Talking about 9/11… as a Muslim

I remember that 9/11 was a Tuesday. I remember coming back home after spending the morning studying at the library. I remember my two parents on the couch, watching TV, my father turning his head to me and telling me “Look, look! Planes crashed into the two big buildings, you know the ones in New York, and they collapsed!“. I laughed; I was thinking it was one of those jokes of my dad, that he was trying to convince me that this Hollywood movie he was watching was real news. But common’, you can’t destroy iron and concrete buildings just like this, can you? “No, Look, look! Wallah it’s true news!“. I sat with them. It was true; the Twin Towers had collapsed.

Thinking back of this moment, I don’t think I realized then the event would become a turning point in the world History. Not that I was not ‘impressed’ by the death toll, the horror of the images or the amount of testimonies of the apocalyptical hours, but to be honest when you’re a 80′s kid, when you grew up watching on TV thousands of Bosniacs, Rwandese, Iraqis, Somalians, Palestinians, etc dying, you just end up believing blood is the new world currency countries give and take from each other. New deaths, old business.

Maybe it is horrible to say so, but if I was completely surprised and horrified by the method of the attacks, I was not shocked by the target (the United States). Yes, that particular event was unexpected, but all in all, we knew some attack will happen, sooner or later.We knew it; as well as alas we knew too the reponse of the United States: a blood bath that would make tens of thousands more victims than the 9/11.

This is not relativism. I feel really sorry for the human lives lost, for the 3000 victims, for the tragedy of the families. I admire the firemen that saved lives by losing theirs. I hope they rest in peace. But when among all the testimonies I heard hundreds of ‘We will never forget‘ and ‘Never again‘, I was thinking ‘Of course… but this does not apply only to you, it applies to us too. Don’t you understand we couldn’t forget?‘. Yes, 9/11 was barbary, but in a word ruled by a barbaric imperialism, violent responses sometimes hit back. In particular, the Arab and Muslim World, in the post-WWII and post-cold war period, paid the highest price for American appetite for conquest. Muslims, Arabs and non-Arabs, tried peace, tried indifference, tried diplomacy, tried cooperation, tried NGO’s, tried UN, tried it all. It was only a matter of time until some of them will try violence, whether they were right or wrong in taking that option in consideration.

Who are really Al-Qaeda and what do they really fight for? I don’t know, all I know is that what comes before and after Al-Qaeda did not start nor end with it; however, undoubtlessely, the only scar in the face of the American hegemonic Empire, at that time of History, only Al-Qaeda could do it, and for the world to evolve into a multipolar, fairest world, this first scar was a terrible mandatory step. A fairest world is probably not the ultimate goal of Al-Qaeda, sure, but here we are, one decade later, on our way into a multipolar fairest world.

9/11 impacted on the life of every Muslim, directly or indirectly. For us for example, Muslims in Europe, we had to face one decade of growing racism and islamophobia, partly due to 9/11. All of us, all, we had endlessly to justify ourselves for being Muslims, we had to ‘explain’ that violence was not implicit part of the religion, that extremism was not representative of all we are, that 9/11 and other attacks were not a religious phenomenon but merely a geopolitical phenomenon. As if we were all put on trial after 9/11. And even one decade later, we still have every couple of days a new person popping out of nowhere that knew nothing on Islam, on Muslims or on Muslim World, but confident enough to lecture us about what we are and what we should be.

In the words of those we had to confront, there was more than a naive fear of the unknown, there was too often a belief of being superior, civilized and in charge of civilizing. At the end we all got tired of explaining again and again and again; tired answering the same questions from the same people who knew our answers for having already heard them, but who chose to be deaf to them. Always the same topics, more or less in the same order: djihad, shariaa, burqa/niqab, excision. But for some reason, if we ended up hating the questions we didn’t hate the questioners, nor the very reason of them to question us: were they aware of the fact that it is because the Ummah is more than a vague theoretical concept they instinctively felt that world Muslims were an informal global community sharing the outcome of the good and bad experiences of its members?

One decade later, the world has changed: the bloody wars against terrorism, the global economical crisis, the Arab revolutions, the Oslo blast, Wikileaks. In all these, there is enough evidence for who is not blind to aknowledge the threat does not come from Islam and Muslims but from imperialism, materialism, greed, fierce capitalism and nihilistic hate. My own cure against the dark sides of my soul, I found it in the Quran. And  I don’t care if you find it in the Bible, in the Torah, in art or in the eyes of your child or if you are still looking for it, as long as you understood that life is about bringing light into the night, you are my brother (or sister!) in Humanity.

