How to Disgust Women from Science Careers

Through my twitter feed I came across this video:

It’s a campaign of the European Comission to encourage women to work in science/research fields, where they are underrepresented. So apparently to convince women to use their brains for science, the trick is to show them that the finality of research/development could be as well beautification, make up and fashion. After all who are we for being interested in scientific careers for sake of, say, heal cancer, solving mysteries of the Universe or find alternatives to nuclear energy? No, all we want is privilege to develop new lipsticks!

This video is not only very offensive because it suggests women are interested only in their own standardized feminity, it fails also in adressing the real issues of underrepresentation of women in research and science, such as:

1. Many female students, few female researcher: the issue is not to bring women interested in science, on a student level they are even majoritary in some fields and have average better marks, the problem here is that women tend to not pursue a scientific career although science interests them. The reasons of this gap between female students and female researcher can be structural (see points 2 and 3) as well as cultural, in a world where women making what is perceived as a “man’s job” is not yet fully accepted.
2. Unstable careers: science grants are generally given for 1-2years projects. For example, if a woman quits for a maternity leave, she does can’t be sure the contract will be reconducted at end of the year or if by the time she comes back to work if there is still any work. The other important effect of this is that people who undertake a scientific career have often to move from one country to another before to find a stable position; if the female scientist has a partner or husband, it is generally not accepted socially that she moves and the man generally doesn’t move with his wife. Moreover, if the man is also a scientist (a subtancial part of scientists have a scientist partner), women generally sacrifice their career to follow men.
3. Realm of phallocracy: even when having a position, female scientists are lesser paid, obtain fewer top positions and less talk time in conferences. This disparity is due to the fact that in science/research world, many informal decision criteria count, top of them being that generally decisions are taken by committies of men with few or no women among them.

At the end, what worries me is not really women in science, because they will inevitably build their path and obtain equality, but that in 2012, European Commission misunderstands  the issues they should be qualified for!

Reaction to Mona El Tahawy’s essay on Arab women

In the article published in Foreign Policy by the Egyptian-American columnist Mona El Tahawy, she argues that in the Arab World/Middle East takes place a war on women. According to her, Arab men are ‘hating’ Arab women. This explaining sexual harrasment, genital mutilation, virginity tests, child marriage, etc.

Alas, Mona El Tahawy commits 3 big mistakes:

1) to mix facts with personnal opinions/impressions: the article starts with a fictional scene from a novel by great Egyptian writer, gives a few facts and then concludes with biased personnal impressions. How is established the connection between objective events and an inner subjective feeling called hate? Why ignoring aside all known works that emphasizes the importance of economical instability, social background, political chaos?

2) to consider Arab men, alltogether as a non-official supranational monolithic group, that cooperate instinctively, driven only by their hate towards Arab women. To consider these men’s sole purpose is to make of women’s lives a nightmare. The origin of this will to crush women, apparently, consists in a mix of culture and religion. Thus forgetting that the “Arab World” is a mixed bag of twenty-two countries, each of them with different cultural background, History, society. There is more difference between the legal/social status of a women in Tunisia and in Saudi Arabia than between a woman in Tunisia and Italy. There is a bigger cultural overlap between Morocco and Mali than between Morocco and Bahraïn. And maybe there is more difference between the lifestyle of cities and countrysides of one same country than between two urban areas of two different countries?  So what Arab World, what Arab men and women are we talking about? Mona El Tahawy mixes in a few paragraphs what happens to women in Egypt, Yemen, Saudi altogether and more or less assumes that in every Arab country women suffers from the sum of all these added abuses. The fact is, there is no “Arab feminists” or “Arab societies”, there is Egyptian/Moroccan/Saudi/etc feminists and societies, each country having its issues with women’s rights and its own battles to lead.

