<Begin Segment 26>

TI: Given that, what are some of the important issues for you right now? I mean, you've had, again, this wealth of experience, you can now look at our country, what are the important things to you right now, in terms of more issues about society? I mean, I know you've been involved in certain issues, but with a, just a blank sheet of paper, if you were to say, "These are the important things to me right now," what would those be?

CS: I tend to think on an international level, and, of course, I, like most persons, am very much concerned with what we have done in Iraq, what we've done in Afghanistan, but I'm also concerned with what we're not doing in places like Sudan and China. The revelations that are coming out about Sudan are old hat to me. When I was on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, one of our areas of major emphasis was Sudan. On the commission still is a woman, Nina Shea, who is an expert on Sudan. And Nina Shea educated me on what was happening in Sudan. I'm aware of the genocide in Sudan, I'm aware of the Arabs in charge in Sudan who are systematically annihilating the African population in southern Sudan. All of these things that you read about in the paper today, I was reading about them four years ago. Nothing is new. We tried to get our State Department to pull the strings on Sudan that was getting money from our United States government, and they would not. In the paper two days ago, I saw where some high public official said, "We have to give them a chance." And when does that chance begin and when does it end? And we've been giving them a chance for ten years, and the atrocities that are occurring in southern Sudan are not new, and millions of people have lost their lives in Sudan simply because they were native Africans, because they were of different -- the, the Sudanese, four years ago, bombed a Catholic hospital for children, and nothing was done about it. And it is these kinds of things, I, I think that -- and I have been involved with a dormant group, the Stockholm Accords on Ethnic Cleansing, and that is, was and still is, a very exciting activity. We are dormant because we lost our funding, and it was operating out of a university in Texas, and I haven't been able to reestablish contact with the people. But I'm very much interested in the concept of ethnic cleansing. I'm interested in the concept of democracy and freedom for all peoples, and of responsible, non-corrupt governments.

And while on the one hand, there is plenty of work to do in our own backyard, I am not as active on the political scene as perhaps I could be, because I have been restricted for these nearly thirty years, in not being able to participate in active politics. But I just sent a check to a political candidate for reelection to the United States Senate, which I could not have done a year ago, but I can do it now. And so I need to be involved in politics at the local level, but my insights because of a, sort of a, an egoistic approach to who I am, suggest to me that my role is larger than the city of Seattle and the county of Martin Luther King, Jr., or the state of Washington, but my role is a larger role somewhere else in the world. Now, having said that, I don't expect to live forever, and I'm seventy-seven and three-quarters years old, and I don't have as full a lifetime ahead of me now as I had thirty years ago. But during the remainder of my life -- however long it may be, and I hope it will be for a long time -- I'm going to try to do the things that I believe will make a difference in bringing peace to all people, and extending basic human rights to all people, and seeing that government run by persons do not disrespect and persecute individuals or groups simply because of the label they put on them.

And one of the big areas of great concern is China. I don't understand it; I know a lot about China, but I don't understand it. I don't understand the culture, I don't understand the shifts in the culture, from the Cultural Revolution to the present-day. Tiananmen Square is foremost in my mind, arrests of religious dissidents is foremost in my mind, the persecution of religionists in China is foremost in my mind. And I could take different spots of the world and come up with problems, whether they are connected with religion, or (where) they are connected with politics, (where) they are connected with genealogy, and on the continent of Africa, the background of persons, the tribes that they come from makes a difference in terms of their treatment, even among themselves. And so you have these conflicting cultures, conflicting languages, conflicting approaches to things, and then you have the wars that go on between people of different tribes within a same community.

And so it's a puzzle that I do not understand, I have no answers to it, and I'm not absolutely certain that any of the people in our wonderful American government have any solutions to it, either. I do have a lot of respect, however, for the United States Department of State. I think that even with changes of administration, there is a capacity to select good people as Secretaries of State. Dr. Madeleine Albright I absolutely adored, Colin Powell I think is one of the finest public servants I've ever met, and I've known staff persons in the Department of State whom I highly respect. And I respect Dr. Condoleezza Rice, though I disagree with her mightily. She's a hawk and I'm a dove -- [laughs] -- but I think she's a fabulously brilliant and bright woman. And so we have the capacity for identifying and bringing into public service persons of high quality. I read in the newspaper recently that there is another young woman whose name is Rice also, Dr. Susan Rice, who is now an advisor to the Democrat political candidate, and I knew Susan when she was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Phenomenally brilliant, and she is one of the walking experts on Sudan. And I could see Susan Rice exercising a role in the government to help to come up with a solution to the problems in Sudan.

But these are the kinds of things, and what does this have to do with the challenge to young people? Public service. And it doesn't matter whether it is local, or whether it's national or whether it's international. United Nations, I don't have the same disregard for the United Nations as some people do. I think it has its place, I think it has limited utility, but at the same time, having an international organization which has for its purpose the solution of human problems in the world is good, and the treaties and other documents that the United Nations has promulgated or sponsored or encouraged are worthy of note. Our wonderful government has chosen not to agree to many of them, many significant ones of them. And so operating at the United Nations level, the United States government level, at the state level and the county level, at the city level, or even at the small town level, the opportunity for public service is an opportunity to bring about change.

TI: So that's the message to, to young people.

CS: A long (answer) to a short question. [Laughs]

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.