Raquel Evita Saraswati
Joined: Mar 5, 2008
Posts: 11
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Country: United States
Province/State: New York
City: New York
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What is this discussion board about, and who’s sponsoring it?
May 2, 2008 - 12:29 PM
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TakingITGlobal has partnered with Project Ijtihad (“ij-tee-had”) and the Moral Courage Project – initiatives founded by author, filmmaker and activist Irshad Manji.
Project Ijtihad and the Moral Courage Project encourage people of all backgrounds to use their unique voices to protect human rights and freedom of expression. We believe that every person has the right to speak his or her mind freely.
Islam has its own tradition of discussion and freedom of expression: “ijtihad”. In the early days of Islam, students were encouraged to use ijtihad to better understand how Islam fit into their changing lives. The spirit of ijtihad is something that applies to all of us. We can all ask questions of our communities, faiths, cultures and even families.
Moral courage is the idea that sometimes we must challenge our own community for the sake of justice, even if it makes us unpopular. The American politician Bobby Kennedy said that moral courage is necessary, but less common than great intelligence or bravery to fight in battles.
What we’ve learned, however, is that regular people demonstrate moral courage every day. Even more importantly – we can all use moral courage to change our world for the better.
Here, we’ll discuss real-life Agents of Moral Courage, and talk about ways in which you might demonstrate moral courage in your own community. We’ll also invite you to write (or videotape!) your own “moral courage manifesto”.
We hope you’ll enjoy these conversations and take them into your own lives. Look around and join in!
Peace,
Raquel Evita Saraswati
Coordinator, Project Ijtihad
www.irshadmanji.com
This post was edited on: 2008-05-02 at 12:44 PM by: RaquelEvita (Moderator)
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