Dyab Abou Jahjah

Dyab Abou Jahjah (Born: Lebanon, 24 June 1971) is an Arab political activist who came from Lebanon to Belgium as an asylum seeker. He is the founder and leader of the Arab European League (AEL), a Pan-Arabist movement which claims to struggle for Muslim immigrant interests in Europe. Abou Jahjah is the son of two university lecturers. He was born and grew up southern Lebanon in Hanin which is a few kilometers from the Lebanese-Israeli border. He was a member of the Hezbollah movement.

He requested asylum from Belgium in 1991, claiming that he was fleeing Lebanon due to conflict with leaders of the Hezbollah. In 1996 he became a Belgian citizen by marrying a Belgian woman from which he soon divorced.

He later said in a newspaper interview that he had claimed asylum only to trick Belgian authorities and that he simply wanted to leave Lebanon like many other young Lebanese. His wife claimed that she had been tricked into the marriage and tried unsuccessfully to sue him.

He holds a degree in political science from the Université catholique de Louvain.

Abou Jahjah is an outspoken opponent of assimilation. He wants immigrants to be treated as full citizens that can keep their own culture, rather than being treated as guests. He says he is inspired by the American human rights activist Malcolm X, who was also a Muslim and also opposed assimilation and the melting pot model of integration. He sees the integration of Armenians in Lebanon as the ideal model.

In 2000 Abou Jahjah founded the Arab European League in Antwerp, a city with a large Muslim population, as well as a considerable Jewish population. Vlaams Belang, an anti-immigration party was then the largest party in the city council of Antwerp. Abou Jahjah was arrested and detained for several days in 2002 after he allegedly organized riots and called for violence. The riots broke out after a 27-year old Belgian-Moroccan was shot by his Flemish neighbor. The claims against Jahjah are disputed: he was involved in the protests, but he does not seem to have organized them.

Jahjah received a lot of criticism in Belgium for certain of his political ideas and comments. Amongst other things, he has urged Flemish people to adapt to Muslims instead of the other way around, and he pleaded for making Arabic the fourth official language in Belgium (besides the three official languages Dutch, French and German). Some of his ideas are less controversial. He has pleaded for Islamic schools in Belgium, and he has pointed out that wearing the headscarf should be a question of free choice for Muslim women.

In the Netherlands, Abou Jahjah had a row with columnist and film director Theo van Gogh, who was known for grieving Islamic people. After Van Gogh insulted Abou Jahjah by calling him "de pooier van de profeet" ("the pimp of the prophet") in front of a large public, Abou Jahjah left the room. The organisers of the debate sent Van Gogh away, but Abou Jahjah refused to continue the debate with politician Boris Dittrich.

Abou Jahjah was candidate for AEL for the Belgian parliamentary elections in 2003, but the AEL got no seats. Early 2006 Abou Jahjah announced that he will not be leading the AEL any longer, nor hold any leadership post within the movement. He was involved in the creation of a new political party called MDP (Moslim Democratische Partij or "Muslim Democratic Party"), where he also stayed in the background.

In July 2006 he announced that he will be going to Lebanon to participate in the battle against the Israeli forces. In response, Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter called on the Belgian government to revoke Abou Jahjah's citizenship.

He published an autobiography titled "Between Two Worlds - the Roots of a Freedom Fight".

External links

• [1], Dyab in his own words
• Belgium's Malcolm X, AEL Website
• The Many Faces Of Islam, Time, December 16, 2002
• An Outspoken Arab in Europe: Demon or Hero?, New York Times, March 1, 2003
• Dyab Abou Jahjah (in Dutch)
• Website AEL