 Dyab Abou Jahjah Let's start by distinguishing between riots and looting. Looters are thieves. Looting is not the same as rioting. Looters prey on riots and take advantage of the chaos. They have no other motive, they are not angry—they are cynical and indifferent. During moments of great unrest and confusion, parasites like looters always emerge. But it’s not just the looters; politicians also prey on riots by either condemning them excessively or by supporting them. They score points with their voters. The media do the same, eagerly exploiting such events with their biased reporting, exaggerated statements in talk shows, and clickbait headlines. Often, they are only interested in what it means for their business model. Just like the looters, but on a different scale.
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 I do not know if it is an honour I should claim, but I believe that I am the first person to have introduced the term decolonisation into the national public debate in Belgium, not in relation to the liberation of the colonies in the third world, but in function of what was known in the early years 2000 as the “integration and immigrant debate”.
 By Dyab Abou Jahjah
“ I went for a stroll downtown the other day, you can barely recognise the city with all these foreigners everywhere, it felt as if I was in another country”. I remember this conversation with my Lebanese neighbour in Sidon, as if it was yesterday. It was 2013, I was still living in Lebanon back then, and I was still fully in the anti-racist activist mindset. So of course, I started preaching about tolerance and how we are all human beings. Since my neighbour was complaining about Syrian refugees I also added that we are all Arabs to my speech. Looking back with some more perspective, I realise that my response to my neighbour was a bit arrogant and on the limit of insolence. Of course we are all human beings, my neighbour was aware of that and does not need me to imply that he did not recognise the humanity of the Syrian refugees. And of course Syrians and Lebanese are as close as Flemish and Dutch, culturally, linguistically and historically, my neighbour knew that as well. Yet what he did that day was expressing a genuine sentiment that many Lebanese share since the massive influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon end of 2011 and in the years that followed.  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." 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
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 significant part of the soundtrack of my life. But above all, more than his music—at times overly harmonic to be truly enjoyable—it is Cohen the poet who interests me the most. Alongside Mahmoud Darwish and Nizar Qabbani, his poetry has shaped me both politically and spiritually. Cohen was deeply political, and I am not referring to that brief moment in his life when he performed for Israeli troops during the 1973 war in Sinai. The Cohen who sought to rediscover his Jewish identity by posing for a picture with a mass murderer like Ariel Sharon was merely a fleeting phase in the life of a far more complex and profound soul.  In January 2017, after the Jerusalem truck attack, I stated on social media that Palestinians have the right to liberate their occupied land by any means necessary. The pro-Israel lobby immediately pounced, twisting my words into an endorsement of terrorism and launching a pressure campaign to have me silenced. De Standaard caved to the outrage machine and terminated my column, proving once again that the boundaries of “acceptable” debate are drawn by those who fear any challenge to their narrative. The first political conversation I ever had was at the age of four. I remember sitting on the porch of our village house in Hanine, South Lebanon, with my mother. It was a sunny day, and we were resting in the shade of our fig tree. The peaceful flow of natural sounds and warm sunlight was only interrupted by the distant thrumming of helicopters emerging from behind the surrounding hills.
My mother wanted us to go back inside, but I resisted. She then said, “Dyab, the Israeli helicopters are coming nearby. It’s safer to be inside.” I remember asking her why—why was it safer? My mother replied, “Because these are wicked men, and they might shoot at us.” A few months later, the wicked men did shoot at us.  By Dyab Abou Jahjah
Yesterday, a truck ran over Israeli occupation soldiers in occupied Jerusalem, killing four soldiers and injuring several others. The driver was a Palestinian father of three. If one were to read Western newspapers and news outlets, the prevailing narrative is that this was a “terrorist” attack targeting Israelis. Fake news is not confined to social media; it is frequently propagated through the bias of mainstream media. This version of the story does not merely obscure the reality of the occupation—it actively defends it by equating Palestinian resistance with terrorism. In response, I stated that the Palestinian people have the right to liberate their occupied land by any means they deem necessary. This was immediately seized upon by pro-Israel forces within the Flemish nationalist right wing, who distorted my words into an endorsement of terrorism. Even Theo Francken, a Secretary of State in the federal government, reacted hysterically on Twitter, accusing me of glorifying ISIS terrorism and calling for my dismissal as a newspaper columnist. People who liked my Facebook post were also subjected to threats and intimidation. Therefore, I want to clarify the following ten points, hoping they will be helpful to those confronted with similar accusations and distortions.  By Dyab Abou Jahjah
"The terrorists want to destroy our way of life" or "they hate us because of who we are"—these are the most commonly held explanations offered by Western politicians and opinion makers when addressing attacks in Europe. However, a closer analysis of the vision and ideology of ISIS, based on primary sources and its own literature, reveals that this narrative does not hold up.  Together with Etienne Vermeersch in one of our many TV debates At first, I thought about not responding to Etienne Vermeersch's latest reply to me in the DM of January 22. Mainly because I did not see any new substantive arguments in it. He still doesn’t get it and keeps coming back with half-truths based on Google searches and a single book on his shelf.
Vermeersch still fails to understand that my argument regarding the concept of jihad in the Quran—as being open to multiple interpretations—cannot be refuted by writings outside the Quran. However, because his claim is not only false but also dangerous—especially given that many young Muslims and non-Muslims are following this discussion and may come to the conclusion that jihad as aggression to spread the faith is a mainstream position in Islamic doctrine, when it is not—I have decided to once again clarify a few key points. |
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