Azza Karam Quotes

...who would have thought the Soviet Union would collapse; or that religion would re-emerge so strongly after decades of attempts to keep it out of politics; or that a woman and former guerilla fighter would be elected president of the largest Latin American country, and a black man would be elected as president of a country that once went to war with itself?

We are living in the context of a generation of youth—which is over 60% of our populations—that has grown up as part of a global youth culture equipped with mass communication technologies and amid huge challenges to established powers.

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.

Bear in mind that revolutions are happening within almost every group, party, and institution in Egypt today: the army, political parties, universities, professional associations, media, NGOs—you name it.

It is seriously myopic to assume that the Muslim Brotherhood is “anti-women.” I first started studying the Brotherhood, as part of a range of Islamist formations around the world, back in the late 1980s. Even within the organization itself, there are diverse perspectives on women’s rights: there are extremely active, very well-educated, cultured, and articulate women members of the Brotherhood, just as there are some members who are deeply conservative when it comes to women’s roles in public.

Arab women have made it clear they are perfectly capable of activism and of articulating their own needs and aspirations. If and when these women need the assistance of “people in the West,” they will let that be known in no uncertain terms. After listening, the “people in the West” can then decide whether and how best to respond. And it would be wise to do so in consultation with the same women who made the request.

What is now transpiring with women’s rights in Egypt—and elsewhere in the Arab region—is a continuation of the struggle for gender equality within the emerging political framework, which is part and parcel of the larger effort to safeguard all human rights in the new polity that is now being collectively fashioned.

The magnitude, scope, and diversity of their participation in the revolution is itself a testament to how intrinsic to the social, economic, legal, and political fabric they already are—and have been.

Anyone who has studied Arab societies in the last thirty years will attest to how socially active, politically informed, and economically engaged women have been.

...contrary to popular (and largely ethnocentric) beliefs, the revolution could happen only because women’s roles in Egyptian society—and Arab societies as a whole—have already been undergoing a sea change.

If there is one lesson we keep learning from history, and that has been highlighted of late by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, is that people change their own cultures from within all the time.

it is virtually impossible to embark on any issue relating to sexuality, women’s rights, and gender relations without coming across particular cultural dynamics.

Religious concerns, positions, and services vary significantly according to the religion itself, as well as per country, region, and situation. Issues of reproductive health vary enormously.

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.

Religion and faith do not lend themselves to the usual normative frameworks of development praxis, which means that engagement with religious communities has to be sustainable, built upon common goals, and mainstreamed into broader civil society and government partnerships. This is critical to establishing and maintaining the trust that is required for any such engagement, and for facilitating the co-ownership of national development processes among all the different partners involved.