Mubarak’s Trial: that special moment in History of Egypt

One year ago, if told that Hosni Mubarak, his sons and the feared Minister of Interior Habib al-Adly were to face charges of corruption, murder conspiracy against unarmed protestors, any Egyptian would have bitterly laughed. We would have believed seeing one day the Nile getting dry or the desert getting green rather than this trial. This morning, when the trial of the ex-dictator opened, I first had this feeling of something truly unreal happening.

I couldn’t believe my eyes – I was watching the trial through the Egyptian TV live stream -  seeing this weak old man lying in his bed, a man that once  held a whole nation under state of emergency for three decades, that stole the country’s wealth and traded so many lives with his personnal power and his clan’s. He was dressed in white, like his two sons Alaa and Gamal. A stupid thought crossed my mind at this moment: “Not in blue?“. I was taking it from all the Egyptian movies where defendants in trials were always wearing blue suits.

The court first went about technicalities for ages, the lawyers were all talking at the same time, the mess was complete.One of the lawyers even asked to the court to proceed to a DNA test on Hosni Mubarak to prove it is the real Hosni Mubarak and not a lookalike, his theory being that the ‘real’ Mubarak was dead since 2004 and the ‘false’ Mubarak being an agent of the American-Zionist conspiracy. At this point I really thought the trial was going to be nothing more than a big joke.

From time to time, the camera was framing this cage where seven men were held, including Hosni Mubarak in his bed and Alaa Mubarak holding a Quran behind his back. Somehow, as a human being I could a bit feel sorry for the humiliating situation: a cage where a sick man was lying. But this feeling was very soon muted by that other voice in me “reminding” me that after all, a man who has ordered mass killings of peaceful protestors, caused the poverty, the misery, the sad destiny of so many men and women I’ll never see on a TV screen, this kind of man, if not ashamed of his records, is certainly beyond feeling ashamed just for a cage or a bed.

The strongest moment of the trial was when the prosecutor read the charges against the defandants. He listed the facts, about the January 25th revolution protestors killings, but also about all the protestors killings since 2000, about the corruption of the regime, about the millions and billions of Egyptian Pounds, about the scandalous gas deal with Israel, about the legitim demands of the people wanting to live better, to live dignifully, met with guns, with torture. I found myself in tears hearing all our country went through because of this man, and I know many Egyptians like me were in tears too. But I was also in tears because I was proud: proud to be part of a country that at the end chose the right side. And thankful: thankful to God to have allowed me to live long enough to see this historical moment of a nation asking for justice. Thankful also to all the martyrs of the Revolution who gave their lives for this New Egypt to exist, this New Egypt where Egyptians say they don’t want anymore to be silent.

After the prosecutors intervention, Hosni Mubarak and his sons announced they were pleading non-guilty. Just hearing Mubarak saying to the president of the court “Efendim” (a honorific denomination in Arabic), was like a… delight. After all, he was now refering to the president of the court with the same denomination that any defendant or person present in the trial had: he was no more above all of us, he was no more above justice.

At the end of this first session of the Mubarak Trial I thought of course of the Arab Spring martyrs, let it be in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, but also to the Iraqis and the Yougoslavians: I remembered the mascarade of a trial they had for Saddam Hussein and also the incredible slowness of Slobodan Milosevic trial that could never even really start before he died. All this waste: its maybe once or twice in History of a country a tyrant is put in front of his deeds and below the justice; for example, in Egypt, we had Pharaoh swallowen by the Red Sea and we have now Mubarak crushed by the will of a whole people asking for its dignity. These very rare occasions act like a massive psychanalysis for the populations. And this opportunity was stolen from Iraqis and from Serbs and Bosniacs. ‘Justice’ can help ‘History’ to take such a ridiculous turn sometimes.

Reviving the Amazigh (Berber) Identity in Tunisia: because we are all Amazigh

Walk in the streets of Tunis, in the streets of Monastir or Bizerte, and listen to the people: people talk in Arabic, mostly, some in French and if tourists are around, in German, Italian or English. And unlike in the streets of Algeria or Morocco, you will never hear anybody talking in Tamazight (berber language). You might then conclude that unlike Algeria or Morocco, Tunisia is a pure Arab country. You’d be wrong.

