BELGIUM - CROSSING CONTINENTS ATMOS OF LONDON DEMO, SHOUTS, WHISTLES DYAB ABOU JAHJJAH “My name is Dyab Abou Jahjah, and I am the president of the Arab European League….It is a grass roots political movement defending the interests of the Arabs in Europe and other Moslems and also working on solidarity with the Iraqi people and the Palestinian people.” MERIEL BEATTIE Out on the streets of London, among the banners, the chanting and the whistles, Dyab Abou Jahjah is one of the hundreds of thousands of people who joined last February’s anti-war demonstration. With his short black hair and hint of designer stubble, he could be just another good-looking post-grad student out on the march. But Dyab Abou Jahjah has other reasons for being here. DYAB ABOU JAHJAH (still on the march) I was invited to London to hold some conferences and to participate in this demonstration and I am banned for demonstrating in Belgium for three months and I wanted to demonstrate against the war so I decided to come to London. MERIEL BEATTIE If in London, Dyab Abou Jahjah is just another face in the crowd, back home in Belgium, it’s a very different story. At just 31, this young man from Lebanon is now one of the most controversial figures in Belgian politics. Radical, charismatic, and outspoken, he champions the rights of Belgium’s large Arab immigrant population; he’s pushing Middle East issues onto the domestic political agenda; and he’s trying to set up a pan- European organisation for Arab minorities. In this week’s Crossing Continents, I’m going to investigate just WHAT it is that Dyab Abou Jahjah represents. Is he a new role model for disaffected Moslems across Europe -- including Britain? Or is he simply an ambitious troublemaker? To find out, I’m going to start in Dyab Abou Jahjah’s hometown of Antwerp… ATMOS OF Borgerhout: FLIP VOETS This is let’s say a nineteenth century district of town. After the Second World War, from the 1960s and 70s it became neglected and a lot of houses were sold to immigrant people and the Belgian middle-class left the area. MERIEL BEATTIE This is Borgerhout. It’s a rather seedy, treeless district just beyond Antwerp’s central station, and I’m here with Flip Voets who’s a local journalist. Now, as Flip’s been explaining to me, Borgerhout’s known round here for two things. Firstly it’s where many of Antwerp’s large Moslem immigrant community live alongside not-so-well-off Belgians. Secondly, this area, this very street, in fact, was the scene of a murder last November, which sparked off two days of riots. And it was for his role in these riots – a role which is still disputed – that Dyab Abou Jahjah was arrested, then released, on condition he stay away from demonstrations for three months. Just in front of this council block that Flip’s brought me to here, a young teacher from a Moroccan immigrant family was shot dead by his Belgian Flemish neighbour, a man allegedly with a history of mental illness. Shortly afterwards, a large crowd of mainly Moroccan Belgians gathered, furious at what they were sure was a racist murder. And maybe Flip, you can tell me what happened next? FLIP VOETS There was a demonstration. Some clashes with the police. During that demonstration Mr Abou Jahjah, who doesn’t live in this area, showed up. And then you have two stories. You have the story of Mr Abou Jahjah and his friends who say that he came there and immediately tried to calm down the young boys who were a bit agitated. But then there’s another story, other testimonies that say that he was in fact inciting them to demonstrate and telling “this is a racist murder”, “we can’t take this no longer any more”, “this is a town governed by Zionists” and so on. MERIEL BEATTIE What do you think is the appeal of Abou Jahjah to these guys on the street? How come he was able to have such a quick response from the kids on the street? FLIP VOETS Well you see there is in this area a generation that you could call a lost generation that have no perspective any more. They have had bad schooling, they have no jobs, and there is also a lot of racism. And I think that what makes Abou Jahjah strong is that he is the first one who gave these boys a voice. And I think he should be listened at. RABHAH He’s actually just our voice. What we think, he thinks. And he speaks for us so he says to the people “we want”, he doesn’t say “I want”, but “we want equal rights” MERIEL BEATTIE It’s among young Moroccan Belgians like Rabhah here that Dyab Abou Jahjah gets support for his Arab European League. Rabhah’s 20, she works at a travel agent, she lives here in Borgerhout, and she’s invited me over tonight to meet her sister Meriam, and their friends Zainab and Ibrahim. Just chatting here in the front room over some mint tea and almonds, they’ve been telling me that although their Mums and Dads came over as immigrant workers, they as the second generation have full Belgian citizenship. But even though they’ve grown up here and are -- technically -- Belgian, that’s clearly NOT how they’re made to feel… RABHAH, MERIAM, ZAINAB, IBRAHIM When something happens on television, when somebody killed someone, they say, specificly, it was a Moroccan; a Moroccan Belgian did that crime. Why don’t they just say it was a Belgian? Because they don’t see us just like Belgians. And they talking about us like foreigners, while we