Munir Fasheh is a mathematician who chose to leave academia to explore new ways of understanding and practicing learning. Together with others, he founded the organization Tamer Institute for Community Education, that rethinks education as a tool for liberation.
He summarizes his life with two words: occupation and return. Munir was among the first group of refugees in the modern Middle East, when in 1948—as a Palestinian—he and his family lost both their house and their land. Even the mathematics in his home was “occupied,” replaced by the logic of schools and universities, influenced by Western philosophers such as Bertrand Russell.
For Munir, knowledge became a form of “return”—not yet to land and home, but to himself. In the Arabic language, he discovered liberating perspectives, such as muthanna, the dual form that breaks down the binary between “I” and “You.” Another key concept for him is mujaawarah—“to be a neighbor”—a way of learning through stories, relationships, and community rather than through abstract theories.
In his keynote at Masahat Festival 2025, Munir will share his experiences as a teacher and thinker. He will inspire us to dismantle structures of knowledge that confine us and show how stories, words, and new ways of relating can open up paths toward liberation.
This event is part of the Masahat Festival 2025. See the full program here.