3) to forget to compare and consider the long History of feminism of other parts of the World. Mona El Tahawy looks to the women issues in the Arab World as if it was an isolated case in the world, as if what happens there is unique in its kind and could be understood only with cultural/religious backwardness of the region. While looking at women’s conditions in other parts of the world would have enlighted Mona (and us) about the fact that in particular political change and military conflicts can drive a drastic change for better or worse in women’s conditions. Is the dramatic condition of women in Afghanistan or Iran a result of cultural backwardness or is it at least partly due to political and geopolitical conditions, given the fact that less than 50years ago women in these countries were living freely? Why did the European feminism win its biggest battles between WWI and WWII and shortly after? Is there not any useful conclusions to make from the drift between women’s rights in Western and Eastern Europe? Mona speaks extensively about sexual harrasment in Egypt, why does she not compare with a country like South Africa where 40% of women are forced into their first sexual intercourse instead of comparing it less revelantly with the rest of Arab world?

Mona El Tahawy is an influential columnist; in consequence, her article launched a vast debate on women’s conditions in the Arab World on blogs and social medias. The fact she reaches wrong conclusions disconnected from reality is counterbalanced by the number of smart reactions and answers by women from Egypt, Kuwait or anywhere else that enlight us about field based experiences. If it had this effect, then at least it was worth it. Still, I hope in the future she takes care of not speaking on behalf of “Arab women”, especially when she apparently has never put a foot in most of the countries she mentions and thus never interacted with women from there.

The constructive feminism of Manal Al Sharif and the destructive feminism of Femen topless activists

The story of Manal Al Sharif, a 32 years old Saudi woman  jailed 10 days for defying the driving ban in her country, is a perfect illustration of the extreme repression endured by Saudi women. Her act – being filmed while driving and uploading the video to promote the Women2Drive campaign – was courageous and thus inspired other women in the Kingdom to follow her example. She expressed in the video the wish that she would be only the beginning of the revolt of women like “the first drop is the beginning of the rain”.

She enhanced a movement that had repercussion far beyond Saudi Arabia: many feminist associations, many NGOs, many papers talked about the event and certainly contributed in the global awareness on the terrific situation of women rights in the Gulf. Meanwhile, Femen, a feminist association in Ukraine organized a solidarity protest protest in Kiev around the Saudi Embassy where several of the protestors showed up topless.

So what is the outcome of the Manal Al-Sharif case?

1. Manal Al Sharif encouraged women (and men!) in her country to stand for their rights. Several dozen of people follow now her example to break the unfair rules. She showed that Saudi  women are courageous enough to take themselves the initiative. What is interesting is that she cares more aboout driving than about, for example, wearing or not the veil: she wants to achieve men/women equality through equal rights to act (drive, express, vote, work, etc), not just through her appearance. Thus her contribution to women cause is positive.
2. Femen activists  exhibited their own bodies and contributed in nothing neither for Manal Al Sharif, neither for Saudi women, neither for Ukranian women. They finished doing exactly what sexists do: use women’s body as an object. What message did Femen send to the world? “We, women, we can’t do anything, we can’t draw attention unless we exhibit our breasts”. Thus, their contribution to women cause is negative.

The feminism of Manal Al Sharif is constructive because it breaks the prejudice about “women consisting only in an empty body”, while the feminism of topless Femen activists is destructive because it does nothing else than enforcing this prejudice. Manal Al-Sharif uses provocation as a tool to change the law, Femen use provocation for the sole purpose of having the feeling to exist. The sad thing is that certainly Femen wants to act to improve women’s rights: but just type “Femen” in a search engine, all you will find is hundreds of entries about the “topless protests”.

At the end of the day, Femen may be very active, the world associates Femen to nothing else than to naked women, while Manal Al Sharif  became a model for women not because of how she looks, but because of how she acts. And that makes a huge difference.

May 27: Egypt’s Second Revolution

The Revolution was never finished on February 11th: Egypt is in a continuous revolutionary state since then. So many has to be done, and it is not the new constitution or the first trials of Mubarak ministers that will end this. Now Egyptians are facing a new challenge: the Supreme Council of Armed Forces of Egypt (SCAF) that is ensuring the management of Egypt during this period of transition, is going too far beyond its duties. Arbitrary detention of activists, unability to secure the country, lack of concrete decisions for Egyptians standard of life. And many more. On May 27th, Egyptians are back in the streets, in Tahrir Square and on other squares all over the country, to ask to the SCAF to meet the duties the people entrusted them with.

