Speech delivered in Riyadh September 17
Senator
French Senate
Your Highness, Excellency, and Ladies and Gentlemen:
I had already prepared my speech before but decided to change it overnight.
The socio-political changes within the youth communities in France and many European countries like UK, Denmark, Belgium as well as other non-European countries like Canada and US has reached a critical situation.
Young Muslims and non-Muslims who have converted into Islam for the sake of a crusade In Iraq and Syria are crossing Turkish borders to join ISIL.
Today there are more than 1000 French citizens including teenage girls are in Iraq for Jihad.
What are they looking for? Family, identity, better education, prosperity, violence, crusade and so on and so forth..
They do not recognize the Republic and the democratic values that are offered to all of our citizens and do not consider our society as theirs. They deny our values and do not want to be part of it. This concept is spreading like a cancer and we have not so far been able to cure it effectively.
I will try to develop some ideas as to the root cause of this problem and pin them without specific orders and may be that helps to find some kind of a solution.
As General de Gaulle wrote in his memoires and I quote “In 1929 I flew to the complicated Middle East with some simple ideas. I felt that some essential events were taking place in this area and wanted to be part of it”. The situation is almost the same now, in this most vitally important area of the world. I will follow general de Gaulle with humility and will focus on some very simple ideas.
1- Is the situation any worse than pre 9/11?
The answer is yes! Because Syria, Iraq and Libya, were real sovereign states where today we find chaos, destructions, partition of territories, rogue states and states on the verge of collapse. There are also some areas without governance called GREY ZONE without any direction as if they have lost their compass that makes DAESH a viable alternative to fill the political vacuum.
2- Those responsible for this chaos have to fix it.
At this stage I must thank Jacques Chirac for his independent foreign policy for not getting involved in an illegal war in Iraq which we as French are most proud of. United States andRussia are responsible for the Syrian crisis by failing to analyze the root cause of Syrian problem to find a viable solution. Instead, Syria became proxy of conflicts that had nothing to do with the real problem. The indecision on quick fix was major cause of pushing the contagion into Iraq that is making all of us the potential victims of this epidemic chaos.
3- The lack of credibility in international law.
Do we have international law anymore? I am of course talking about Palestine and the unbearable double standard policy. The international immunity that Israel enjoys has encouraged her to label any anti racial and anti-apartheid criticism as anti-Semitic. This immunity is the card that Israel holds in her hand and is not afraid to use it again and against the guilty Europe and the United States that is paralyzed by incrimination of anti-Semitism and unable to criticize Israel’s apartheid and unfair policies. This double standard stands out to Muslims all over the world. We have seven million Muslims in France and the conflict in Palestine has a direct effect on social harmony and even alienation of young Muslims in addition to their failure to integrate into our society. There is also the failure to understand the principal of secularism despite all our educational tools; therefore lot of young Muslims do not see themselves as part of the Republic and its values and still look for an identity in crusade.
4- How can we explain that the world’s intelligence apparatus’s failure to predict Arab Spring, Ukrainian crisis and Daesh terror group.
It is high time that we get rid of all these so called ”Experts” that they could not predict any of these events ahead of time and even not a day before despite all facilities and intelligence mechanism at their disposal. Where is the accountability? Frankly speaking these nightmarish events did not happen overnight. We need to have more cooperation in all fields. Fortunately we are currently on the right track as a result of Riyadh agreement with GCC countries, Egypt, and Jordan and the Paris conference of two days ago. Speaking of cooperation, I regret the absence of representative from Turkey. They are in the neighborhood of ISIL and their borders have more holes than a Swiss cheese through which extremists travel to Syria and Iraq. Why there are no official representatives from the Islamic Republic of Iran? If they are part of any problem, they can surely be part of the solution. Isn’t this a best time to build the trust?
At this juncture let me emphasize on some changes in our thought process mechanism to find the answer to the problem.
WE need:
- More cooperation
Try to pass a law against Extremists propaganda machine on the internet and block, hack, and disrupt their programs. This seems difficult but we all know that it is doable.
- More cooperation between our intelligence services.
I do not need to elaborate on this.
- More cooperation to duplicate same actions,
I read that about 30 TV channel are broadcasting propagandas against terrorism and extremism. This is good and must be expanded.
- Put more into education
As a politician, a woman and a mother I know the value of education. Everypenny invested in educating our children is a good investment for the future
I have seen it and experienced it with programs that have been launched by his Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Bin Mobarak of UAE as Education without Border. These educations include teaching of the religion and social integration and stops extremists to abuse Islam.
- Revitalize international laws to abolish double standard.
I mentioned earlier that we must all help to restore international law by asking our most important ally The United States of America to put an end to humiliation of people of Palestine by restoring and implementing the laws of United Nations without being influenced by Jewish lobby.
We need to give dignity to oppressed people all over the world so that they do not follow the fantasy world of groups like Daesh.
In conclusion:
Today’s conference must have a follow up. We need to establish a mechanism of exchange and evaluation of our policies. We also need to share all our experiences with each other to be able to copy more effective tools against the common enemy.
For the purpose of this conference Riyadh is the right place to meet and make a fair evaluation maybe be in 3 months’ time.
Thank you for your attention