were born here and the problem is not coming as us, it’s not we, that we don’t belong to the Belgians. It’s themselves. They don’t see us as Belgians. MERIEL BEATTIE One of the things that the Arab European League has been doing here in Antwerp and the community is something called civil patrols. Is that right? What exactly is that? Do you go out and keep an eye on the police? What is that? RABHAH Yes we actually trying to warn the bad cops – that means cops who discriminate Moroccan people, who arrest them for nothing while they are innocent, who keep them in jail for one day for nothing. I mean that is we are trying to warn them. MERIEL BEATTIE You feel that the police here in Antwerp were specifically targeting Moroccans? IBRAHIM They were targeting just the Moroccans. The police when they are being aggressive to a Moroccan they say “go back to your country they cannot say anything.They call us Macaque – it means monkey boys. It means you are the monkey. MERIEL BEATTIE And that’s what you get called? IBRAHIM Go back to your country, monkey boy. MERIEL BEATTIE It’s clear that you all feel that Dyab Abou Jajah represents the kind of problems you feel need to be solved here. But what do your parents think of him – do they approve of Dyab Abou JahJah? MERIAM I think they see him as a threat to our community. I mean, they don’t know the whole story, but… I think I can explain why there is a difference between the first generation and the second generation. The first generation, they feel themselves as a guest. So they say, this is not my country, I came here to work so I have to be silence and I have to shut my mouth. But we - it’s different. We were born here, so we feel this is our country, that’s why we are more radical and we are more fighting for something that belongs to us, while our parents are saying no, they are not used to saying something, they are not used to standing up for something that belongs to them. MERIEL BEATTIE They don’t want to create trouble. ZAINAB Yes. They say that we have to be easy and just say what they like to hear. MERIEL BEATTIE And even though these problems have been going on for a long time, as you say, Dyab Abou Jahjah is the first person to offer a solution? IBRAHIM Yes. For each problem he has a solution. So for example for the education he has a solution – Islamic schools. For the labour market he has a solution – quotas. So he handles the problems, actually, he says we can’t go on like this any more, so we have to deal with this problem. Traffic FX MERIEL BEATTIE Part of Dyab Abou Jahjah’s appeal is that he doesn’t mince his words. He’s demanding affirmative action for Arab job seekers, better schools for Arabic speakers and an end to discrimination on the housing market. His website is overtly anti-Israeli. More disturbingly, it also makes scarcely- concealed jibes at Antwerp’s long-established Jewish community, which for centuries has worked in the city’s multi-billion dollar diamond industry. But if diamonds are Antwerp’s main claim to international fame, this city is also acquiring another, more sinister reputation. It’s home to a far-right, anti-immigration party called the Vlaams Block. Only a few years ago, few people here would admit to voting for the Blok. But corruption scandals in the other mainstream parties have helped give the Vlaams Blok a more respectable image: so much so, that in the last elections, it won a staggering 33% in Antwerp. Its slogan of Eigen Volk Eerst – which means “Our own people first” has struck a chord with residents who feel they’re being crowded out by immigrants. I’m on my way to meet one of them, Rudi Franssens. Rudi’s a middle-aged professional who’s lived in Borgerhout for the last 15 years. He’s told me that this year he’ll be voting Vlaams Blok, and he’s offered to take me on a walk to show me why. RUDI FRANSSENS Here in Antwerp after a certain hour during the day, after hours as they would say, you wouldn’t recognise it any more. You would see all kinds of people, very gruesome kind of people. It’s as if you are in a Tolkein movie you’d say. You don’t know where they come from, it’s all kind of nationalities because the area where we go to – there it begins, there are living I think more than 130 nationalities, and I think 93, 94 different languages being spoken. MERIEL BEATTIE Well, what about this square Rudi that we’ve just walked into? There are boys; well they look like Moroccan boys, playing football, a couple of Flemish boys playing with them: what’s the problem with a place like this? RUDI FRANSSENS Well when you look at it now, when you come here, it’s all very peaceful, very quiet and who could have any difficulty with that, you would say. When you come here later at night, lots of those cafes over there start to live. It’s for the black community, African community, there is partying going on until four o’clock in the morning, drugs are being dealt with, prostitutes who try to lure you into the café, fighting going on and stuff like that. It’s gruesome… MERIEL BEATTIE Rudi, look- look. You see that graffiti there, Vlaams Blok: EigenVolk Eerst – that’s that “Our Own People First thing”, right opposite the Turkish bakery. Is there a lot of support for Vlaams Blok say in this area? RUDI FRANSSENS Oh yes, definitely. I’d say that in this area here maybe oh 50 or 60% of the original