Here are some of the demands of the Egyptians, like very well discribed here:

1. Setting up a minimum wage for workers in public sector as well as in private sector. Only a decent living for all can make of Egypt the land of free Egyptians.
2. End of military trials, back to civil justice, end of emergency law. The psychological and physical intimidation of activists must end. When protestors are arrested and “kindly” told that they are contributing in unstabilizing the country, they are not doing anything different than what was under the old regime.
3. Transparency in the affairs of the State. It is not a few trials of some personnalities that are going to end the whole systemic corruption. Concrete measures have to be taken to ensure a corruption-free and transparent state.
4. Getting back the police in the streets to secure the country. Police is extremely absent from the streets since the Revolution. The army arrests activists and brings them to military trial, but who arrests thiefs, rapists and thugs?
5. Dismantling the extremists groups. Like we saw with Embaba violent confrontation of Muslims and Christians, the SCAF puts very few effort to identify the extremists among the two communities. How can SCAF let a violent escalade happen in Embaba without intervening, and on the other side the same SCAF violently repress a protest in front of the Israeli Embassy where nobody’s life was ever threatened?
6. Compensation for victims and family of victims of the January 25th Revolution.

None of the Egyptians ignore that we are living a crucial and difficult phase of the revolutionnary process. We know and understand that the SCAF task is not only critical but also essential. The SCAF and the people must cooperate to achieve the goals of the Revolution, but Egyptians cannot let the SCAF take too much power. Egypt will never be a military dictatorship hidden behind a superficial democracy like Turkey, where one can vote but where one can be thrown 10 years in jail if one speaks in kurdish in the Parliament or mentions the Armenian genocide. And when the people sees Egypt’s SCAF taking the same kind of path that Turkey’s,  they say NO.

After Jan25, May27 revolution is our new grant for freedom!

Is there a future for Israel in a democratic Middle-East?

When I try to go back to my childhood memories, it seems to me that although I am Egyptian-Tunisian, I knew about Yasser Arafat much long before than about, say, Habib Bourguiba or Jamal Abdel Nasser. It is not even very surprising when you think of it, there is not one single thing in the world that unites Arabs (people, not elites) like the idea of that free country that once was, called Palestine. The Palestinian cause is kind of transcending our frontiers (in Arab countries and inside the diaspora); most of us felt emotionnaly and intellectually implicated in the Intifadas even before thinking of our own national causes.

One of the very common frustration of the Arab citizen we are is to be forced to see our own countries ruled by dictators all more or less openly collaborating with Israel – the oppressor of the Palestinian people. The corrupted elites of the Middle-East and North Africa allowed Israel to benefit of an auspicious neighbourhood to prosper while they benefited in return of exclusive and lucrative business opportunities or technical support by the Mossad. Each of us pronounced at least once the simple sentence “El Hokam al-Arab ahanoona” (“The Arab rulers humiliated us”), and each of us knew the supreme humiliation was always to watch, helpless, the Israeli giant killing day by day men, women, children, freedom and hope (supported and sponsorised by  “Mama Amerika“). The one and only time of my entire life – more than 29 years now – that I cursed myself for being Egyptian was when, during the Gaza attack on civilians of 2009 by the Israeli army, Egypt (well… Egyptian officials driven by an American agenda) blocked the tunnels linking Sinaï to Gaza strip used for food and weapon supplies; the tears of shame were bitter.

When the current wave of popular freedom began to shake the Arab world, and especially when Egypt was freed from the Mubarak oligarchy, one of my very first thoughts went to Palestine: now that we are not forced anymore to watch our elites making of the 85 million of us passive accomplices of the Israeli savage repression on Palestinians and the denial of their humanity, will Israel be weakened and will it change something for the Palestinians? Will Israel consider in making steps towards an acceptable treatment of Palestinian revendications?

