NECE – Focus Group Meeting
“Exchange between Europe and North Africa“
20-23 May 2015 in Tunis, Tunisia
Minutes
Participants: Mohamad Abotera, Dina Abou Zeid, Moez Ali, Maram Hassan Anbar,
Abdeljabbar Arrach, Shahdan Arram, Dalia Assem, Menna Ata, Abdelghani
Bakhach, Nelly, Corbel, Youmna El-Khattam, Jakob Erle, Rana Gaber,
Petra Grüne, Taoufik Haddad, Witold Hebanowski, Martin Kaiser, Reem
Khedr, Anna Krigar, Elhossien Mahmoud, Helena Matschiner, Sven Ojeda
Febles, Rachel Owoko, Sindyan Qasem, Sascha Scheier, Susanne Ulrich,
Jedrzej Witkowski
1. Results concerning the publication: The Making of Citizens in Europe and North
Africa
1.1.
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
Greece
Denmark/Norway/Sweden
France/Italy
Syria
Egypt
Tunisia
Jordan
1.2.
§
§
Suggestions for country profiles
Chapter on questions of common concern
To be considered in the chapter on Arts and Culture:
The discussion on the relationship between arts + culture and citizenship education
should embrace formal education too (e.g. art education in schools);
How to use the local art and communication forms in civic education and how to preserve
them (like: Aragoz, in Egyptian culture, Sandouq El-Donia, Rabalo poet)
Support of the EU for CE in the Arab countries (EU agreements with Arab countries that support
CE in all sectors);
Good practices:
§ Mus E Project (intentional) Yehudi Menuhin Found
§ abattoirs-casablanca.org public places rehabilitation - citizenship + arts
§ Watchthemed.net: Platform for helping migrants in the Mediterranean
§ World-class teaching: A project run in the UK, Slovakia, Austria, Poland. It encourages
teachers to explain global interdependencies and processes of othering to students of
secondary schools
§ Fold your Rights (Egypt); Origami/Storytelling/Theatre to Explain Human Rights to Syrian
Refugee Kids
§ Bubble If, Turkey; Comics & Social Entrepreneurship
§ Bussy (Egypt); Gender Equality/Story Telling/Theatre
2. Results concerning the preparation of The NECE Conference
2.1.
General Suggestions
§
§
§
Name of the conference: “”Them” and “us”” – maybe consider a question mark
Maybe workshop on media
Precisely define what we are talking about, what are products of othering - what is
difference or diversity
Points for debate:
• Universality of HR
• Power relationships
• Trust
• Evidence-based vs. emotion-based argumentation
• Cultural exceptionalism
• Social reproduction of othering
• “Hybrid identities”
• Consensus Building
• Remembrance
• Diversity in school/Exposure
• Media
• Cross “them & us” projects
2
2.2 Panel introducing column 3: “the West” and “The Muslim World”
Working group: Petra Grüne, Jakob Erle, Dina Abou Zeid, Asma Abidi, Menna Ata, Moez Ali
General suggestions: Country profiles like those presented during the workshop as a test have
been regarded as suitable
Main Challenges that should be addressed:
• Factors leading to othering, challenges in fighting extremism
Setting:
§ 4 participants on the panel (two countries north of “the river”; two south of “the river”)
§
Content:
Focus on analysis of social and political sciences
§
Citizenship education should be represented by a special guest (not on the panel)
§
All speakers should fill out a matrix before; interview situation, no presentation country by
country; host who addresses most important questions
Topics/Matrix:
§ Short Setup: Factors Shaping CE, Political system/culture/ of country; legal situation
§
Recent challenges and factors leading to othering (within and between societies including
interdependencies)
§
Role of the media
§
Resources and perspectives/amongst others: ways to fight extremism/what steps have to
be taken (nationally and internationally, contributions of those who are “othered”
Countries to be represented:
§ European: Sweden and France OR Germany and Italy
§
South of the Mediterranean: Tunisia and Egypt or Syria
Suggestion for speakers:
§ Olivier Roy
3
§
Offa Youssef
§
Houda El Sadda
§
Gilbert Achcar Lebanese academic, writer, socialist and anti-war activist
§
Youssef Seddik Tunisia; philosopher: Islam/radicalisation
2.3 Workshops
Two proposals for workshops to be held during the NECE Conference 2015 have been
developed. After the Tunis workshop, the organizers of the NECE Conference shall develop a
short text about the workshop´s intention that will be send around to be checked by the
members of the respective groups. After having received the text, members of the respective
groups can decide whether they want to be included in the further development of the respective
conference workshops.
Due to the delay you can find the minutes of the meeting and the description of the workshops
already in this document.