people vote Vlaams Blok and it’s still increasing. You know, that’s a Mosque that’s being built there. MERIEL BEATTIE The building site with the crane? Uh-huh, ok. RUDI FRANSSENS And there was a lot of protest from the VB against it because they said, who are these people, where does the money come from? You mustn’t forget September 11 all that experience. But it’s very symbolic. Over there you have a church, the windows are being broken, the roof is leaking, there is no money to rebuild that church, and here you have a mosque arising: maybe it’s symbolic for an area like this that the original people they think that’s a new time, churches are going down, are empty, mosques are filling up and are growing. More and more you get a gap here in Antwerp between people on the one hand who are getting more and more extreme for instance the notorious Jahjah, Abou Jahjah, most people here think he is very dangerous… MERIEL BEATTIE Whatever people in Antwerp might think of him, Dyab Abou Jahjah is already spreading his message further afield. And in order to meet up with him I’ve had come to Brussels, where he’s taking part in a debate with leaders of the communist Belgian Workers’ Party. They’re running together on a joint list in the general elections in May. Now ideologically, they make rather strange political bedfellows, and it’s clear that many of the mainly white, French-speaking audience here tonight are pretty sceptical. But I have to say, just watching Dyab Abou Jahjah up there on stage is quite something. With his fluent French, a boyish smile and direct manner, he‘s had them laughing, clapping and pretty well eating out of his hand. And there’s already a queue of journalists who want to talk to him afterwards… Dyab - I’ve been interested when I’ve been reading some of your speeches that you seem to come down quite hard on the subject of integration, you seem to view integration as almost synonymous with assimilation and both are a bad thing. Why? DYAB ABOU JAHJAH Assimilation is giving up your language, giving up your culture and just keeping some kind of folklore that is very irrelevant. I mean I could still like uh, eat some certain dishes from the Middle East but I cannot have certain thoughts that are based on ideologies and ideas from the Middle East. MERIEL BEATTIE I know that as well as campaigning for the rights of the Arab minority here in Belgium you are also very vocal in your support for the Palestinian issue. But why? What possible relevance does that have to the existential problems of the Moslem minorities here? They’re having problems with education, they’re having problems getting jobs, and they’re having problems with housing. Why on earth should they care about the Palestinian issue on top of that? DYAB ABOU JAHJAH First of all, because we do. We do care about it. Why do we care about it? Because we have strong affinities with the Palestinian people on many levels, and I’m telling you, oppressed people, they feel very related to each other all through the world but beyond that there is a very strong pro Palestinian movement in this country. But also beyond, in Europe, and I mean, when I was in London I saw more Palestinian flags than any other flags in a demonstration there. So the question you should ask, why can a Brit or a white Flemish person support Palestine and can’t an Arab support Palestine. MERIEL BEATTIE You talk about discrimination in housing and problems in education, that all sounds reasonable enough. But I had a look on your website and came across this press release where you say that Antwerp – this bit that’s highlighted, can you see it? – “In Antwerp the power is in the hands of the Zionist lobby and the far-right racists”. Now that sounds pretty offensive to me. That sounds racist in itself, wouldn’t you say? DYAB ABOU JAHJAH Not at all. There’s nothing racist in that. I mean Zionism is an ideology and far-right is also an ideology. I mean I did not approach any race or any people. So Zionism is just a political ideology like any other ideology and it might sound offensive but this is the reality of Antwerp. MERIEL BEATTIE Well it sounds anti-Semitic. I mean, given that Antwerp has this large Jewish community, surely? DYAB ABOU JAHJAH Well, I mean, I talked about the Zionist lobby. I remember I’ve been interviewed by the police on this because they had a lawsuit against me on that. I’m just talking the reality and that’s all I care about – just to be objective, and to talk about the reality. MERIEL BEATTIE Even if he seems to be grabbing all the headlines at the moment, Dyab Abou Jahjah is not the only Arab Belgian to get involved in politics – and nor is he the first. This is an annual get-together of the Flemish Green party at a large modern conference centre; and it’s packed. Now somewhere in the crowd at the coffee bar is the lady I’m here to meet. Her name is Fauzia Talhaoui, she’s in her early thirties and she’s been an MP in Brussels for four years. She’s also proving rather hard to get hold of here, as not only is she rather petite, she also seems to be very popular and chatty, and she’s constantly being buttonholed by the other delegates. Fauzia’s also from a Moroccan immigrant family. And what I want to ask her is if she agrees with Dyab Abou Jahjah that her community really does get a rough deal. FAUZIA TALHAOUI Well I