A couple of days after the February 11th, I saw an amazing video on youtube of 3 million Egyptians gathered on Tahrir Square chanting “Al Quds (Jerusalem) we are coming!“. The video of a peaceful crowd claiming their solidarity for Palestine don’t even need any comment or explanation to be powerful:

The protests in Egypt in front of Israeli Embassy became frequent, and the growing feeling is that there is no space anymore for the impunity of Israel. That’s from the people’s side, but what from the new Egyptian authorities? Well, we have only a transitory government, but it seems that it took the full measure of the popular demand on the deals of Egypt with Israel. The first relevant fact was when the government announced that the gas supply to Israel with an underestimated price will be revised. Egypt supplies almost for free 40% of the gas Israel uses and the pipeline bringing the gas to Israel and Jordan is often targeted by vandalism. On the night of April 27th, the pipeline was damaged once again, and the gas supply had to be interrupted, causing Israel to begin to consider the need of self-sufficiency, if in the future they have to forget about the Egyptian gas. The news was very favorably welcomed by most of the Egyptians.

Another significant fact we lately came aware of is that the significant entrave the Mubarak regime was opposing to arms supply to the Gaza strip will be now much reduced. On April 5th Israel has to hit with a missile a car  in Sudan, killing two men implicated in Hamas military operations, one of them presumed to be successor of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, assasinated by Israel in Dubai last year. Apparently, Sudan gets weapons from Iran that are then carried through Egypt and then through Gaza tunnels, for Iran supports actively Hamas. Without a tightly collaborating Egyptian government there is very few chance Israel can controll the weapons flux incoming to Gaza strip, and ensuring collaboration of the democratically elected Egyptian government would require Israel to stop the abuses on the Palestinian population.

Besides Egypt, the Arab turmoil is causing trouble to Israel alliances with Arab elites in more than one way. The ousted Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and his clan were closely collaborating with Israel: the Mossad was well implanted in Tunisia where they provided a logistic and technical support to repression. The Tunisian crowd found many catridges stamped “Made in Israel” on the material used by Tunisian security forces. For example on this video, a Tunisian man in the city of Ariana finds a lot of bullets where we see hebrew writings:

The implication of Israel in repression in Tunisia was also clearly documented in the documentary “Soqot Dawlat al Fassad” (“The downfall of the corrupted regime”)  broadcasted on Tunisian National TV Al Wataniya we can still watch on their website (especially starting from 15:00), including a new eclairage on the Djerba synagogue bomb attack, attributed to Islamists but apparently being the product of a cooperation of Tunisian authorities with Israeli Intelligence. Under Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia was a strong ally to the Palestinian Authority; Yasser Arafat long beneficiated from the support of Tunisia to the Palestinian cause and his wife, Soha Arafat, was holding until 2007 the Tunisian citizenship, before Ben Ali withdrawed it from her and urged her to quit Tunisian territory following an argument with Leïla Ben Ali. The ousting of Ben Ali might well be the end of the tolerance of Tunisia towards Israel.  After the Revolution, Israel offered financial incentives for the return to Israel of the Jewish community in Tunisia, causing displeasure to the transitory Tunisian government, that argues that the Tunisian Jews were peacefully living in Tunisia since centuries.

Concerning the other Arabic States, although the outcome is not yet clearly known, some indications allow to conclude that Israel cooperations with tyrants might well be lost. For example, the trade that was ongoing between the Gaddafi family and Israel, providing Libyan oil in exchange of Israeli tanks and other weapons (among which forbidden weapons currently used to mass murder Libyan population) might well to be stopped forever, given the close evolution of the Libyan conflict.

Since the unrest began to shake Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria and a few signs of a possible propagation in Jordan, Israel’s most faithfull ally in the region, it seems that once for all, Israel entered in the phase of isolation in the Middle-East. If the people take power in the immediate and close neighbourhood of Israel, it might well that the Zionist State is no more given the choice: treat correctly the Palestinian, respect their right to have an Independant State, stop their crimes against humanity, or face the massive and strong opposition of Arab States, ruled by elected governments that are under the accountability of the people.The growing unpopularity inside the Arab region of the American foreign policy (to a point that Hillary Clinton visit in Egypt and Tunisia was troubled by massive protests) and the unpopularity of American-sided candidates like Mohammad Al Baradei or Amr Moussa makes it highly improbable that Israel will ever find again within the region allies like Ben Ali, Mubarak or Gaddafi.

