2022 Evidence Summit on Impactful Interreligious Action: Professor Azza Karam’s Welcome Keynote (Day 2)

Prof. Azza Karam, Secretary General of Religions for Peace, delivered the Welcome Keynote for the Evidence Summit on Impactful Interreligious Action hosted by USAID and the Alliance for Peacebuilding on 8 December 2022. In calling for greater inclusion of critical and diverse voices in religious work, she stressed the multi-religious imperative of different religious actors and faith communities to work together to serve together. Prof. Karam highlighted three key reasons for multi-religious collaboration: fundamentalist and conservative tendencies are significantly undermined when energy and resources are channeled to working and serving alongside other religious organisations; efforts to meet the rapidly increasing needs for humanitarian and development services will be more efficiently delivered if religious organisations pool their energy and resources together; and, having multi-religious engagement as the cine qua non makes it more difficult for religious institutions to be co-opted by authoritarian tendencies from the government. In closing, she offered the central message of Religions for Peace from over 50 years of multi-religious service: working through an interreligious platform that is already developed, acknowledged, and accredited across multiple sectors and religious institutions will enable religious institutions not only to serve together better, but also to serve millions more of those in need. “Where there are existing interreligious structures, work with them and serve alongside them. At the end of the day, the multi-religious imperative is to stand as servants to all of humankind,” Prof. Karam stressed. 

Below is a transcription of her remarks.

“Thank you for this opportunity to be here with you today. 

As you all know, I stand on the shoulders of many giants in the space of religious engagement on issues of international assistance, development, human rights, and peacebuilding. I owe a great deal in this space, which is a space of constant learning.  

This is a point I wanted to make quickly, but very urgently: that the work of engaging with religion, religions engaging with one another, and religions engaging its service to communities –the oldest kind of service to humanity – is a work of constant learning. There is no such thing as an optimum ideal phase – we do not reach the optimum ideal in working religiously and interreligiously, but we are actually constantly learning as we serve in this space.  

We have learned from the faith leaders whom we are blessed to have in Religions for Peace, and who come from many different religious institutions and represent almost all of the world’s faith communities, that faith leaders are endless fountains of learning, wisdom, and service to their communities. 

It is important for us to distinguish that when we speak about religious leaders and faith leaders, we also need to take into account that there are multiple ways in which religious organisations exist and coexist.  

I am currently at a high-level dialogue convened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where we are discussing the imperative of protecting what is today the largest community of displaced refugees. Four out of the top ten NGOs that are serving in this humanitarian space are actually religious organisations. Religious organisations are therefore a very critical part of the service areas, whether it is about serving normal needs such as education, nutrition, sanitation, or public health. More importantly, religious organisations are the first responders in some of the top communities affected by humanitarian disasters, which we are unfortunately anticipating more and more of as the impact of the climate crisis becomes more evident.  

We are no longer asking for the largest secular parameters of community, whether governmental or nongovernmental, to acknowledge the work of religious actors. We are, in fact, having quite a lot of limelight on the religious world, as the work of religious organisations and religious communities garners a lot more interest. While that interest is primarily positive, it also puts an added imperative on those engaged in the religious world to not only show the evidence of their work, but also provide evidence of their value added. This does not simply refer to the value added of organisations like World Vision or Caritas doing their work, as there is plenty of value added there – I am not referring to that anymore, because that would have been interesting when we were still trying to make the case in the beginning that religious organisations do indeed serve. What I am speaking about is the multi-religious imperative.  

The multi-religious imperative is the ability and determination to work together as different religious actors and different faith communities – to work together to serve together. It is not good enough, it is necessary, but it is inefficient that religious communities continue to provide and serve for their communities. Of course, that fact is unquestionable, as governments today are unable to deliver to their people. Even intergovernmental organisations, in which we are constantly talking about a crisis of multilateralism, are equally unable to satisfy all the pressing needs of multiple populations. Nobody will take away the service of religious organisations to humanity. In fact, it is more required, perhaps more than ever before in human history.  

But what we are talking about today is the absolute imperative of religious organisations working together. Why must religious organisations work together? Many of my Catholic and Muslim brothers and sisters ask me that question, “We’re doing so much, why do we need to collaborate? Why should we cooperate? It’s hellish to do so.” 

