 By Dyab Abou Jahjah "Samuel Paty's cause is my cause, and should be the cause of any citizen who loves freedom. Paty was not Islamophobic, he taught his students important values of tolerance and proportionality. The fact that some people cannot see him as a victim is also a reflection of the rise of dogmatic sectarianism and tribalism."
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Dyab Abou Jahjah @aboujahjah  The events unfolding in the United States of America, and the growing momentum for the #BlackLivesMatter movement, are a welcomed development for people, such as myself, who were on the barricades fighting racism for decades in Europe. However, the anti-racist struggle should remain a struggle for equality and human rights, and not be transformed into an elitist and dogmatic discourse on why one identity is good and the other one is bad.
Dyab Abou Jahjah  Many have been sending me messages saying that they believe the solution for the police brutality problem in the US to be new legislation and not riots.
I agree with them. Riots are never a solution, but could they be a tool to force one?  Soleimani kissing the head of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah Dyab Abou Jahjah
Like many people with roots in the Middle East, the assassination of Qassim Soleimani in Baghdad last week literally kept me awake at night. My parents live in Lebanon, as do many other family members and friends. So when something like this happens, the most important question for me is: Will there be war? Will my parents, family members and friends suffer as a result? This gives a political analysis another dimension that transcends curiosity. That's why I was working on this every day. I called many people, and chatted with even more. Mainly people I knew well when I was very close to the leadership of the Lebanese Hezbollah between 2006 and 2012, up to my break with them due to their interference in the Syrian war and their support for the Syrian regime. Most people from Hezbollah are therefore no longer on "speaking terms" with me since then, but there are always exceptions. Most of the people I have spoken with had questions rather than answers, and tried to analyse and speculate. A few of them had already met Soleimani and knew how the Iranian Leadership reasons. I never really met the man, but I saw him up close at a conference in Tehran in 2008 when he passed next to me and a Hezbollah MP with whom I was there told me, " This is Qassim Soleimani, the Imad Mughniyeh of Iran. " So who was Imad Mughniyeh and why am I convinced that the analogy between the two men holds the answer as to the nature of the Iranian response?  On the assassination of Qassem Suleimani and why Trump is a loose canon after all.
By Dyab Abou Jahjah Ever since Trumps election, many among us have kept their hands on their hearts. Such a fool at the top of the world's greatest military and economic power. An ego tripper who gains control of the kind of power with the potential to destroy the whole world. This seems like a scenario for the prequel to the Game of Thrones with the "mad king" as the central figure. And yet, since then, Trump has often shown that he was not very keen on using military power.  By Dyab Abou Jahjah
From the Mediterranean to Rio Grande, between a picture of drowned immigrants and their children and the next, our common humanity goes back to sleep. Waiting for the next opportunity to emit some sound bites, to comment and show indignation and verbal revolt. Then we regain our comfort zone. We do not need more tears and emotional tirades against injustice and inhumanity. And no it is not Trump causing this, the problem is much deeper. The problem lays in the structure of our world. A structure that is no more adapted to our reality or to the challenges we are facing.  Dyab Abou Jahjah
It is a bit odd to me that Leonard Cohen passed away few months ago without me writing about it. The man has composed a big part of the soundtrack of my life. But above all, and more than his music that is at times over-harmonic to be enjoyable, Cohen the poet is what interests me the most. Together with that of Mahmood Darwich and Nizar Kabbani, his poetry influenced me both politically and spiritually. Cohen was very political, and I am not speaking about that moment in his life when he went to sing for the Israeli troops during the 1973 war in Sinai. That Cohen who thought to rediscover his Jewish identity by posing on a picture with a mass murderer like Ariel Sharon was just a short lived phase in the existence of a more sophisticated soul.  Dyab Abou Jahjah
“they have failed us, all of them” my friend told me with a tone that is not deprived of emotionality. Where are our politicians in the democratic parties? Where is the indignation and the mobilisation on political level against the “deportation law” of Theo Francken? A law that makes it possible to deport people born in Belgium, on basis of mere suspicion.  Dyab Abou Jahjah a été chroniqueur au Standaard entre Janvier 2014 et Janvier 2017 J’avais 4 ans lorsque j’eut ma première conversation politique. Ma mère et moi étions assis sur la terrasse de notre maison à Hanine, un village situé au Sud-Liban. C’était une journée ensoleillée et nous nous reposions à l’ombre de notre figuier. Par moments, les sons paisibles de la nature étaient interrompus par le bruit des hélicoptères qui vrombissaient derrière les collines. Ma mère voulut que l’on rentre à l’intérieur. Je protestais. « Dyab, insista-t-elle, les hélicoptères israéliens se rapprochent, c’est plus sûr à l’intérieur. » Je me souviens d’avoir demandé pourquoi. « Parce ce sont de mauvaises personnes, qui pourraient nous tirer dessus. », me répondit-elle. Quelques mois plus tard, ces mauvaises personnes nous prenaient effectivement pour cibles.
 Trump and his chief strategist Sreve Bannon Dyab Abou Jahjah “It is all about me”, Donald Trump must be thinking rightfully. No one can deny this, he is the most spoken about person on earth right now. While this is certainly very gratifying to the man himself, many of his critics are happy with it as well. Mostly his name is mentioned within a negative frame, and this is giving many people hope. They think that this awareness that is being created is paving the way for a victory against him. Some are already claiming that Trump is going down, that he will not finish his term in office, that he will be impeached or even assassinated. Predicting the future would be a very handy faculty to possess, and yet, people tend to mistake their hopes and wishes for facts, and this leads to devastating defeats. |
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