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| By Editorial Staff, May 09, 2006 |
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| Q: "Full Sails Ahead" seems to have the wind in its sails, as you have just come back from the US. But first of all, has your departure produced any reactions from the Makhzen as is its wont?
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| A: No reaction, the Makhzen has perhaps decided to… get used to my travels. |
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| Q: This visit to the US has caused a lot of ink to flow and loosened many tongues. Do you think it is precisely the time and place that would have been the cause? |
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| A: I travel to Europe, to America and to the Arab countries. Some people have wished to zoom in on America to sell sensational stories. Now, I am going to Greece. Will anyone talk about it then? |
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| Q: Let’s talk anyway about America if you don’t mind. For the common run of people, the US is the country of the Neo-conservatives: is it a simplistic view or a reality? |
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| A: It’s absolutely simplistic. I was myself invited by some universities wherein the American foreign policy is vehemently criticized, and sometimes even rejected adamantly. |
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| Q: Have you managed to voice your opinion about this American policy? |
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| A: A great deal. I will answer your question by the following anecdote: soon as I arrived there, I was asked what my first impressions were about this country. I said that I was very glad, and I kept saying “very glad”. To the great wonder of my interlocutors, I added that I was very glad to be really in a university because a person like me who has just come to the US might well find herself in Guantanamo without a fair trial. I went on to say: “No, America is not the State of that so-much proclaimed freedom. They must stop the massacre in Iraq." |
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| Q: But is it not attempting the impossible to tell a power that is flying into a towering rage for conquest to stop?? |
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| A: It is not only attempting the impossible; it’s an attempt to do the dangerously correct ... to use the logic of Nietzsche! |
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| Q: Let’s talk about some powerful moments in your talks. |
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| A: In New York, at Fordham University, an American of Pakistani origins asked me: "What can we do as Americans to help the Muslims in the world?" I said: "Start first with being the best ambassadors of Islam in this country because decision-making here has a global impact." |
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| Q: There is still a leeway for freedom in America to take what you have just said. |
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| A: Anyway, I was not prosecuted for my anti-Bush opinions, and I am still invited back again. |
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| Q: You’re ruling out then the hypothesis of plots concocted behind the scenes. However, isn’t the US making sheep’s eyes at some Islamist movements? |
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| A: If the US is making sheep’s eyes to them, it is certainly not for their beautiful eyes. The Americans are pragmatic people and they have their projects for the GME. |
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| Q: I would like to insist on a particular question. How can a French-speaking mind get a message across to an Anglo-Saxon mind? |
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| A: I had to adapt myself; the Americans appreciate discourses that are straightforward, accurate, concise, relevant, and specialized. I think they have left their marks on me as you may have noticed it. |
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| Q: Harvard is the territory of Henry Kissinger, who has just delivered his doctrine on the preventive war, a doctrine that is disquieting to say the least since any reference to the international law is excluded...Do you think that you have created a sort of top-level intellectual diversion during your passage in Harvard in view of the steamroller of the US foreign policy? |
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| A: Anyway, with this "diversion" I will have forewarned them... |
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| Q: About what? |
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| A: About democracy, not that of Tocqueville’s America, but about democracy in the Arab countries! Who knows? The Arabs will perhaps one day teach a lesson of democracy to the West? Is it also prohibited to dream? |
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| Q: After pragmatic America you are heading for Greece, the country of myths... |
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| A: I will go there to look more closely if they exist... We’ll talk about that, God willing!A: I will go there to look more closely if they exist... We’ll talk about that, God willing! |
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