of the great things about America is its strong sense of resolution. We saw that heroically on the

train from Paris to Amsterdam the other day. It was Americans who did this.

But -- there is a big but -- it seems to me very difficult, whether we're talking about gun control or whether we're talking about how America

reaches into the world in foreign policy. Your own particular remit to really project something called American restraint. Is it not the case

that restraint is not really part of American wiring?

What -- the problem with guns is that it's so identified with American freedom. And the sense in which American policy is trigger-happy, which it

shoots first and asks questions later, is a problem. Barack Obama has been an extraordinary exception to that. But what's the perception in the

world?

BARZUN: Yes, well, I wouldn't -- you used the word "restraint." I would use the phrase "leadership," because I think he's leading. And what

President Obama has, I think, dramatically done is say, look, the world is a better place when America is engaged in it. And we don't always get it

right, obviously, looking back in history. At our best we learn from those mistakes.

But we tend to do that engagement better when we work with partners. We tend to do that engagement better when we use all the tools we have --

diplomatic, economic and, yes, military -- but not just military and not military first. And that's how I think you've seen President Obama lead.

SCHAMA: Disengagement has happened not psychologically but strategically, it could be argued, at least the critics say that. And yesterday brought

news of the Taliban reoccupying Northern Helmand Province. Some of his critics never mind about what happened after the surge. But in

Afghanistan, it was a mistake to go to West Point -- West Point, of all places -- and announce in advance the timetable of withdrawal from

Afghanistan.

How do you answer that, that wasn't retreat?

BARZUN: Well, it's not; it's leadership. It's staying engaged. We remain deeply engaged with Afghanistan. We remain deeply engaged with Iraq. We

may -- and, look, I think the American public certainly understandably wants, after a decade of two major ground wars -- I think it's

understandable that we sort of want our brave men and women home. We've got issues -- you've touched on a big one, but that's not the only one --

we're grappling with at home.

So we've got issues to go at home. And I think it's understandable all of us feel, let's just focus on -- let's get to some --

(CROSSTALK)

BARZUN: -- I think the thing that President Obama has been great about reminding the American people and his fellow world leaders is, you know

what, America has to stay engaged in all these places. And engagement shouldn't mean massive tens of thousands of ground troops, American ground

troops, in these places in order to secure peace.

That's doesn't work.

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BARZUN: In the long term, it's not sustainable in any definition of the word "sustainable." So how do we do it in partnership with other

countries? Look what we're doing in ISIL with 60-plus countries gathered together, each one's doing different roles. That's the kind of American

leadership: yes, engage; engage with partners; engage with all the tools we have.

SCHAMA: I really hope you're right. Thank you very much.

BARZUN: Thank you for having me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAMA: After the break, is religious intolerance on the rise?

And if so, how can we stop it?

Two of the world's leading authorities on religion join me to discuss when we come back.

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SCHAMA: Welcome back. Growing up in the '60s, my generation used to take it for granted that we were moving towards a new and more enlightened

world, one where people of different faiths would find a way to live with each other's differences.

Well, how wrong we were. Our TV screens show Christian and Yazidi families fleeing Islamic militants in Iraq. Muslim Rohingya fleeing persecution in

Myanmar. And reports of rising anti-Semitism worldwide. Around one in four countries have, quote, "high levels of religion hostilities,"

according to the Pew Research Center, a think tank analyzing crime motivated by religious hatred or bias.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAMA: Joining me now, two leading religious scholars, Professor Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic studies at the American University and Rabbi Lord

Jonathan Sacks, who was Britain's most senior Jewish leader for over 20 years.

Let me start with you, Rabbi Lord Sacks. You've published an important passionate and eloquent book, "Not in God's Name," deploring what has

happened.

But tell me, in your own sense, why it's happened. Why were we deluded in our optimism and how have we come to be so confounded?

RABBI LORD JONATHAN SACKS, BRITISH JEWISH LEADER: I think there were a number of mistakes here. Number one, the assumption was that

Westernization is the way the world is going to go. And we're seeing that that's simply not the case.