think that the problems of discrimination and xenophobia, and even racism are very, very actual and factual. MERIEL BEATTIE Given that you do see what’s going on and you do see the problems, how come when you came to enter politics you chose to throw your lot in with the Green party - with an established part of the political establishment - rather than standing on a platform specifically related to these communities and these issues? FAUZIA TALHAOUI Because the Green Party from the beginning has been concerned about multi-culturality about voting rights for those populations who have come here as immigrants but stayed here as citizens and we are not a very, very big party but I think we have the solutions to remedy the problems that we are confronting in our society these days. MERIEL BEATTIE The reason I ask is you know Dyab Abou Jahjah, he’s a household name these days in Belgium, but when I met him the other day, when I finished interviewing him I said I was going to meet you and he rolled his eyes and said, oh, her! And words to the effect of “She sold out.” Do you think there’s any justification in that? FAUZIA TALHAOUI No there’s no justification in it because he doesn’t know about me and what I am standing for. I have gained some credibility in society. Trade unions and employers are seeking contact with me, they want to work with me, and I wonder if they want to work with Abou Jahjah. MERIEL BEATTIE Fauzia, what about the grassroots, though, because what interests me is that the mostly teenagers that I spoke to said, “Dyab Abou Jahjah, he’s the only person who speaks for us.” No one mentioned your name, for example. Now doesn’t that mean that on one level, you’ve failed? FAUZIA TALHAOUI Abou Jahjah has got a lot of success with them because has an attractive, charismatic personality, who thinks – or he’s sure about it – he knows that he gives them a message they want to hear, he’s giving them an identity and respect they don’t have, and that’s why they consider him as their hero. Although I think that in the long-term, they would be quite disappointed if they see what he’s standing for, and maybe they will then come back to us and see that we are representing a more realistic point of view towards their problems. MERIEL BEATTIE Dyab Abou Jahjah’s critics say he’s power-hungry and only too ready to put his personal ambition before the wider goals he claims to represent. One such example they point to is his involvement – or interference – in a groundbreaking legal case against the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Thanks to a law passed 10 years ago, Belgium has been available as a kind of rent-a-courtroom, where alleged war criminals from any other country could be put on trial. That law is being revised. But one case already in the works is against Mr Sharon for his alleged role in a massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon 20 years ago, when he was Israel’s defence chief. Two years ago 23 survivors of the killings at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps filed a formal complaint in Brussels. A special committee of Lebanese and Belgian lawyers and Belgian politicians was formed. And at some point, Dyab Abou Jahjah also got involved. Then the disagreements started. To find out more, I’ve arranged to meet Senator Vincent van Quickenborne. MERIEL BEATTIE Looking, on his AEL website we came across this, which is a statement of the AEL on the Sharon case. And it starts “On Monday the 18th of June the Sabra and Chatila Committee, an initiative of the AEL and many Arab and Belgian individuals, will launch its lawsuit against Ariel Sharon for the crimes committed at Sabra and Chatila in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of 1982. And reading that, I got the impression that the whole thing was his show. VINCENT VAN QUICKENBORNE Well of course I mean a committee can never launch a lawsuit against possible perpetrators. And this is a confirmation that Dyab Abou Jahjah wanted to give the impression that it is his organisation who is setting up all this. It’s not the case. And I’m not saying that it’s my case. I never said it. It is a case from 23/24 victims. It’s too dangerous to say that it’s the case of Abou Jahjah. It would be politics and this case should stay out of politics. MERIEL BEATTIE To be fair to Dyab Abou Jahjah, how can this ever be anything other than a political case? Tapestry on the wall, poster etc? VINCENT VAN QUICKENBORNE Of course, I’m a politician and I have my convictions. But I’m not saying this case is my case and I’m not saying that Mr Sharon and all the other people who are on this case are guilty. Everyone’s not guilty until they’re proven otherwise. MERIEL BEATTIE So if there are political repercussions from this case, that’s fine by you, but you’re objecting to him getting on a political soapbox before the case has even opened? VINCENT VAN QUICKENBORNE Yeah. I think that it’s not good for him to say that his organisation has filed the lawsuit because this is a lie. And secondly, I think that by politicising the case like he does, it makes it far more difficult for the victims and the lawyers to go ahead, because this case then is witnessed by certain people as the case of Dyab Abou Jahjah, so he’s using this case to make a profile on himself and this is wrong. MERIEL BEATTIE