There was a myth not so long ago: an imaginary tale consisting of depicting Israel as being the “only democracy in the Middle-East”. Besides the fact that brutality and apartheid automatically suppresses the credibility of a country self-proclamed democratic (voting is not the only right and due of a democraty), we might well have to tell the opposite tale in a couple of years: Israel, the only dictatorship left in the Middle-East, forced to justice or to disparition.

2011: Arab Spring, European Winter?

In a few decades, History books will mention 2011 as the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring. So far, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions may have not yet fully turned the two authoritarian states into democracies, but the first signs of democratization are encouraging. The outcome of the difficult phase through which Libya is passing is totally incertain; while the most optimist forecasts believe in a quiet transition by the National Transition Council in case Gaddafi forces are defeated, the most pessimist fear a long “Somalia-like” civil war. The Yemeni turmoil is weakening more and more Saleh regime and the Syrian protests are shaking Bashar Al-Assad inherited power more than ever did any of the political crisis the country has been through. The contamination to Iran and to sub-saharian African countries is often discussed by political analysts. North Africa and Middle-East changed for good, and with it global geopolitics. But what will History books say about year 2011 in Europe?

It might well be that 2011 will be remembered as the beginning of the end of democracy in Europe. What would have looked to be as a highly excentric assertion 5 years ago looks today more and more credible. The global financial crisis of 2008 has severely undermined the influence of Europe in the World, but also the sovereignty of European Nations and the social benefits of the European citizen. Instead of reinforcing the European economy, the Euro acted as a propagator of the deep crisis in Greece and Spain (among others) to the rest of Europe. In this context of local pauperization and global instability, withdrawal was the general reaction.

Until 2011, this withdrawal resulting in a radicalization of populations was thought to be a temporary trend, that would disappear once the effects of the crisis damped. But a recent event shows that on the contrary, it might be here to stay: for the first time since the end of the fall of the Berlin wall, an European nation included in its  “genetical code” (its constitution) the seeds of real anti-democratic principles. Hungary (and not anymore the Republic of Hungary) adopted on April 18th a new constitution limiting the independance of justice and increasing powers of the head of the State.

Are we overreacting by considering that the Hungarian new constitution is the first palpable step towards the collapse of democracy in Europe? It may be too soon to know. Nevertheless, the “Hungarian scenario” might well be only the first of its kind, where the rise of the nationalist right wing party first influenced national and european politics, before to imprint the Constitution. Other countries dominated by similar nationalist eurosceptic parties such as Slovakia or Romania are not excluded from following the same path.

The “Scandinavian model” was long considered to be one of the most evolved forms of democracy and the quintessence of social democracy. The first crack of the model might well have happened when the populist “True Fins” party won 39 seats (19%) at the Finnish Parliament on April 17th elections. Finland is one of the strongest member nations of the European Union and the previously unseen success of this euro-sceptic party  openly claiming they refuse the bailout to Portugal could be a real hindrance to European initiatives. What will happen to Europe the day the Euro-parliament will be full of euro-sceptics deputies?

The Hungarian case might well be the first regressive step in the internal governance of an European nation and the Finnish case the first one in the global governance inside the European Union. Optimists would say that Europe sad history throughout the 20th century will prevent totalitarism, as the consequences of this dramatic outcome is still extremely vivid in minds; Pessimists would just stick to the rough facts to conclude that what was unthinkable only a few years ago is already happening inside nations and inside Union. When more than a decade ago Austrian nationialist leader Jörg Haider (FPÖ) made his entry in the government, Austria seemed to be an isolated case; today, there is nothing unusual to the fact that right-wing leaders are in governments and parliaments. Majority of European citizen consider those parties as parties like any others.