Now walk nearby the mountains (Sidi Abdel Rahman mount, for example), wander in the small villages hardly reached by the hectic life of cities, walk in the cities a bit far from the centralized power, in Gasserine, in Tataouine, walk and watch the elder ladies: some wear thistypical square-patterned cloths kept tied by silver ornamental pins (‘Kholla’), and have around their necks ‘Rihanna’ (long chain made of big round silver rings as links) with ‘Khomssa’ pendants (Hand of Fatima), some even have tribal facial tattoos,  and all of them, when they talk, use words slightly different from those used in the big towns.  They don’t say ‘Ana’ (I, me), they say ‘Yeney’, the ‘Q’ is pronounced ‘G’. It seems Arabic but at least 30-40% of the words are not Arabic. What are they? They are Amazigh.

Go to the weddings, you will see the ancestral Berber costumes, the Berber jewellery (such as the ‘Kholkhal’, massive anklets), the music played strangely seems the same as in Kabilya or Northern Atlas. Amazigh, again. And if you are not yet convinced look out for Tunisia’s History: from Hannibal to Ibn Khaldoun, from Carthago to Djerba, the Amazigh presence is everywhere.

Tunisia has a strong Amazigh heritage. Systematical genetical survey show that 98% of the Tunisian population is of Amazigh origin. Every part of the culture and traditions show that we are in an Amazigh country, at the only striking difference that here, almost nobody talks Tamazight: but then why did the language almost disappear while all the rest stayed quite unchanged?As if the Imazighen where everywhere in Tunisia, only that they are mute.

Like in Algeria, Morocco and Libya, Tamazight was the native language of this country that our ancestors where calling ‘Ifriqya‘ (does it remember you something? Yes, from that word comes ‘Africa’). Like in these other countries, Arabic arrived in Ifriqya together with Islam: but unlike people sometimes say, it was not a massive invasion of Arab populations. Arab population that settled in Tunisia were never more than 2-3%. Arabic and Islam integrated the culture of Tunisia and became part of every Tunisian’s life and identity (after all, Tunisia is an Arabic name, given by Arabs that, when they arrived in Ifriqya found its inhabitants so generous and with such a strong sense of hospitality that they called this land the land that ‘twannass‘, meaning the land where you feel like surrounded by your family/friends), but Tamazight and Amazigh culture stayed also a vital part of this identity, and would not disappear. So to say, Tunisians are Amazigh people, that throughout History constituted a mixed Amazigh-Arab-Islamic identity. Arab-Islamic culture is vital to understand Tunisian identity, but so is Amazigh culture. They are like two sides of the same coin. A peaceful Tunisian would be a person accepting the both sides if their culture and the impregnation of Islam on these both sides.

Amazigh language began to almost disappear from Tunis only in the two last centuries, when the French domination, like in other parts of North Africa, needed a way to constitute populations in nations and blocks rather than in tribes, because it was easier to handle: imposing an uniform identity and language was the easiest way to break regionalism and build nationalism. Amazigh was banned, and Arabic and French were imposed, nomad tribes were forced to settle. After independance, the dictatorial regimes, following the French example to impose its law over the countries, continued the same path and criminalized the use of Tamazight, while leading a huge ‘arabization’ campaign through schools, administration, etc. The unluck of Tunisia compared to Morocco, Algeria and Libya, is that in this small country without big geographical relief, where most of the population was already living in towns near the sea, and with much fewer nomads, the cultural genocide worked much better than in the neighbouring countries. Indeed, one can say that big part of the preservation of the Amazigh culture in Algeria, Morocco and Libya is due to the difficult access to the mountains of Kabilya, Atlas and Nefoussa. And the job began by the French was finished by Bourguiba, certainly the most ‘francophile’ of all Arab dictators, and consolided by Ben Ali brutal dictatorship. Bourguiba and Gaddafi could certainly be ‘awarded’ as the biggest mass eliminators of Amazigh culture; after all didn’t they try shortly in 1973-1974 to form a Tunisian-Libyan Union called ‘Arab Islamic Republic’ (ironic, isn’t it, to refer to Islam for a man like Bourguiba that was not even observing Ramadan and wanted to force Tunisians to follow his example?).

