Moussem

“The city is the smallest society that can be perfect or virtuous and lead to happiness for its inhabitants.” Taking this quote from the Islamic thinker Al-Farabi as its starting point, Moussem Nomadic Arts Centre, in collaboration with deBuren, is organising a series of five discussion evenings on living together in the city with its diverse communities and beliefs. Each time, we focus on the ideas of a major Islamic thinker, reflect on a specific theme and invite an artist to articulate their vision of the virtuous city.

50 years of Belgian Islam

In 2014, we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the presence of migrants from Islamic countries such as Morocco and Turkey. Whilst they were initially welcomed as guest workers, they subsequently became migrants; a little later, their ethnicity came to the fore and they were labelled as Turks and Moroccans, after which the term ‘allochtonen’ (immigrants) gained traction. Since the 1990s, we have been referring to them as Muslims. Suddenly, the religious pillar of their identity came to the fore. During this third edition, we will reflect on this evolution together with a number of local thinkers.

Programme:

Meryem Kanmaz holds a PhD in social and political sciences and has conducted research into mosques and the formation of religious organisations among Muslim minorities in the diaspora. She is also one of the founders of MANA, the Centre of Expertise for Islamic Cultures in Flanders; she is the author of Islamic Spaces in the City and co-author of Newly Built Mosques in Flanders. She examines the collective religious organisation of Muslims from Morocco and Turkey and how wider society reacted to the increasingly visible religion of migrants. In her lecture, she also reflects on how the migrant community itself dealt with this.

BREAK

Introductory video by Tariq Ramadan (Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University) on European Islam.

Panel discussion between Fouad Gandoul (political scientist and secretary of Empowering Belgian Muslims vzw), Maryam H'Madoun (economist, Muslim woman and activist) and Houssin Ben Hadach (bank clerk, board member and spokesperson for the Berchem mosque). Iman Lechkar (anthropologist) will moderate the discussion.

We will conclude with Bart Van Nuffelen of the Martha Tentatief discussing The Virtuous City.

As usual, Layla El Dekmak will guide us through this packed evening.