Since the beginning of the economical crisis, the European ‘fortress’  denied more and more access to migrants from Africa and Asia and hardened the policies towards the existing European Muslim community. The fear of a negative anti-democratic impact of Islam is sweeping Europe from North to South and from East to West, ensuring the success of populist parties. So far Germany might well be the only European nation resisting more or less to the wave, but how long for? The radicalization even begins to disrupt national identities themselves, like we see in Belgium, with no government at its head since now one year, digging up the antagonism between Flemish and Welloon. The ‘worst case’ scenario might well be fulfilled if french presidential candidate Marine LePen is elected in 2012, because of France key influence in Europe.

If things keep going on this way, 2011 might well be remembered not only for the Arab Spring, but also for the European Winter.

France anti-burqa law comes into effect and unveils french hypocrisy

The anti-burqa law has been amongst the most debated measures voted by the French Parliament under the Sarkozy administration. Targeting less than 400 face-veiled women in France, the law acts more symbolically than anything else; it doesn’t solve any pragmatic problem. In my point of view, the ban of burqa in France has no real religious impact, since living in the western society is already conflicting with the islamic laws in many more revelant ways, strictly saying; if Muslims in Europe can live with paying taxes to governments sometimes at war against muslim-majority countries and contributing to a ribaa-based economy without getting where this is contradictory with Islam, it’s not the ban of burqa that should make them feel that they are stopped from fulfilling religious duties. Unlike some “moderated” personnalities say, face-veil exists in Islam (as proven by the biographies of the Prophet Muhammad (SWS) wives), but was is not clear is if it is mandatory or optional. Thus, the burqa ban in France do not put French Muslim women in a religious dilemna, it puts them at the centre of a symbolic battle, opposing a government that made of hypocrisy its trademark to the whole process of democracy.

The arguments used to justify the burqa ban are almost an insult, not only to veiled women or muslims, but to all French citizens, because they don’t speak the true motivation behind it. Not only it is technically limiting in terms of freedom of choice, but also it is a huge trickery: under the cover of fighting for women’s rights, it goes once again in limiting women’s concerns on what they wear – miniskirt or niqab? – instead of real and concrete measures to ensure their rights, let it be by helping single mothers, women forced into prostitution, labour market particularely unfriendly to women who didn’t renounce in having children or the increase of violence made to women (in France, on woman dies every 3 days after being beaten by her husband or boyfriend). It is simple to ban a burqa and stigmatize Muslim men to “submit” their wives, it is much more complicated to break the real chains than imprison French women, let them be muslim or not.

One of the “myths” exported by the government spokesmen and parliamentary groups presidents is that the anti-burqa law defends secularism (the so-called French laïcité), which is untrue given the fact that secularism is a strict separation between religion and institutions that never implied the ban of religious signs in the street, the streets being public but not institutional, and the citizens being representing only themselves and not any official or governmental function when out of duty. Moreover, the French government is commited in a few affairs out of the area defined by secularity: laws have lately been modified in order to allow Islamic finance in France (unlike muslim women, muslim money is always welcome; the ex French Minister of Economy Hervé de Charette is even president of the French Institute for Islamic Finance… secularim is far far away when there is benefit), Ministry of Education gives grants to private jewish schools and the agenda of holidays of all public services follow the christian calendar (traditions and History are absolutely not an excuse for that).

The French people should wonder what could have been their lives if the same amount of energy than what took to make an anti-burqa law accepted was spent on each project aiming in defending employment, housing or institutions for social insertion of mentally challenged people. If the same time spent to communicate and stress on the importance of the law was dedicated to each file concerning the huge lack of means in hospitals or the case of the thousands of homeless people that are refused a bed and a meal in overfull shelters. No, the French government did not vote a law to protect the people’s interest, although they pretend they did. This hyprocrisy about the true reasons behind the anti-burqa law is, technically speaking,  outside the rules of democracy: democracy is the governance of the people by the people itself, and an untruth on the state of the discussed topics equals to fool the people, hence to give choice between fake options, keeping them busy with choices relative to a virtual freedom, while actual freedom based on true facts and arguments stays out of scope. Indeed, instead of asking the right questions and anwering the right answers, the French people are arguing against each other about how awesome or awful is a life under a burqa or a niqab.

