Zero tolerance for Arab activists
Racism killed a Moroccan in Belgium, but the establishment wants someone else's head. Amira Howeidy investigates the case of Belgium's Malcolm X
Two men of Arab origin are causing quite a stir in Belgium. One is Mohamed Ashrak, a 27-year-old Islamic religion teacher of Moroccan origin, whose fame was established when Constant Van Linden, a 66-year-old Belgian pensioner, shot him dead on 26 November. The killing sparked two days of violent riots and clashes between police and several hundred young protesters, mostly of Moroccan origin, in northern Antwerp's Borgerhout district.
Although racism was the immediately apparent motive for the murder, Belgian investigators are putting forward the convenient possibility of mental disorder as a motivation. Nearly 160 protesters were arrested.
The second man is Lebanese-born Dyab Abou Jahjah, president of the Arab European League (AEL), an organisation active in defending the civil rights of Arabs in Europe. Abou Jahjah, 31, was arrested in connection with the riots on 28 November following an impressive hunt during which several police patrols assisted by a helicopter searched the streets of Antwerp to locate his car, although he wasn't in hiding. Police also raided his residence and seized documents found there. But this is how the Belgian authorities decided to crackdown on the man now dubbed "de Belgische Malcolm X"". Abou Jahjah was charged with criminal association, being an accomplice to public disorder while showing arms, deliberately blocking traffic, destroying vehicles and assaulting and wounding a police officer.
An AEL statement described the accusations as "baseless and unfounded". If Abou Jahjah played a role in the riots, it said, "it was in attempting to contain the anger and restore calm.. No one but the murderer and the Belgian authorities are responsible for the sorrowful events that followed Ashrak's murder. Holding Abou Jahjah responsible for this exposes the inability to deal with the situation and the desire to look for a scapegoat."
The far-right controlled media launched a vicious defamation campaign that shifted attention from Ashrak's murder to the arrest of Abou Jahjah and diverted the debate on racism towards AEL.
Due to apparently insufficient evidence against Abou Jahjah, a Tuesday court hearing ordered his release on condition that he does not participate in any public demonstrations for the next three months, a move which led the AEL to believe the release order was politically motivated.
The speedy rise of AEL as a movement and Abou Jahjah's outspoken, politically incorrect views on the situation of the Arab community in Belgium, which won the media's attention over the past six months, have provoked the far-right and, most recently, shocked the government. AEL's recent alliance with the far left and the anti-globalists in organising activities to protest war on Iraq boosted the movement's presence as it won new political partners. On 3 November, the trio organised a demonstration against the US-led war on Iraq in which 6,000 people participated. They are scheduled to hold another protest on 19 January.
Observers say it is no coincidence that the government's frustration with AEL and its firebrand president was voiced just before Abou Jahjah's arrest. The country's interior minister had said that if AEL cannot be charged under existing laws, new laws would be created. Guy Verhofstadt, Belgium's prime minister, vowed to crack down on AEL and said the government was considering banning the group, which he described as a criminal network. "The league is trying to terrorise the city," he told parliament, accusing the AEL of trying to set up no-go areas for Antwerp police. He vowed to introduce a "zero tolerance" policy towards the group.
Meanwhile, in an effort to reveal what the AEL says is racist behaviour on the part of the Belgian police, the organisation has begun video patrols to film the police in Antwerp. The patrols came in response to the police's decision to launch an action plan targeting Arab quarters in Antwerp from 15 November to 15 January, the period when crime rates soar. The obvious implication is that a certain ethnic group, the Arabs, were seen as responsible for these crimes.
For its small membership -- estimated at a few hundred -- AEL's impact is quite large. Its popularity seems to be growing among the nearly 400,000 people that make up the Arab community in the kingdom. Speaking out against racism and discrimination against Arabs, the movement has called for equal rights in housing, education and employment. Its leader was quoted as saying that Arabic should be introduced as a fourth language in Belgium, although the group denies it ever made such a demand.
AEL first came into the limelight when it submitted a complaint to the Belgian courts in June 2001 against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, accusing him of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for his role in the 1982 massacre of Sabra and Shatilla during Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
More recently, however, Abou Jahjah made headlines when he announced his decision to contest the coming June 2003 legislative elections. Ahmed Azzuz, head of AEL's Antwerp chapter, reiterated on Monday that the organisation will present an electoral list.
Almost 30,000 residents of Arab origin live in Antwerp, where the Belgian far-right opposition Vlaams Blok Party won 33 per cent of the votes in the last municipal elections.
Ashrak's murder and Abou Jahjah's subsequent arrest mirror a state of mutual frustration between the Arab immigrant community and the establishment. But they also brought to the fore issues that were never accorded importance, let alone discussed, in Belgian politics. Indeed, the Belgian prime minister (who criminalised AEL last week) on Monday announced the government's "will" to open a dialogue with the Muslim and Moroccan communities on such issues as Islamophobia and discrimination. And on the main Sunday political talk show, the Flemish Green Party and the Socialists called for a new "pact with the immigrants".
"Abou Jahjah's arrest and the campaign on AEL served us well," Kamal Awaly, AEL board member and treasurer, told the Weekly. "It basically increased our popularity." The movement, he argued, succeeded in opening the file of the immigrants, Arabs and non- Arabs alike. "They're marginalised and suppressed and they can't get decent jobs or housing. So there was a problem. We pushed it to the fore and now it's the subject of public debate," he said.
Awaly believes the campaign against AEL and its president was sparked by the movement's popularity, which he said is fuelled by what he termed the "house Negroes" or the Arab MPs. The other reason, he said, is Abou Jahjah's decision to contest the elections. "The campaign against us is exposing us to the world, even if it's in a negative way. But now they are prepared to deal with us and open a dialogue," he said. Awaly's house was searched by police on Sunday and documents and his computers were seized.
Abou Jahjah "is a hero; a political martyr", AEL's Azzuz was quoted as saying. Outside the Antwerp courthouse Tuesday where Abou Jahjah's hearing was taking place, AEL members covered their mouths during a protest demanding freedom of expression. And in Ashrak's funereal on Friday, mourners shouted "Jahjah". Belgium's controversial Arab leader might, after all, be the most exciting news in the coming elections.
