A Quote by Tariq Ramadan
We always think from where we come from. We always think from the sources that shape our understanding. I think about the world through the lens of my Islamic tradition. I accept this but I must also have intellectual humility.
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People always think that loyalty is laudable. People are always saying that we must remain faithful to tradition, to family, to our class, to our ideas. Of course not! That would be equivalent to zero brain activity. If you really want to think, to seek truth, to advance intellectually, you must turn your back on clichés, on preconceived ideas - even those belonging to your spiritual family. For an intellectual, his true duty is not to fidelity, but to infidelity.
In every generation and in every intellectual sphere and in every political moment, there have been African American women who have articulated the need to think and talk about race through a lens that looks at gender or think and talk about feminism through a lens that looks at race.
I think it's important for people to understand that dance, movement, choreography is about an experience and entertainment but it's also about perception and a lens. So when we're talking about a Black female's experience through a Black female's lens, that's going to be totally different from a Black female's perspective through a Black male's lens.
I think we need to think about Islamic tradition as a way of asking questions that cut across (and transgress) the assumptions of a purely secular world in which we already know how things stand for individual subjects as well as for societies.
We say that our world must think of and listen to consumers, and this is true, but not too much, in the sense that if you want to change and innovate, you must also think with your own head. Maybe you make choices that the market is not ready to accept but that will be accepted in 18 or 24 months.
I think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.
In the West nowadays, it's very common to talk about the Judeo- Christian tradition. It's a common term. The term is relatively modern but the reality is an old one. One could with equal justification talk about a Judeo-Islamic tradition or a Christian-Islamic tradition. These three religions are interlinked in many signification ways, which marks them off from the rest of the world. And I think there is a growing awareness of this among Christians and among Jews, and even to some extent to some Muslims. That's happening for obvious reasons.
I think that obviously the quest for purpose, or meaning, or understanding to existence is something that I always think about, always deal with. I guess everybody does - that existential crisis of human condition. It's nothing new. But I'd love to come across something that really made me believe in something.
You carry that through and adapt it to a camera lens, but you're quite right, you cannot be sure of what an audience is going to do. You don't know what's going to happen to the piece you're doing anyway. You don't know how it's going to be edited. There are a lot more unknowns in cinema. But that you have to readily accept. That's when, I think, you have to forget about intellect, to a degree. Intuition is very important when you're working with a lens, I believe, for what the lens is doing, too.
I don't think immortality is necessarily the key to understanding the world. You have to be careful with what you think you're achieving. I'm all for science discovering amazing and fantastic things about our world, but I think the motivations behind it are slightly askew.
I'm quite optimistic. I'm also a realist. And I hope, you know, things work out. I don't think that the world will ever know peace. Complete peace in all countries. I think perhaps that's not in our makeup to do this although we can pray for it and work for it. But I think that the building blocks of peace are moving into shape, and I think that the world is going to be a better place.
I think we're living, in terms of media, in a very democratic age, but I think that we still look at everything through the lens of 'Vogue' and through our own point of view.
I think that dogs accept that they can live together and not understand one another, and I think that we somehow always try to have a complete and transparent understanding of one another, which just leads to more confusion.
I'll always write about what's going on in my life and the reason for that is it's not actually because I'm so fascinated with myself, it's because I can't think. I can't think like have thoughts in my head and think them through and come to a conclusion. It's like math for me.
Somehow, whenever we think about race or blackness in relationship to art, we always come in kind of nervous. We always think someone's about to be punished or accused of something.
Americans always see China through the looking glass, and I think it's about time - with technology and of the growing economic relationship between these two countries - I think it's natural and better for all of us to have a better understanding of each other.
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