The denial of Amazigh identity of Tunisia policy is so harsh that there isn’t even official statistics of the remaining number of Tamazight speakers in Tunisia: we talk sometimes about less than 100’000 people, sometimes less than 10’000. But the worst part of it certainly arrived through schools: ideological versions of History tought to children make it possible that in an Amazigh country, if you ask to the definition of the word ‘Amazigh‘, many are unable to give it, and many hear that word for the first time. A real national drama, if you consider socio-linguistic studies that show that about 60% of the Tunisian population had within the four preceding  generations Amazigh locutors in their family. If nothing is done now, Tamazight will simply disappear from Tunisia.

The New Tunisia, free from dictatorship is still looking for putting the right words on the aspirations of Tunisians: the new constitution has to be written. Preliminary drafts show that Tunisia is defined as a country of “Arab identity”. It would be a big mistake to not include the Amazigh Identity in the Constitution and not recognize Tamazight as an official language together with Arabic. Since the end of Ben Ali regime, we see a whole new activism in Tunisia of young Tunisian Amazigh, that want to follow the Moroccan example, where Tamazight entered in the constitution. Associations begin to form and to protest. Social networks are used as a platform to coordinate actions. Tunisia needs to revive its Amazigh culture. Tunisia needs to recognize what it is: a mixed Amazigh-Arab-Islamic identity.

European journalists think its an Arab Spring, but inside of it, there is a strong Amazigh flavour. After all, didn’t the Tunisian revolution start in Sidi Bouzid, a town named after a local saint, a purely Amazigh tradition?

Muslims in Europe: more than 4 decades of democratic experience

Europe has always seen itself as the continent of origin of democracy. Because of the historical context in France at the time of the Revolution, democracy in Europe is deeply secular and rejects any intersection of religion and politics. So when Muslims in Europe bagan to participate on the political scene, there is only one concern that was expressed everywhere by European non-muslims: is democracy and Islam two compatible set of values? Can it be that one person claims at the same time being muslim (not only in the very private sphere but also publically) and democratic? Is the acceptance of Islam in the public sphere a danger for democracy?

The current events in the Arab World is a very clear proof that Islam and democracy are compatible. But there is also another proof: in analyzing the History of the last half century of Muslim migration waves in Europe, it is extremely clear that Muslims in Europe have always been dealing with the rest of the society through democratic means.

How have been Muslims in Europe acting democratic during the last half century?

During the second half of the twentieth century, Europe faced a major social change when, after decolonization, migrants arrived from Africa and Asia in waves. To each european country its specific history, hence its specific migrations. If we try to stay limited to muslim migrants (for the purpose of this article): Indian-Pakistanese in UK, Maghrebi-West and Central African in France, Moroccan in Spain, Tunisian in Italy, Turkish in Germany, etc. We can also add Bosniac and Albanese/Kosova migrants at the end of the twentieth century; for example Switzerland alone hosts third of the entire Kosova diaspora. Of course those are only basic trends and do not account of the full migration profiles. Each european country had its own policy in dealing with migration that evolved through decades, for better or worse. One has to distinguish here between two “extreme” cases:

• the British case : the State interfers as less as possible in internal affairs of the community, providing them even the option to solve certain type of conflicts in front of a Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT)
• the French case : the State wishes to merge as much as possible all communities into one unique entity, the Republic, bound by common values, summerized as follows: “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité“

Between these two extreme cases a significant number of variations are found. Anyway. What is interesting is that these migrants, that started more or less arriving in Europe in the 60′s, didn’t provide to the economy only labour vs. money: they established in Europe, got married (not necessarely with somebody from the same cultural background), raised children. If not the parents, the children, at least, acquired the citizenship of the “host” country, what enabled them, when reaching 18+, to vote and be actively part of the civil life. Having been in european schools, being introduced to european economy as workers and speaking in general the language of the host country (english, french, german, etc) much better than the language of the country of origin, it seemed to them very natural that they will build their life and career in Europe as fully Europeans.

