Azza Karam Quotes

If we are seeking the expansion of the freedoms that people enjoy, we must engage and situate those who can influence the processes as central parts of the equation.

I want our world leaders to consult not just the pope, but an imam, a rabbi, and so on. Together, they can hold each other accountable.

it doesn’t matter whether I’m actively asking people to work together. It’s the mere fact that I sit in this space that means people perceive me as someone who will hold them accountable. And because I am who I am—a woman, Arab, Muslim, Egyptian, North African, the “other” in so many ways—it’s hard for a lot of leaders, both male and female, to embrace me as the head of the organization.

The trend towards politicization was all around us and is still there today. No single event triggered my awareness. It was normal, the blood running through your veins, part of your average conversation around the dinner table, and we have plenty of those, because we’re always convening around meals.

We are living in an age where religion, religious leaders, religious ideologies, are playing an important political, social, cultural and even economic role. I’m not just talking about the spiritual space here. I’m talking very practically, about the political and the financial space. In Afghanistan, we have to appreciate how complicated the situation is.

There is a massive difference between strengthening social services by engaging with all service-providers inclusively and working with religious actors to change harmful practices as part of building a stronger civic consciousness around social justice on the one hand, and between religious actors seeking political power, or political actors seeking religious cover, on the other. It is the latter that I believe we need to be vigilant about.

It is clear that religious institutions and leaders have a very critical set of roles to play, especially in this moment of global pandemic. They are needed now more than ever because of the spiritual sustenance that people are looking for due to their rising sense of helplessness.

Equally unwise is ignoring the reality of the religious presence, belief, and service in most communities, or seeking to use religion to serve a political purpose, no matter how noble it may seem.

The journey of these different revolutions is, for everyone concerned, a process of acquiring wisdom, and I believe strongly that we have little to lose and a great deal to gain.

Secularism comes in many shades and varieties, but it has never manifested—not even here in the United States—in the manner of a total repudiation of religion.

Ignorance about the role of religion in people’s lives, or a secular fundamentalist attitude which essentialises religion, seeing all religions as the same and all as being largely harmful, are major hindrances to those of us urging a better understanding of the role of the religious in civil society.

...there has been a re-awakening of a sort of “religious” consciousness and emergence in public life all over the world. As a scholar of these trends, I have written elsewhere that this has had a great deal to do with the loss of the traditional meta-narratives we were familiar with, such as liberalism, socialism, and communism. I believe that some have sought recourse in religion partly because political spaces offered an ideological vacuum.

The revolution is proceeding with the hiccups associated with any comprehensive transformation entailing the political, social, economic, and legal overhaul of an entire country. Is the

You cannot ignore the role of religion in public life. People’s faiths matter. You cannot say to them, “Please keep your religion to yourself, if you don’t mind.” That’s not to say that religion should be part of public decision-making – that’s not what I mean. What I mean is it’s important to respect the role that religions play. And part of showing respect is engaging with religious leaders as a matter of norm. I believe our secular civil rights leaders of today have an obligation to consult with the religious civil rights leaders too. It’s a much more powerful movement when they come together.

Religion, as an ingredient of culture, has always been part of the business of human development. In the last decade or so, especially after the events of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent reconfiguration of geopolitical dynamics, discussions about religion have begun to occupy a more prominent role in the discourse within and among the various UN agencies.