From cultural engagement to questions of values and institutions.
A journey that began at university and continued through writing, public engagement and professional practice, leading to the School of Values.
Amar Murray
Amar Murray is an independent researcher, writer, and founder and chairman of Tamkine Consulting Group. His work examines how values shape institutions, how declared principles are translated into decisions, and why institutional practice may diverge from them. Drawing on more than two decades of entrepreneurship, consulting and public engagement, he is developing the School of Values and its foundational manuscript, The Theory of Value Pathways. He is based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
Intellectual and cultural beginnings
I am Amar Murray, an independent researcher and writer, also published in Arabic as عمار مرعي, based in Burlington, Ontario. My engagement with ideas and cultural activity began at university, with a particular interest in philosophy, sociology and comparative religion. Over the years, I contributed critical essays, participated in seminars and cultural events, and took part in movements opposing dictatorship.
In 1997, I co-founded Tahaddi, a movement for social and cultural change, with a group of young intellectuals, both women and men. Grounded in freedom, justice and democracy, the initiative operated clandestinely under political and security conditions that prohibited independent cultural and political activity.
Public engagement and continuing cultural work
In 2011, I participated in founding the Syrian National Council and was elected Deputy Head of its Diaspora Office. I later stepped away from organized political work, continuing through organizations and cultural activity. My experience also included serving in the General Secretariat of the Syrian Scholars Association before leaving it.
Since 2011, I have continued writing articles, delivering lectures and participating in seminars in Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere. In 2013, I delivered a course in strategic planning for political parties in Istanbul, at the invitation of the Muslim Thinkers Association, attended by a number of party leaders.
My articles have appeared in Arabic and English in various newspapers and websites, exploring ideas, history and social change. These writings mark stages in an ongoing intellectual journey, and I revisit them as positions open to reconsideration.
Through this experience, I saw the distance between the principles on which political work was founded and what it could achieve in practice. This contributed to my decision to leave organized political work and turn my attention to how institutions reassess their mistakes and change course.
Professional experience
Alongside this work, I gained more than two decades of experience in establishing and managing businesses, including founding Tamkine Consulting Group and leading its projects in strategic planning, institutional development and capacity building. This experience kept me close to questions of decision-making and implementation, and the difficulties of translating plans into institutional practice. I hold an MBA from Edinburgh Napier University, with a focus on Leadership and Innovation.
Towards the School of Values
The questions behind the School of Values took shape through this journey of reading, writing, public engagement and institutional experience. The relationship between the principles societies embrace and the outcomes they achieve became central to my research, particularly their capacity to reassess mistakes and change course.
I am developing this project through research, essays and lectures. My book, The Theory of Value Pathways, is a completed manuscript and the project’s first foundational text. I try to make thought and experience each a means of reassessing the other.