|
| January 20 2006 |
|
|
|
| We publish here some answers by Nadia Yassine to questions asked by professor Maati Monjib who gave a lecture entitled “political action and biography of Nadia Yassine” at the "university of Florida’s center for African studies" on January 20th, 2006.Nadia Yassine’s responses and her message to the audience were translated into English by Professors Leonardo Villalon and Maati Monjib. |
|
|
| Maati Monjib: At which period of your life did you become an Islamist activist? Do you find the term “Islamic activist” accurate to describe you? |
|
| Mrs. Nadia Yassine: Thank you for your interest. With the goal of promoting objectivity and a well-executed academic work, I am happy to respond to your questions. |
|
| I began to be interested in the political dimension of Islam when one morning some very unappealing policemen rushed into our home and abducted my father. He disappeared for four years. I was fifteen years old. That day I shifted completely from a youthful indifference to a life of responsibility and action. It was the year when my father addressed his famous open letter to the king of Morocco, in which he ordered the king to choose between the promotion of a just society, such as that advocated by Islam, and an inevitable “political deluge.” |
|
| I don’t think the label of “Islamic militant” fits me, because I know it is loaded with negative and violent connotations. The movement I belong to has sufi roots and a spiritual agenda which serve as a protective barrier against any deviations. And if Islam is our reference point it is because, beyond considering it a historical fact, it is a message that gives meaning to mankind. It is from this very Islam which the regimes have taken from us that we have derived the principle of non-violent resistance. I would thus say that we are Muslims who have a sense of responsibility and who have been awakened to our faith and our history. It is true that this definition does not fit the needs of the media. |
|
|
| M. Monjib: What would you like to tell the audience in Florida? |
|
| Mrs. Nadia Yassine: September 11 is not the expression of a so-called clash of civilizations but that of a blind and growing anger all over the world against unfair policies.Those who present the conflict as an issue of East-West (Oriental and Western) relations, want to make people forget that the true issue is a North-South one. If Islam is involved in this question it's, first of all, because it has been used as an "ideology of combat" and also because, statistically, the Muslim World is the one that has been most affected by the imperialism of certain world powers and, at an earlier period, by colonialism. |
|
| I believe that the US intelligentsia has a sacred duty to involve itself more in politics and to be aware that being a super-power entails having super-responsibilities. It's absolutely necessary to defend the conscience of the average American from the mediocrity in which political manipulators attempts to keep it. Democracy can only benefit from this, and hence world peace as well. |
|
|
