Difference is good! But when we come together in our diversity, we will learn to be civil with one another. I believe this country is suffering a cri… - Azza Karam

The Netherlands was the perfect environment for me to learn and eventually to strike out on my own. I didn’t really have a choice about coming to the Netherlands, because my father was posted to the Egyptian Embassy in The Hague. And as a good Muslim daughter, who really didn’t have much say in what happened to her, I was transplanted from Egypt. To be honest, I didn’t want to go at the time, but my family insisted.

There is not a single faith, tradition anywhere in the world. That says, two men, you can live on your own, and the hell with everybody else. There is not a single faith, tradition that tells human beings they must be in isolation from one another, that they must be only like, and do work with those we like, and work for those we like. In fact, all faiths, traditions, have many similar messages. The most fundamental message of our faith, tradition, is we are all connected, that we hurt one, we hurt all. There are many examples of you. Yourself, in your venerable organizations, institutions have to bring to the table to learn from one another.

My very first experience of interreligious dialogue happened at the level of human rights. I was an intern in a human rights organization and the conversation was very legalistic and political. The question was how to maximally serve the human rights of everyone, including those in jail. In the midst of this conversation, which was very secular, we had to confront situations in which those who were detained or missing were actually in trouble in the first place because of their religious convictions or what they understood to be their religious convictions.