CAIRO INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS STUDIES
In Special Consultative Status with UN, ECOSOC
ASSIMILATION OR DEPORTATION:
ARABS IN EUROPE AND THEIR STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
Dyab Abou Jahjah
cihrs.org
Excerpt:
Europe suffers from selective amnesia, on the one hand it will never forget the Holocaust, never forget even the eleventh of September, but Algeria, Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq are all too often forgotten.
The new Europe is trying, however, to cut a new deal with the world. It is trying to be the enlightened partner of the unique super power. It is always looking for nuances, for that good middle way, and often to the frustration of the American big brother and its loyal lackey in London. Europe is playing an important role in what it calls development cooperation, building partnerships with its southern neighbors that are useful, even though they are far from being a structural solution to any problem. That enlightened Europe that is propagated mainly through the institutions of the European Union is supposed to bring a message of tolerance and broadmindedness to the world and help healing the wounds of conflicts and war. Nevertheless, one might wonder if this new message that Europe wants to bring to the world and the role that Europe wants to claim are not a modern-day version of the infamous "white man's burden" of the past centuries. It is legitimate to pose this question since ethnocentrism still stains policies and minds in the old continent.
[snip]
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