True, it is extraordinarily challenging to collaborate. But the need to do so is for the obvious three reasons that I would like to share with you today: 

One, when religious organisations work together, the opportunity for fundamentalist thought or tendencies are significantly undermined, if not utterly diminished. It is very difficult to be a religious fundamentalist while working and collaborating to serve with another organisation or another religion. It is extremely difficult to be fundamentalist to do that. Now it is actually possible to be fundamentalist than deeply conservative about certain aspects, especially related to women’s rights. From working in the United Nations, I have seen this and continue to see this where conservative groups from different religions do indeed have an ability – a rather uncanny and extremely professional ability – to come together and work together. That is possible. But you see, it is only possible as long as it is on the level of rhetoric. However, it has to be at the level of service to and for the communities. It becomes extremely difficult to be overly conservative or fundamentalistic in the interpretation of your own sacred text, religious narratives or religious discourse when you are busy investing your resources and energy with other religious organisations and serving alongside them.  

The second reason why there is a multi-religious imperative is because, quite frankly, we have seen in both governments and intergovernmental organisations that the needs far exceed the abilities and the supplies. The demand for humanitarian and development services far exceeds the existing supply. Working together and pooling resources together – whether they are human or financial or even just the resource of energy, goodwill, and spiritual communion – is needed more than ever before. We need to pool our resources so that we can economise and become much more efficient in the way that we deliver to the increasing mass of need. 

The third reason why it is imperative we do so is because, at the end of the day, many political regimes, particularly authoritarian ones, are increasing their sense of appreciation for religious brotherhood and sisterhood. In other words, we are seeing a tendency where authoritarian regimes are befriending and co-opting more and more religious actors and religious organisations. However, this becomes concerning as we witness and talk about shrinking civil space, democracy and human rights being threatened species, alongside the biodiversity and our environment. It is because of this that we must be concerned about authoritarian regimes that are trying to co-opt some of our religious brothers and sisters. And because this is happening, it is extremely difficult to co-opt a multitude of religious actors. It is also rather impossible to co-opt different religious actors – Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist. So when there is multi-religious engagement as the cine qua non, it makes it more difficult to be co-opted by authoritarian tendencies from the government side.  

Those are only three out of a good ten reasons, but I wanted to mention those to provoke thinking about them more. Now, how do we collaborate? How do we cooperate as different religious organisations? Each religious organisation invariably has its extremely well-developed, longstanding, far-reaching developmental and humanitarian services. Each religious NGO and many religious institutions already have highly developed schools, clinics and other public services, so the immense challenge lies in coordinating the work of several different entities.  

Here is what the evidence points to. From over 50 years of service by Religions for Peace as an interreligious and multi-religious organisation that is actively engaged and delivering services in over 90 countries, we have learned one important thing: you can either get individual entities to try to work together, or you can work through an interreligious platform or structure that is already developed, acknowledged, accredited by the different religious institutions and faith communities. Interreligious platforms such as Religions for Peace already have experience in delivering services to their communities, with interfaith youth communities and a vast women of faith network who actively engage and mobilise on the ground. Working with these existing interreligious structures has generated productive results, because you no longer have to get the personnel of your respective institutions to figure out how to collaborate with the personnel of the other institution. In this way, you can be part of an experienced body in serving together to be the agents of multi-religious service. 

Interreligious structures are not fully functional, superbly efficient, and impeccably managed entities – no institutional structure is. The point here is not to build new interreligious structures that will help us coordinate. That is interesting but unwise, because the last thing we need to do is replicate multi-religious structures or interreligious structures in the same country doing exactly the same thing. The challenge we have in front of us today stems from the increasing interest in the work of religion, because religious institutions are called upon to serve better and more efficiently. As such, duplication and replication becomes almost simple. We should not have the luxury to duplicate and replicate because each one of us wants our own institutional branding on the effort of service.  

Where there are existing interreligious structures, work with them. If they are dysfunctional, help them, build them, support them to become more functional. That, too, is part of delivering to communities. At the end of the day, the multi-religious service is also sending a message to all of humanity: that people of faith – regardless of that faith – stand to be servants to all of humankind, which is a moral imperative that all faiths call upon its followers to do. No faith says to go and serve only those who behave like you do. Apart from the moral imperative from our respective faith traditions, it is also important because duplication is hurtful. It will only result in less people actually receiving the services because we are caught up in rebranding, redelivering, reinitiating, and redesigning existing services. Instead, we must come together under our shared moral imperative to widen the scope and outreach of our efforts, so that we can reach and serve millions more. 

Thank you so much.”