Well since I last met Dyab Abou Jahjah I’ve got quite a few more questions I’d like to put to him – but he’s not an easy man to get hold of, particularly as these days he seems to be putting quite a lot of effort into drumming up support elsewhere in Europe. Tonight, apparently, he’s going to be giving a talk to students in the Hague, so I’m on a train to the Netherlands to see if I can find him….. MERIEL BEATTIE Well I have to say, I’m amazed by the turnout for Dyab Abou Jahjah here in the Hague. I’m told this college lecture hall sits 550 – and tonight it’s completely packed out, and there’s at least another 200 people watching him outside on a big screen. Most of the audience are students. Most seem to be Moslem and many of the girls are wearing headscarves. And what’s been happening is that they’ve been asking questions to Dyab Abou Jahjah, who’s dressed tonight in a rather hip black t-shirt and jacket and answering in fluent Dutch. From what I can gather, the topics range from Abou Jahjah’s ambitions for his Arab European League to his views on homosexuality and women’s rights. Now I wouldn’t say all the questions are friendly. But strolling around the stage with a cordless mike, Dyab Abou Jahjah’s been answering them all with all the confidence of a game-show host, with the odd joke here and there and always a disarming smile. And just as a performance, the audience seem to love it. MERIEL BEATTIE Well I’m now trying to speak to Abou Jahjah – I’ve been waiting for about 15 minutes outside his dressing room at the lecture hall and it’s quite extraordinary. Every two minutes or so the door is opened by a beefy bodyguard and there are hoards of giggling girls in muslim headscarves who want their programmes signed or their rail tickets signed or a sheet of newspaper signed by him and every so often little clusters of them are ushered into the dressing room and then they come out giggling and jumping and they run off down the corridor. So he’s clearly got the status here of some sort of rock star. I’m not sure whether he’s going to talk to me, though. DYAB ABOU JAHJAH’S MINDER You can have two minutes, then we’re leaving. Two minutes, a few questions, because you didn’t make an appointment. MERIEL BEATTIE Dyab - how would answer accusations that you have effectively hijacked attempts to bring Ariel Sharon to trial? And that you have actually been making out wrongly that it is your initiative? DYAB ABOU JAHJAH Well you know it’s ridiculous. The reality is that we initiated the whole procedure. And that we talked to the lawyer and that I was president of the Sabra and Chatila Committee. MERIEL BEATTIE But that’s not what Senator Van Quickenborne says. DYAB ABOU JAHJAH Well if he denies that I was president of the Sabra and Chatila Committee that he was supporting, then he’s lying. You know Vincent was working closely with the committee. Then we had an ideological break. I mean for us it’s a case against Israel, because for us Sharon is not just any individual, and we believed always that it was a political case. MERIEL BEATTIE Well what’s this about then, because this is something else I found, something from your website, and it says “On Monday the 18th of June, the Sabra and Chatila Committee, brackets, an initiative of the Arab European League, will launch its lawsuit against Ariel Sharon and so it continues… DYAB ABOU JAHJAH Yes… MERIEL BEATTIE So you say that this was 100% your initiative? DYAB ABOU JAHJAH No. The Sabra and Chatila Committee – that is an initiative of the AEL, CODEP and many Arab and Belgian individuals – if you read, you have to read right – come on. MERIEL BEATTIE So you reject the accusation that you have basically hijacked it for your own publicity? DYAB ABOU JAHJAH I will give you a tip, and then you can check it yourself. Check the press conference of the 18 June of the Sabra and Chatila Committee that launched the case and check who was the contact person for the press conference, and who was the president of the committee. I mean, I was the president of the Sabra and Chatila Committee and I still am. Only it split into two groups, like the Arabs went in one line and the Belgians went in another line. And for us we want to politicise it, because the most important thing from this case is to pass the political message that Israel is a racist state, and that it’s executing massacres. That’s the most important element of this case and that’s what we want to say. MERIEL BEATTIE Sitting on the Eurostar back to London, I’ve been trying to figure out what to make of the Abou Jahjah phenomenon. Is he really about to become the voice of Europe’s disenchanted Arab communities? Or is he simply a populist one-hit wonder who’ll burn out pretty quickly? I suppose I feel that what becomes of Dyab Abou Jahjah himself might not even matter that much. What is important are the grievances he’s tapped into, grievances felt not just in Belgium but in Britain, and any other European country where Arab or other Moslem communities are feeling threatened and frustrated by the war against terror, by the success of right-wing parties and by a new hostility towards immigration. What Dyab Abou Jahjah has done is to expose a very raw nerve. And it’s a nerve that mainstream politicians, whether in Antwerp, The Hague, London, Oldham or elsewhere, would be unwise to ignore.