The right question here is then not if France has right or not to ban burqa but what are the real reasons that made it so important to the Sarkozy administration, when they always knew that it has no practical impact. Was it for opening a debate on Muslims in France to put them “under the spotlights” for electoral reasons? To provoke a reaction from their side to prove how ‘antidemocratic’ they are? To warn them of any attempt to become more visible on the public scene? To send a “muslim-unfriendly” clear message to discourage Muslim Africans to migrate to France? Or to veil the emptiness of mind of the rulers?

April 8th: International Roms’ Day

April 8th is the International Roms’ Day (Journée Internationale des Roms). The Rom community is about 12million people, forming thus the biggest minority of Europe.  Originating from the Indian subcontinent and installed in Eastern Europe since the Middle-Age, they have been so far, throughout History, among the most persecuted people. Today, though we learn in our schools that they were genocided under the third Reich, there seems to be almost no awareness among our ‘sedentary’ population on how much discrimination and racism are still extremely strong towards Roms.

Indeed, there is no racism as common as the racism towards Roms. As a Muslim Arab living in Europe, I know how it is to be in a group sometimes targeted by hatred and misconceptions; but I also know that nothing extremely dramatic could happen to us, that there is powerful associations to fight for our rights, that as a part of the sedentary society, our economical, mediatic and political weight is big enough to act as a protecting shield for us, to guarantee us a minimum of respect. Roms not having this same situation, they seem to be targeted by everybody and from everywhere without anything able to counter efficiently.

When in France the authorities demolish their camps, when in Italy they are victims of the neo-nazi delinquent violence, when in Greece the police itself attacks them, when in Germany the government funds repatriation campaigns, when in Sweden 80% of Roms adults are unemployed, when in Romania and Bulgary they are subject to massive and institutional persecution, when in Switzerland the policemen write down the word “beggar”by hand in their passeports… do we need more to prove how far can go the democratic human-rights-friendly european societies with their own minorities? There is barely only in South of Spain that Roms and non-Roms seem to coexist in a mutual respect.

The most shocking fact here is certainly how “unshocked” the civil society is about this discrimination and persecution of Roms. After all, the perpetuation generation after generation of these behaviours wouldn’t be possible if a majority of Europeans would not have been that deeply hatefull towards Roms. Roms are generally accused by non-Roms to be thiefs, beggars, tricky, etc. As a consequence, the establishment make laws and (official and unofficial) procedures such as Roms can’t benefit from their full rights, nor reach a state of sustainable and satisfactory interaction with the non-Rom society.

Practically saying, everything is done for unallowing them to access work market, decent housing and freedom of undertaking their traditional lucrative activities; such a situation in itself would be already enough to justify much more criminality than what we are currently witnessing, but instead of being somehow aware of this and remedy to the problem, we see that an increasing repression on Roms is not only agreed by civil society, but also encouraged, for people do not  want to be bothered in having to bear the visible presence of those they discriminate (but besides this, of course, they have no problem in copying without any compensation their music and other artistic techniques). How far do we want to let this happen before to react?

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.

To veil or not to veil, that is the (only) question

On the right side of this blog you certainly noted the presence of a tag cloud, i.e. a widget provided by my blog host, WordPress, that lists the most common tags used to describe the content of my articles. The bigger the font size, the more I am obsessed with the related topic. Quite accurate and relevant I have to admit. But you see – try to imagine I am using a soft slow voice and looking at you straight in the eyes like I would do one day with my children when I’ll have to explain to them all those disappointing facts about life – blogs are not the only one to carry tag clouds, people do too. You do, I do, everybody does. We are all categorized following preconceptions, misconceptions and even sometimes inceptions. If you are lucky enough, one or two of the tags would not relate only to your aspect and/or your ethnicity but on the person you are inside – but that’s maybe one case in a thousand.