Number two, there was a sort of secular -- series of secular revolutions, whether you look at the Middle East, secular Arab nationalisms, even India

and so on, and we're seeing a religious counterrevolution as those secular revolutions failed to deliver, whether in terms of prosperity or civil

rights and so on. So there's a counterrevolution taking place.

And third, people thought -- John Lennon sang it in "Imagine," that you could do without religion.

Now you know, Simon, as a historian, there's not been an age in human history, including pre-civilizations, when people have not taken religion

seriously.

SCHAMA: There is -- let me turn to you, Professor Akbar, there has been periods where religion has been the center of cultural life. One thinks of

-- I was filming --

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SCHAMA: -- a couple of years ago in Cordoba and indeed in North Africa as well, where, in fact, the Islamic world was prospered. It thrive on

toleration. It tolerated other people of the book.

Why -- did you actually see all -- during all those years, when the Muslim Brotherhood was a tiny, threatened, persecuted minority, the enormous wave

of fierce Islamic fundamentalism on its way?

AKBAR AHMED, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: Simon, like you, I grew up in the 1960s and I believed that modern Islam, modernist Islam, which was part of my

tradition, would ultimately prevail. It assumed justice, democracy, freedom of expression, acceptability of minorities and respect for law and

order.

Now I saw always a tension between modernist Islam, literalist Islam -- people who said only we are right; it must be exactly as it says in the

sacred text, so we go back to the 7th century in dress and behavior and so on -- and mystic Islam. And it was a kind of tension between these three.

But I was confident in modernist Islam.

What we're seeing half a century later is the collapse of modernist Islam. So you're seeing central governments across the Muslim world not giving

justice, not giving -- providing law and order, not being able to give the most basic amenities -- education, health facilities, jobs -- and people

are just fed up. And they are in a state of revolution, revolt.

A lot of these revolts are coming from the periphery, from tribal areas, and you're seeing across the Muslim world, from Morocco right up to Central

Asia, these tribal groups, peripheral groups, revolting against the central government.

It gets complicated because Western societies after 9/11 very often cast this in terms of the West versus Islam and very often threw their weight

behind the corrupt central government, making the situation even more worse for the periphery and the tribal groups.

So the ordinary Muslim living in the Muslim world today sees no hope, no compassion and as Lord Sacks will tell you, the two greatest names of God

and Islam are the Merciful and the Compassionate. And ordinary people say where is the compassion, where is the mercy?

SCHAMA: Yes, that's not what we see on atrocious beheading videos.

The question for you both, really, I think, is why modernist orthodox religion -- you're both right, I'm sure to say it, but secular versus

religion really was always itself a kind of delusion. The issue, though, that much of the rest of the world is asking is why modernist -- the

modernist standard bearers of religion have not been eloquent enough in denouncing fanaticism as the corrupt heresy, which you identify with a

misreading of the Bible.

I mean, it took General Sisi, of all people, to go to Allah's high mosque and denounce and bitterly -- that's the trouble. He had a political ax to

grind when he went and did that.

Therefore, his credibility was undermined. But do you both think that enough is really being said in the name of moderate religion? Or is it the

moment moderate religion a kind of oxymoron as far as masses of people are concerned?

SACKS: What you've seen, of course, and this happened with people like Sam Harris in the States and Richard Dawkins in Britain, people are saying,

well, the moderate religious people are the real enemy. Let's have a clean fight between the atheists and the religious extremists.

I think people who have stood for religious tolerance have found great difficulty in the last half-century as secular culture has moved further

and further away from the classic Judeo-Christian or Abrahamic set of traditions.

So it's been harder to hold together the world of faith which is sort of timeless and the secular world set in time as we are.

And I think we're in the situation that W.B. Yeats spoke about, when he said, "The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate

intensity."

SCHAMA: Do you think that, Professor Ahmed, it's very hard for this not to sound -- I don't mean for a second for it to sound patronizing at all --

but there are certain element of fear really restraining the moderate voices among imams.

And it's not true, of course. There are incredibly eloquent and impassioned voices of moderation that making themselves heard in the Muslim

world. But you would understand it if -- I mean, this might even be the case in the messianic ally feverish world of the settlers in Israel, too.

But people are actually kind of frightened inside the religious world of standing up and --

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SCHAMA: -- denouncing as a kind of heresy marginalizing those who are in the image of ISIS.

