As you can see, I am proud of what I have accomplished in my own business. But I am not the only American software company that is a success. Let me be perfectly clear: No German company, indeed no company in any other country on earth, can produce software of the quality and usefulness that American software companies produce. We Americans have a lock on this industry. I cannot say why exactly, but computer software is something Americans do a far cry better than anyone else in the world. Accordingly, this is an industry contributing terrifically to America’s economic greatness. In that setting, a foreign embargo, and particularly a German embargo, of American software products must be viewed as a hostile act.

Purchase of my company’s software products is restricted in Germany by government edict and attempts are being made to forbid it entirely. This is a recent development, as my products have sold well in Germany for over a decade. What prompted the embargo is the announcement that Microsoft Corporation’s new Windows 2000 computer operating system includes a component developed by my company.² This fact is being used to justify calling for a full-scale German government prohibition on the sale of Windows 2000 in Germany.

“Why?” you might ask. Well, here is the truly heinous part. The official reason given is that my company, Executive Software, is headed by an “admitted” member of the Church of Scientology — me. Yes, it is true that I am a member of the Church of Scientology and have been for 25 years. I am proud of it and credit much of my success to what I have learned from my church and the writings of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. But what does my religion have to do with selling software? Obviously, nothing. My point is this: the German government makes no attempt to hide the fact that their embargo is based on religious discrimination. In fact, the government officials who have imposed it see nothing wrong with religious discrimination, even though it violates both the German Constitution and Germany’s international human rights commitments.

As First-Amendment-loving Americans, we sometimes forget that other countries lack this all-important freedom. Germany, a signatory to the Helsinki Accords as well as the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, has a clause in its constitution stating, “The freedom of faith, of conscience, and the freedom of religious and ideological beliefs are inviolable.” Yet the actions of the German government in their conduct towards me and towards American businesses, their social ostracism and stigmatization of Scientologists and members of other minority religions clearly contravene all these accords and conventions.

FOOTNOTES:

² The component included in Windows 2000 is called “disk defragmenter,” a tool for consolidating disks that have become fragmented through use. Defragmenting the files restores system performance to like-new state, increasing the computer user’s productivity, extending the life of the computer and reducing the computer’s total cost of ownership. Windows products have included components designed and implemented by Executive Software for six years. Why this recent announcement provoked such a violent response is a matter for speculation.