Increasingly squeezed between the foreign Ayatollahs of religious extremism and the Fouquier-Tinville of a pseudo-republican secularism, it is good sometimes to find oneself among true friends. This was certainly the case for those—Jews, Christians, and Muslims—who had accepted the invitation issued by the Jewish-Muslim Friendship Association of the Alpes-Maritimes and its dynamic president, Dr. Marouane Boulouednine.
Under the banner “Evening of Brotherhood,” the Lino Ventura Theater, located in the heart of the “sensitive” Ariane district, indeed hosted last Thursday numerous civil society actors: associative representatives, like Martine Ouaknine, former president of CRIF Sud-Est, a member of the board of AJM06 and candidate on the municipal list of Christian Estrosi in Nice. There were also religious figures such as Father Patrick Bruzzone, parish priest of St Pierre de l’Ariane, who is highly active socially in this neighborhood. Many local and national elected officials—Rudy Salles, Eric Ciotti, Patrick Allemand, Dominique Estrosi, Roger Roux—made the trip to support this fortunate initiative, centered around the screening of a Franco-Tunisian film by Férid Boughédir shot in 1996, admittedly a bit old but oh so symbolic: “A Summer at La Goulette.” This story, set on the eve of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, narrates the peaceful and intelligent cohabitation of three different religious families—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—in the same building in the seaside suburb of Tunis. Yet, it also foreshadows the predictable shock of the war and a more diffuse clash between evolving social mores and forms of religious radicalism. Symbolically, the unforgettable song by Lebanese diva Fayrouz “Habaitak” (“I loved you…”) can be heard as a painful and nostalgic echo of this region of the world before the era of chaos.
In his presentation of the evening, the president of AJM06 Marouane Boulouednine set the tone: mentioning the principle of a “Republic, one and indivisible,” he wished to make AJM06, “a bridge between all communities.” And he recalled that “unforgettable moment,” “the Iftar, this breaking of the fast during the last Ramadan in the presence of representatives of all religions, praying together.” Hence, in his view, this evening was conceived as the continuation of this spirit through a film, “carrying a message of tolerance.” “Let’s be proud,” he exclaimed, “of this secularism that already existed in the time of Al-Andalus, around the Jew Maimonides and the Muslim Averroes.” Invited to speak, the Consul General of Tunisia in Nice, His Excellency Mohamed Lamine Meherzi, for his part referred to the “Charter of Carthage,” signed at the “Beit al Hikma” (House of Wisdom) in April 1995, which reminds that “tolerance is not a spontaneous attitude but a virtue patiently acquired.”
The various officials present then spoke a few words: Rudy Salles, foremost since it concerns his district, held forth humanely on the “necessity of building a Mediterranean space where similar perceptions of life are shared.” “As in Tunisia, in Israel, and in Turkey,” he continued, hence “his support for the Union for the Mediterranean project launched by Nicolas Sarkozy.” More official, the intervention by Eric Ciotti, a bit less at ease than his predecessor, was nonetheless very political, campaign season obliging: recalling that “tolerance remains in France, the freedom to believe as well as that to not believe,” he celebrated the “publication of a calendar where all holidays, religious or not, are listed.” Patrick Allemand representing Michel Vauzelle also spoke of the Union for the Mediterranean project and praised the activities of the AJM06, which he described as “remarkable as they are inscribed in the concept of secularism.” “But,” the socialist official clarified, “there are not thirty-six ways to interpret this concept.” And to specify, quoting “the school of the Republic and the strength of the balance” before ending on a personal note since his mother, “whom he never talks about,” spent eighteen years in the seaside town where the action of the film takes place. The representative of the Prefect reminded, for his part, of the “State’s mobilization for this district of 12,000 inhabitants in the form of various integration and social cohesion contracts.” “Talent,” he insisted by way of conclusion and appeal to the youth of the district, “has no nationality, color, or religion.”
