![amadine jahad amadine jahad](https://speckyboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Sveta-Sebyakina2.jpg)
![amadine jahad amadine jahad](https://telecharge-magazines.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/La-Medecine-de-Maimonide-251x300.jpg)
The nation of just over 11 million people has seen more than 440 citizens travel to Syria to fight, the highest number per capita of all Western countries, according to King's College International Center for the Study of Radicalization. The exodus of youth to join Islamist insurgents in the Middle East is an extremely sensitive topic in Belgium. Teri Schultz for NPR Belgian actor Shark Carrera, who plays a Lebanese Christian in the play Djihad, talks with students from the Collège Notre Dame de Bon Secours in Binche, Belgium, after a performance on Jan. "They thought we were a threat, actually." "They didn't want to even write the name 'Djihad' in their cultural ," Lucile Poulain says. "'Are they going to talk about terrorism? Bombs?'"īefore its premiere in December 2014, Djihad's public relations director couldn't even get journalists to answer the phone. "People were scared at the beginning," he recalls. 13 Paris terror attacks, Saïdi knew exactly what he was doing.Īs shocking as the title may seem, the play is a comedy. "As an artist," Saïdi says, "it was important for me to say that we can use any word" - regardless of whether it is sacred for some.Īs a leading Muslim voice advocating integration in a city that produced several perpetrators of the Nov. In the wake of the Brussels bombing, we are republishing it now.īelgian playwright Ismaël Saïdi says he didn't choose the title of his latest work, Djihad (the French spelling of "jihad"), just to provoke people. "We have a problem," Belgian Muslim playwright Ismaël Saïdi said at the time, referring to the radicalization of young Muslims. Editor's Note: This story was originally published on Jan.