Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com.

“Listen!” we are commanded. “I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me.” Rev. 3:20 NRSV.

Today, as I write, as I fast this first day of Ramadan, I choose to open the door, to be a door knocker in the tradition of Prophet Jesus, to demand that doors and windows be opened, sacred shelters and sanctuaries be flushed of corruption and privileged interests sustained by power and generational wealth extracted from the labor of the Other.

Tonight, when the sun sets, I will come in, pray, and eat with you.

We will be sustained by the Compassionate and Merciful, you and I.

We are called together, you and I.

From door knockers like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman, MLK, and Malcolm X to Jehovah’s Witnesses and Keene, New Hampshire’s Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist martyred in 1965 in Alabama while shielding a young Black civil rights activist, Ruby Sales; all transgressed conventional norms, all raised their voices and demanded the right to affirm unfettered birthrights, histories and territory free from oligarchical and colonial interests and oppressors.

All believed, “There is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” - Ecclesiastes 3:7.

Now is the time to speak.

“Silence is a strategy for the maintenance of the status quo, with its unbearable distribution of power and wealth,” Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote in “Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out.”

Now is the time to speak out.

Whether or not one believes it is God’s command our very survival as free people, as parents and lovers, priests and pundits, artists and journalists, as a democracy, as a planet, is dependent on our courage and willingness to break the silence and speak — as radicals and subversives confronting power and privilege and injustice; commanded to speak out against oligarchy, authoritarianism; against racist and religious nationalism.

Silence is complicated, too often complicit with oppression, too often denying opportunity for voices too often unheard, unratified, unbelieved.

Today, as my fast continues, as I continue to write, I pray for the weary sojourner, the homeless, survivors of conflict, refugees and asylum seekers, for all those for whom quenching hunger and thirst is a challenge far beyond a month of Ramadan.

The time has come, again, to speak out against those who remain silent to protect their privilege.

In 2021, Brueggemann, referencing a friend of mine, Edward Said, wrote, “I have recently seen this phrase, ‘Permission to Narrate’ in two interesting contexts. First, so far as I know, the phrase was coined in 1984 by Edward Said ... a respected academic at Columbia University ... The phrase is Said’s courageous reference to the fact that Israel and its defenders were given the “right to narrate” the war from Israel’s perspective and according to Israel’s interest. The Palestinians, by contrast, were denied such a right ... were not permitted to narrate their version of the crisis ... ”

Empowering the Other with permission to narrate.

Challenging injustice is about listening to and affirming the narratives of the Other, about challenging entrenched interests that benefit from silence and submission, who have historically benefited by conquering and dividing, and silencing, resistance.

Advocating for justice is about recognizing, as Ibn Khaldun wrote in “The Muqaddimah,” that true “… injustice can be committed only by persons who cannot be touched, only by persons who have power and authority...”

Together, we are being called upon to either interrupt silence or be part of the problem.

To be silent is to be complicit with injustice, complicit with the marginalization, delegitimization, and disenfranchisement of the exploited and vulnerable.

Together, we are being called upon to confront the status quo, confront book burners, and those who would deny dignity, respect and opportunity to peoples unlike themselves.

Confront those who would deny me the right to narrate my story, deny you the right to confront oppressive patriarchy and misogyny, deny all of us the right to break the silence and advocate for justice for LGBTQIA+ peoples, to stand with minorities and communities of color, to share sacred breath with peoples who can’t breathe.

Denies the legitimacy of narratives independent of their supremacist myths.

While “Faith,” as Bruegemann insists, “is both the conviction that justice can be accomplished and the refusal to accept injustice,” one is not obliged to be a believer to struggle on behalf of the vulnerable and weak.

Today, whether inspired by Ecclesiastes, Walter Brueggemann, Edward Said, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Rumi’s Sufi wanderers, we must understand that if we don’t speak now we may be forced, forever, to hold our speech.

Tonight, as I break my fast with dates and thick apricot juice, as I pray to the Compassionate and Merciful, as I reach out to family and friends to share my day, as we share our love, we will know each other.

As one, we will know each other.

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