What is interesting here is that muslim migrants children born in Europe remained quite attached to their roots and origins, although being fully conscious of being european. Many of them also kept a tight bound with Islam. Unlike the parents who felt they were whatsoever “from abroad”, their sons and daughters called for their rights to be guaranted. As the various constitutions were giving the same rights to all citizens, regardless of their religion, they asked for equality and for being given the opportunity to evolve through the civil life in a way that wouldn’t hurt their convictions. This covers topics as different as the end of discrimination in the labour market, authaurizations for building enough mosques for welcoming all the faithfuls, the availability at school restaurants of hallah meat for the children (basic “day-to-day life” rights) but also political rights through representation in classical political parties, visibility in the medias or recognition of colonial crimes (more or less: the right to be recognized as part of the identity of the country). On the other hand, the civil society/established powers asked to this European-Muslim generation to insert themselves as much as possible into the existing structures and follow as much as possible the existing laws, like for example accepting that the secularity of laws requires from them concessions on the dress code when working in public sector or sticking to the idea of the prevalence of the national laws on the Sharia. These two flows of demands meet in a point where they balance. The exact location of this balance point depends first on the integration policy the state applies (like the british case and french case seen above), but also of the socio-economical profile of the communities (number, cultral background, average education level, distribution over cities, etc). Generally the European-Muslims are represented by two main trends: those who believe only in assimilating totally in the “host” society by erasing all what makes them different and those who, although they want to be fully recognized as Europeans, do not want to be forced to let aside their religious and cultural specificity.

It is to notice that whatever the demands are, the European-Muslims, as citizens born in democratic countries and raised in the idea that their parents migrated to offer them an auspicious background for a better living, are claiming and asking for recognition of their rights following democratic procedures. They generally take form of:

• peaceful protests (for example La Marche des Beurs in France in 1983)
• intensive involvment in associations not specifically islamic (like for example SOS Racisme, Les Indigènes de la République, workers syndicates in UK, Turkish secular associations in Germany, political parties, etc)
• foundation of islamic institutions initiated by the community itself (Muslim Council of Britain, Islamic Council of Netherlands, etc) or initiated by the government (Conseil Français du Culte Musulman)
• active participation into the democratic debate through mediatic coverage (like the islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan or the antiracism activist Malek Boutih)
• petitions (against dismissal of employees for religious reasons)
• trials (asking for a space for prayer on the work place, recognition of a discrimination case, etc)
• boycott campaigns (brands not specifying clearly the use of prohibited food in some products)
• assiociative mutual help (when politics do not help): actions for homeless, youth educators to prevent violence, social integration through sports and art, etc
• providing private services in agreement with muslim values, with the agreement of european governments: hallal food providers, islamic banking, private schools, etc

There is also a unique but interesting case of a muslim political party in UK, Hizb et-Tahrir, clearly extremist in its points of view but in the same time “fairly” participating on the political scene by debating (the same way a right-winged political party is considered to be democratic because it accepts the “rules of the game”). All these democratic procedures have in common to be non-violent. Of course, there is also some rare cases of violent acts, although quite limited compared to the number of peaceful initiatives. These acts although restricted in number could be seen as the beginning of a breakdown between the European-Muslims  and the rest of the society: assassination of Theo Van Gogh in Netherlands, the Khaled Kelkal’s terrorist acts, London and Madrid bombings, french suburban areas unrest events of 2005, violent treats after the Muhammad (SWS) cartoons controversy. These violent acts are most of the time tightly entangled with the international context such as the Algerian civil war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Gulf Wars or of course the 11th of September. One has to not confuse between the violent political acts and the criminality and urban violence witnessed in poor stratum of the society and working-poor class, for the latter are not political movements; they might express loudly the despair of a community banned by the rest of the society and living difficult conditions (living in poor suburban areas, being jobless).

But whatsoever, besides those very rare examples, the European-Muslims mostly follow existing laws or fight within the democratic frame for their rights. Indeed, they are extremely present in the front line, and, it has to be pointed, if they are present through the activities listed above, they never pressured through powerful lobbies.

As a consequence, the long-debated question of the compatibility of democracy with Islam is quite non-revelant: European-Muslims have been, for now more than 4 decades, interacting with the European civil, economical, juridical and political society only through democratical means. All the rights debated, obtained or rejected have been issued by a democratic process.

Democratic European Muslims, what is their perspective?

It has to be noted also that other examples of civic causes in Europe have not always been as peaceful as the European Muslims have been: the left wing movements or the altermondialist movement for example have been into much more violent riots and acts (there is not any G8 or G20 meeting that has not been the occasion to massive vandalism), but as it is not “ethnically tagged”, it was always been much more accepted. The altermondialist leader José Bové, currently representing Europe Ecology in the European Parliament has started his political career in destroying a transgenic culture field and a McDonald’s. Such acts, labelled in Europe as “civic desobediance” seem to never be applied to European Muslims: if one of them would act like José Bové, he would be labelled as violent and retrograde; very aware of this, the huge majority of the Muslim community in Europe generally act extremely peacefully and carefully, to not harm the global cause. It is this concern of the global cause that opens the European Muslims to questions wider than their own personnal benefit in the present situation.

