Tawakkol Karman, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist and journalist, gave an inspiring speech at the 2023 Arab Conference held at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Karman, the first Arab woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, addressed the crowd of international participants and students, emphasizing the importance of a united voice in the fight for global peace, justice, and equality. She spoke of the need to protect civil and political rights and promote gender equality.
At the Harvard Arab Alumni Association's event taking place from March 3-5 and titled "The Future of Democracy in the Region," Tawakkol Karman asserted that a pursuit of fair outlooks respecting freedom and humankind with balance should be aimed for rather than prejudice towards particular nations.
According to Karman, the counter-revolutions in the Arab world that were sponsored internationally as a response to the Arab Spring have led to a global relapse into war, racism, intolerance, and fanatical ethnic tendencies.
Karman emphasized that upholding the right of peoples to elect their leaders, to engage in politics as citizens with equal rights and obligations, and to forge an alliance across national boundaries, religious, ethnic, and civilizational barriers between the peoples of the world to defend the system of modern values, is a global mission and not just an urgent necessity for the Arab peoples, who are facing a counter-revolution that threatens them with a future that is darker than dictatorships that once prevailed.
If the world chooses to remain silent about fascist conflicts simply because they have little bearing on the security of superpowers and their interests, it will have to wait until these conflicts spread and have an impact on distant countries that are thought to be immune to hostilities affecting the Middle East and the Third World, she added.
Mrs. Karman pointed out that wars and the politics of conquest and power pose a threat to the entire planet by causing a series of food, energy, and economic crises that will have an impact on all facets of existence.
She also noted that the concerns of democracy, justice, civil society, and human rights must be addressed together rather than by dividing the world between a civilized world and a non-civilized world.
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