Azza Karam Quotes

The Task Force is an inter-agency mechanism that came together first in 2010 to help the focal points on religion understand what religion has to do with the UN’s commitments and to be more effective and strategic in how and whom we engage with in the realms of religious spaces in order to better serve the purposes of the UN system.

After about two years in this fascinating and dynamic environment, I realized that I did not want to be teaching only. I missed the actual work—working 24 hours a day on cases and situations and peoples’ lives. I suddenly found myself in a very academic context, torn between a university which was very English-dominated, in a country which was struggling to find its own voice—Northern Ireland.

...we are living in times when conflicts are erupting all around us, many either with a religious tinge, or where religious reasons are being used to justify atrocities. Again, if religious leaders and their institutions, from all over the world and representing all faiths, are not part of confronting the fallacies of belief and actively advocating for coming together in peace and justice, then who will do so?

Over the years the RfP has supported, facilitated and guided the establishment of 70 national Interreligious Councils and five regional Interreligious Councils from around the world. Each council brings together the leadership of the various religions in a manner reflective of the local religious demography, and they act as entities which create an inter-religious space within each nation’s civic infrastructure.

This is a convening place in which those who speak in the name of people’s religions come together regularly to assess issues of national concern and to rally and mobilise around shared well-being. This is, especially in today’s contexts, a space of light.

For religions to be about peace requires many things: we need to appreciate that religious consciousness, spirituality, or belief is a force for good in most people’s lives, and we need to appreciate that religious institutions suffer from some of the same ills as all other institutions populated by humans, but that this is no cause to dismiss all the institutions.

Sexuality is something that is deeply, deeply problematic. It’s the innermost sanctum of relations between human beings, and religions have traditionally been the guardians of that sanctum. So opening that space for debate is often almost as if we are opening the space to debate the religions themselves, and the authority and the legitimacy of the voice of truths of those religions, which is deeply problematic for almost all religious leaders and, again, especially those within an institutionalized framework that they need to uphold and to protect. In more loosely-formed religious groups or faith communities, it is often less problematic to debate gender-based violence or gender in general, relating to issues of sexuality

I saw this so clearly when I worked for the UN (United Nations). Religious leaders were all prepared to speak about the environment and children’s rights and promoting equality generally for all people and refugees. But if you bring up sex, sexuality, sexual identity, sexual relations. Ooh la la, no way.

The UN Interagency Task Force on Religion was founded to inform and support UN system actors as to the ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘who’, and ‘what’ of religion, and engagement with religious actors, around the UN’s main areas of work: peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development.

Religions for Peace is essentially the United Nations for religious institutions. It’s not about the government, as the UN is – it’s about religious institutions and faith communities from around the world and their leaders who have been selected to represent them. When I saw the chance to serve this expansive community, I seized the opportunity.

I think that misperceptions are always going to be part of our lives. I also think that diversity is meant to be our key challenge in life.

We are obliged to work with varied representatives of different religious organizations and communities on addressing a multiplicity of human development needs. And we have to maintain the same respect and appreciation for the respective strengths and modus operandi of each partner, as long as there is agreement on the basic goals of human development, that is, human rights, peace, and security for all.

My role as coordinator is to convene the 20 UN system focal points working on, with, or about religion and religious engagement for the sake of realising the UN system’s three pillars of sustainable development, peace and security, and human rights.

when it comes to issues like climate change, what the world needs is more women like you.

Let us learn from one another. Let us learn to be humble servants to one another. Let us learn to stand in defense of our humanity, let us learn to stand in defense of our dignity, humanity, not only one community, not only one race, or not only one ethnicity.