KS-PATH, US Embassy in beach cleanup
KUWAIT: US Ambassador to Kuwait Lawrence Silverman takes part in a rubbish collection drive organized by the Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat (KS-PATH) and the US Embassy along the Sulaibikhat beachfront yesterday. The objective was to preserve the natural environment and clean the sanctuary of migratory birds.
Multiculturalism in Europe is a reality and not a myth. Immigration is in fact a big success in countries like Belgium where immigrants have become ministers, journalists, teachers, doctors. But no one talks about them because they are just ordinary people and don’t attract media’s attention. Integration and cultural diversity in Europe where the main topics discussed on Sunday and Monday by Belgian writer of Algerian origin Malika Madi during two conferences, the first at Shaheed Park the latter at Kuwait University.
The author was invited by the Embassy of Belgium in the framework of the Francophone days to discuss her experience as an author and woman of Belgian Algerian origins. The Francophone days also coincided with the first commemoration of the victims of the Brussels attacks of 22/3/16, when young Belgian citizens of Moroccan origins detonated bombs in the airport and in ametro station killing 32 people and injuring many others. ”The idea to have someone like Malika Madi to represent Belgium during the Francophone days is very important as she represents the positivity of diversity”, said Ambassador Andy Detaille.
Malika Madi was born in the late 60’s in Wallonia, the francophone and southern part of Belgium, and she never felt a stranger, on the contrary she has always felt part of the country where she was born. Today she is a writer of success: She has written four novels, different essays, theatre plays and is currently working on a documentary about her origins in a context of migration. She also works in secondary schools in Wallonia and Brussels promoting the debate and raising-awareness on issues related to cultural diversity and immigration. Her aim is to bring people from different communities together.
“My parents came from Kabilya and after the independence of ‘62 they emigrated to work in the mines of Wallonia. Like Malika’s father many other immigrants, especially from Italy, Turkey and Morocco, settled massively in Belgium for the same reason. They all arrived with the will of returning to their country of origin and prepared their children to this perspective. The clear majority of second generation immigrants never returned home as planned by their parents. “I am Belgian, I was born in Belgium, I had all my friends there, embraced my Belgian identity and unconsciously merged it with the Algerian one. I had found equilibrium and I really had a problem with the idea of return”, Malika explains.
If second generations thought to have solved the identity problems, a rupture within society happened with the 9/11 attacks of 2001. The third generations, at the time just teenagers, felt like the enemy, treated as terrorists. “This third generation is a victim of 9/11 and of the ignorance of people who tend to generalize and consider Muslims as the enemy. Today the same teenagers that witnessed 9/11 are people among 25 and 30 years old who face a conflict of identities.”
Second generations like Malika, grew up in harmony with other communities, they were integrated. “My parents always told me to be discreet, to behave because we were just guests in Belgium. We had to be good citizens and students. We grew up with the idea not to revendicate our identity. Third generations, instead, want to revendicate it and tend to victimize themselves. And I find it unjustbecause we live in a country with its own history”, Madi adds. As she works in schools she always tells young people of immigrant origins to stop acting as victims of racism.
Regardless of the differences, the writer thinks that Belgians should work together in order to favor tolerance and defend diversity instead of alienating thecommunities of second and third generations of immigrants who are not fully integrated. “We have young people in Belgium that are completely cut out from the reality, that don’t feel Belgians, as it happens in municipalities like Molenbeek. Situated in the region of Brussels, it became notorious to the media as the city where the terrorists of Paris Brussels came from.
“The first time I went to MolenbeekI had a shock, I found myself in a second Morocco.This is what we did wrong: we lacked vision to integrate these people, politicians never thought that one day these children would become adults and live forever in Belgium, instead they allowed the creation of social ghettos.” Therefore, there is an enormous work of education to be done with younger generations which has finally started after the attacks of Brussels of last year. “We need to teach third generations their history andreligion. Moreover, we should train our imams to counter the spread of radical ideas and create a European Islam. We don’t haveto change Islam but we really need to reform it.”