In some extent, the European-Muslims have influenced the generation of their parents, bringing them to the fight for their rights that have been denied to them. So is the case of the African Second World War veterans, without any official recognition nor descent wages until the young generation revealed their history on the screens and medias, or the ongoing case of the 50s-60s Moroccan railway workers underpayed and discriminated. This kind of “retroactive” democratic influence isn’t surprising: the generation of muslims born in Europe, in many aspects, acts like an interface between their parents and the host country, due to a better educational background, a better knowledge of the language and of political institutions, etc.

The current economical crisis also resulted in a rise of the right-wing parties all over Europe, achieving to reveal this growing rift between the European-Muslims, as descendants of migrants, and the non-muslim Europeans: the word islamophobia became unfortunately very common. The growing general islamophobic feeling results in a hardening in legislations: ban of minarets in Switzerland being only one example. In today’s Europe, where racist behaviours and opinions are becoming more and more normal (not only against muslims but also against other migrants, like the gipsies), the European-Muslims seem to be an isolated case of civic struggle through the decades for rights. Now, they are in a new unseen situation: they have to fight against the loss of the rights they won only years ago. For example, after making some progress in the fight against discriminations in the 80s and 90s, we see now a rise of openly discriminating behaviour. The fight for equality is never won for good; maybe it has only begun.

The North African and Middle East is living now a turn in its History: the Tunisian and Egyptian popular revolutions opened the path to democracy to the whole region. It might take years, but it is clear now that people are fighting for their rights and for the end of an unfair society. The parallel here is interesting: a Europe in loss of democracy, an Arab World in progress towards democracy. And as a link between them this generation of young European people from Arab migrant parents, and most specifically from Arab Muslim parents (as Muslims not only account for the huge majority of Arabs in Europe, especially because of the Maghrebi migration, but also they had to face much more discriminations due to their religion, giving them more expertise in the fight for justice). The Arab (Muslim) Europeans have been following with interest the events since the beginning. They felt extremely proud of the Arab youth fighting for their freedom. Amongst governments, the recent events in the Arab World were paid a high attention for geostrategic reasons, but also because of the repercussion it might have on those European Muslims: as an example, French President Sarkozy clearly avoided to welcome Ben Ali after his fall down, fearing to  ignite an unrest among the Muslim community in France.

The situation might evolve to a surprising scenario: if we reach a point where Europe offers less freedom and rights to their Muslim citizens than the Arab countries, they might massively  migrate back to Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, etc. Their parents came to Europe, they might go back to North Africa and Middle East. We are already witnessing for a couple of years now an increasing number of young European Muslims working in opening business in their country of origin, transfering their expertise into the local market, creating partnerships, bringing ideas not yet implemented in the Arab World. Many times we hear from young people, born in France, UK, Switzerland or Germany: “Why wouldn’t my arab country of origin benefit from all I can bring instead of Europe that day by day denies me the right to express my personnality, my culture, my religion?”.  The point here is to understand that they do not come back to the Arab World because they have no choice (having European citizenships protects them quite enough), but because they make the choice to give their added value to the country of origin. Moroccans, Tunisians, Algerians, Libyans, Egyptians, etc, that know the beginning will be difficult for them to adapt, but that want to make it. They know they are certainly going to earn less, but to live better, whilst they will participate in the local and global progress. Their parents were part of an economical migration wave, they are part of a ethical migration wave. Many of them, anyway, won’t migrate “physically” and will continue to live in Europe, but with a greatest concern of their civil role in Arab societies: most of this European Arabs carry european citizenships, but also arab citizenships, giving them the right to vote, to own in the country of origin or to represent it in International Organizations.

The European Arab (Muslim) youth and the Arab youth have many in common: education level, global awareness, similar values, similar goals and a great concern for democracy, human rights, civic rights. It would be interesting if they can benefit from each other’s experience and collaborate together to build a better and fair society, in Europe as well as in the Arab world. One one side they would fight corruption of the system, on the other side they would fight unethical exploitation of workers and ressources, in a situation that would guarantee a stable peaceful relation based on mutual benefit. They could meet in forums, establish partnerships, NGOs, transnational cooperations, exchange knowledge and open markets to each other, advise each other.

That would be a new nice kind of globalization.