As for me and more generally for any arab or muslim woman – as people tend to confuse the fact of being arab and muslim – the tag cloud has to list the followings, in font size 72: veil, Arabian Nights, couscous (or baklawa), forced marriage, polygamy, submission, belly dance, virginity, honour killings. Seems long ago we were labelled, and whatever we did or said since, it never changed. The fact is, many arab/muslim women writers, feminists, etc, have fought against these preconceptions that tend to depict us as no more than fully covered under beings with no voice and no will.

But in my opinion, what all of these feminists have failed at is to show that our lives do not evolve only around these topics. For example,  I have so far never read anything written by a feminist that doesn’t imply explicitely or implicitely the question of the veil. Either they would consider it as the symbol of submission of women to men, either they feel the need to object that western women have their own way to be even more submitted by being treated like sexual objects. Some also try to convince that veil is not stipulated as mandatory  in the Holy Quran and finally, some do stress on the fact that wether muslim women wear the hijab or not, it doesn’t matter since you would find strong-minded muhajabat (women wearing hijab) and not-so-strong western-like-dressed women, and, as long as the decision to wear veil or not was freely taken by the woman herself, it is her own business. Anyway, the fact that all those feminists sooner or later discusses the veil issue proves that:

1. whatever is their opinion, they consider it essential in a women’s rights discussion instead of seing it as part of a global discussion on confessionnal freedom (for example, peer pressure isn’t less strong in the case of somebody not wishing to fast Ramadan than in the case of a woman not wishing to wear veil)
2. feminism looks at muslim/arab women essentially “through the tag cloud”, i.e. by confronting the topic of women’s rights only through the few limited topics muslim/arab women are tagged with
3. they assume that arab/muslim populations are accustomed enough to western standards to not consider anymore the option of not wearing the hijab as something “coming from abroad” but really as a choice relevant only about women’s situation

I do not wish at all give any comment about the “veil issue” itself, what interests me here is how the way it is discussed reveals us something about feminism in arab/muslim countries. Actually, feminism in arab or muslim countries is mostly just a not-so-well adjusted version of western feminism, unable to go deeper than the surface. It is understandable that veil generates that much question marks in western world where it appeared only with migration and seems so opposite to western standards. It is on the contrary much less understandable that it goes into so much questions in countries where it is not a “foreign” phenomenon but exists for centuries. As if indians where having a nevertlasting debate over what does wearing a saree means; in such an hypothetic case it would be inaccurate to treat the “saree issue” only as part of the question of women’s rights. It appears then that because of the very limited view feminists have on arab/muslim women, it never really succeeds in defining what is relevant in their situation. My very personnal opinion is that what would help arab/muslim women would be to open the doors out of the clichés and focus on something else than the same 3-4 topics discussed again and again and again. If those were essential to women’s rights in the arab/muslim countries, it would have solved the situation since decades, given the hundreds of NGOs, think tanks, books and talks dedicated to the issue. Meaning we need to rethink totally the basis on which we consider women’s condition in the arab world. Are we gathering the right data? Are we analyzing the right facts? Aren’t we looking in the wrong direction?

Women’s situation in arab world is so difficult in so many ways that the constant focus on the “tag cloud” without noticing how inaccurate this description is ends being almost ridiculous. We need a feminism that gives to women effective solutions to reach visibility in all aspects of civil society, not to focus on the same speeches since decades. For example in many countries women, wearing a hijab or not is not really an issue in day to day life while being sexually harrassed constantly, however she is dressed, is a real problem. A focus has to be done on law: correcting the flaws but also understanding what makes the existing laws uneffective. Inaccecibility to basic education and to higher education for women in rural areas, lack of women in managing positions, under-representativity in politics, lack of means for mothers raising children alone, unavailability of social, cultural and artistic activities outside big towns, etc, all those are topics that need to be at the focal point of our generation’s feminism. The day “to veil or not to veil” will be for real the only question, it’ll mean we made a big step forward.