Group 1: Sindyan Qasem; Rana Gaber; Youmna El-Khattam, Helena Matschiner; Sascha
Scheier
Results of Group Work:
§
Aim of the Workshop:
o Raising awareness of othering process
o Exploring layers of othering
§
Outcome
o Development of a tool through which participants can see how much their
strategies prevent “othering”
§
Idea
o Going through self-reflection
o Going through the process of othering
o Exchange of experience
o Development of their projects – of facilitators
o Preparation of the evaluation tool itself
§
Interactive Workshop
o Starting point: e.g. presentation of an art project
o Or starting with a TED talk about the othering process
Proposal: Text for conference programme to announce the workshop:
„Preventing othering processes in Citizenship Education“ – Developing an evaluation
tool
The workshop is to raise an awareness of the mechanisms which might lead to othering in the
work of citizenship educators. Even though this is unintentional, there is the risk of triggering
4
exclusion processes or strengthen stereotype thinking, for example by unreflecting use of
phrases, by the definition of target groups, by imagery etc. During the workshop, these
mechanisms will be made transparent through self-reflection and on the basis of the participants’
experiences. In a second step, concrete projects in the context of the interactions between „the
West“ and „the Islamic World“ will be analysed for the presence of such mechanisms. Building
on the results the participants will develop a tool/a checklist which can help in the development
stage of projects to prevent unconscious othering processes.
Group 2: Martin Kaiser; Susanne Ulrich, Abdeljabbar Arrach, Dalia Assem, Mohamad
Abotera, Maram Hassan Anbar, Sven Ojeda Febles
Basic topics:
§ Religion and democracy
§
also people who do not have any religion
§
5 topics dealing with the basic topic
o Question of export of democracy models (import)
o Religion as a source or resource of democracy?; religion as groundwork for
democracy
o
How can democracy deal with absolute believes?
o
Where does Islamophobia/anti-Semtism/xenophobia etc. start?; decision whether
to address only one or have the entire spectrum
o Structural violence and the right to believe
§
Different approaches
o Group comes up with a very concrete practical idea; people can implement it at
home (outcome)
§
o
Classical approach: start with participants on a personal level (how they connect
to the level) leading to a meta level of discussion and structures behind it
o
Dignity land (Elhossiens idea); card game (rights on the cards)
Objective/What to get out of the workshop
o New means of communication; to take back home to use these questions in the
educational project; modes of communication
5
Workshop Proposal (designed by Susanne after the meeting):
“Losing my religion...”
Democratic beliefs? Beliefs in democracy?
Religion is often associated with fundamental values providing a traditional but also
disappearing source of societal coherence in European societies. Religion is also associated
with absolute truths that cannot simply be negotiated.
Is religion a source of democracy? Could democracy hold societies together without any
religion? Might religion at the same time be a threat to posing the question of democracy in
certain areas of societal life? Where does democratic critique of religion start and where does it
become a phobia of religion as such?
What about the belief in democracy? Is democracy in itself a belief some deem to be absolute
for structuring any society in the world?
We will discuss these issues during the workshop and come up with pedagogical ideals and
methodological examples to handle these issues in educational settings.
Goals and programme of the workshop (Option 1 – deductive process)
• Clarifying and systematizing relevant fields of tension between religion and democracy
• Collecting examples of activities and methods for addressing the issue
• Developing an activity in the group for practical use in educational settings at home
- Individually - drawing symbols on 'religion and democracy'
- In groups - presenting and identifying areas of tension
- Systematizing fields of tension in plenary
- Collecting activities in groups, coming up with a new idea for practical use
- Presentation in plenary and decision what to present to the conference
Goals and programme of the workshop (Option 2 – inductive process)
Experiencing one activity concerning religion and democracy
Reflecting the processes and results of the activity on a meta-level
Clarifying and systematizing relevant fields of tension between religion and democracy
- Participating in an extended practical activity on the questions posed
- Reflecting the issues, processes and results of the activity in groups
- Identifying fields of tension concerning religion and democracy
- Systematizing fields of tensions as dilemmas of values (value square)
- Presenting workshop results to the conference
3. Feedback
Feedback - positive
• great guest speakers
• a lot of background on the official programme; very good the informal talks during breaks –
very important; many new contacts; interesting speakers
• great facilitation
• good balance between theoretical impact and practical examples
6
•
•
•
•
•
great inspiration
networks, colleagues were great; what has been reached in the focus group
a lot of learning and exchanges
debates were very enlightening
organisation and facilitation were great
Feedback - negative
• structure: not enough information about the structure of the entire project; role of
participants
• a bit more practical activities; more interactive methods
• sometimes a bit overwhelming; a lot of information at once
• things were not clear in terms of the conference
• did not like the food
• more working groups for deeper discussions
• guests were not really informed; inform future guests about the history of the focus group
• working time during the day was too long; not easy to concentrate that long
• give more practical tools
• agenda prepared in a more participatory manner
• more time for designing the NECE conference
• programme was too dense; more time for reflection
• more diverse presentation of the European side
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
General
maybe presentation of a short exercise like they do in their organisations and groups as a
bridge between presentations
“we are similar in our thinking even though different backgrounds”
“It’s getting worse in Egypt, but I am happy that it is getting better in the focus group”
(Elhossien)
helpful test for the conference
evaluation should ask questions about the atmosphere in the group
smoothness of facilitation is being conferred to the group atmosphere
recommendation: not very supporting for the interactivity
announcement: Goethe Institute Cairo: traineeship “Diversity and Anti-Discrimination”;
contact Helena; will be send to the Egyptian participants
4. Next steps
Minutes will be sent to participants (working groups should give feedback concerning further
participation in preparation)
Revised conference programme will be sent to participants
Call for projects and papers will be send out after workshop in Thessaloniki (middle of June)
Overall evaluation concerning FG Exchange will be send out in June
7