Hardwired: On the Frontlines of Freedom

Zainab Al-Suwaij, American Islamic Congress

December 15, 2021 Hardwired Global Season 1 Episode 13
Hardwired: On the Frontlines of Freedom
Zainab Al-Suwaij, American Islamic Congress
Show Notes Chapter Markers

“And that was a moment that I’ll never forget. So many people had been living in the political prison for years in very inhuman conditions. The smell, the filthiness, there was no sun.”

This interview is with Zainab Al-Suwaij, the co-founder and Executive Director of the American Islamic Congress, whose courageous advocacy for human rights began at a very early age.   As the granddaughter of a leading Shi’a religious leader, Zainab had a frontline view of the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.  

In this conversation Zainab describes the atrocities inflicted on Hussein’s opponents and the climate of fear they felt in and outside of the prisons.  During the 1992 uprising against Hussein, she was one of the few females who dared to stand up to the dictator.

As a Muslim woman, she has courageously trained and mobilized young people in the Middle East, many of whom joined movements like the Arab Spring and the Egyptian revolution and helped bring an end to other long-standing dictatorships.  Zainab continues today to teach the concept of freedom, democracy, and human rights to youth, including on college campuses across the U.S.

Watch the interview on Hardwired's YouTube channel here: youtu.be/ZJ31WJwD3g4 

Zainab Al-Suwaij is a co-founder of the American Islamic Congress (AIC) and has been its Executive Director since its inception in 2001. In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, Zainab left her teaching position at Yale to launch AIC with the mission of building interfaith and interethnic understanding and to represent the diversity of American Muslim life.

Zainab’s leadership has expanded AIC into an international organization with six bureaus worldwide, including the U.S., Egypt, Iraq, and newest location, Tunisia.  Her vision for acceptance and understanding in the U.S. is being realized through AIC’s growing campus initiative, Project Nur, as well as its Interfaith Councils and groundbreaking Witness Series. Zainab is an outspoken advocate for women’s equality, civil rights, and interfaith understanding.

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