AHMED: Yes, Simon, there is fear because there's violence. People can come to your home. They can pick up your daughters. They can kill your

family. It's happening.

At the same time, Simon, we must not underestimate the power of modernist Islam. By that, I mean those Muslims who want to live in the here and now,

balance their faith, their love for their faith and their traditions, but also living in the here and now, according to the traditions of Islam.

It's a very legitimate stream within Islam.

Now let me tell you that thousands and thousands of Muslims right now are battling for that position in the Muslim world. They're dying. They're

giving their lives. Take one very famous example, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. Now I'm talking of her as a politician but as a figure

representing modernist Islam. She makes her choice. She could have lived as a celebrity in the south of France, the rest of her life.

She chose to go back to Pakistan, knowing that the Taliban are targeting her, knowing that her life was at risk and dying in the process upholding

the principles of modernist Islam.

Here you have Malala Yousafzai, the Taliban want to crush her. They shoot her. Does she get crushed? Does she give up? No, she's fighting for

modernist Islam.

So I would not give this up at all. I would say it's under pressures; maybe on the ropes for the time being. But ultimately, it will triumph and

it must triumph.

SCHAMA: It's wonderful to hear you say that.

I want to ask you both one more question, brief; we're running out of time, is that you both are exceptionally learned and impassioned advocates for

tolerant religion.

But you're both writing learned and learned books. One has the feeling that people who turn to social media in Bradford or in Marrakesh or

wherever are not reading your books.

How do we stop them in the world of the young now?

SACKS: This rise in radical political Islam did not happen overnight. It's a phenomenon that was funded and planned over a space of something

like half a century. And I think they count on the fact that in the West we rely on quick fixes. And they're in it for the long game.

What I'm concerned to do now -- and I'm sure Akbar likewise -- is to raise a generation of young leaders -- Jews, Muslims, Christians -- who will

actually fight for moderation, fight for respectful coexistence. And I want to give it the same time scale that the radicals have been working to.

And we -- this cannot be solved overnight. This is going to be the fight of our generation and it has to start now.

SCHAMA: Professor Ahmed, what's your view of the -- this particular problem?

AHMED: I completely agree and in fact I have responded to this challenge. I'm very inspired by Lord Sacks' previous book on tikkun olam. That is

healing a fractured world. We have to go out and heal this world, talk to people in Bradford or people in the communities, in Europe, in Asia and in

the United States and build bridges. And that's exactly what I've done in my last few projects, over the last decade, four big projects, the last one

is just being completed. It's called Journey into Europe. It's about immigration, about Islam, about the relationship between Judaism and Islam.

And in that context, we have reached out in mosques, in madrassas, in churches and synagogues. And I would simply request Lord Sacks to

understand his iconic position on the world stage in terms of this dialogue of civilizations as a counter to the clash of civilization. We need to see

much more of him on our television sets, on the radio sets and out there in synagogues, mosques and churches.

SCHAMA: You're not his agent?

(LAUGHTER)

SCHAMA: Thank you both very much indeed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAMA: Next, a loss to humanity: we remember the rich history ISIS militants are turning to rubble.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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SCHAMA: Welcome back.

Imagine a world without some of its most precious art. Looking in appalled disbelief at the destruction by ISIS of the 1st century temple of Baal in

Palmyra, Syria, a scholar said it was a wound to his soul.

Spending as much time as I do with the beautiful remains of the past, I know exactly how he feels.

But it's often said that a single human life and those lost in this most brutal and unending conflict now counted in millions is worth all the stone

antiquities in the world. And if we could mobilize just a fraction of the passion spent on mourning the loss of statues and temples on stopping the

murderous monomaniacs of ISIS, our indignation would then indeed be righteous. I understand that, too.

But I also know that when we cherish the remains of long-gone cultures, especially the multicultural world which flourished in Palmyra, we are

celebrating the infinite richness and diversity of what humans have wrought. When that is taken from us in one minute of explosions, it's not

just architecture but humanity, the living as well as the dead who are the grieving losers.

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That's it for tonight. Tomorrow your host is a former Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd. He'll be asking can we hope to fight climate change?

Thank you for joining me this evening and good night from London.

END