 Thank you. Thank you for your invitation here this morning. I will try to stick to the 20 minutes, knowing that with 20 minutes it's very difficult to speak about what is happening in the Middle East and in Minna in Middle East and the African countries and then we'll have your questions and I think through your question we can go deeper in the discussion. I wrote a book which has been published already in French and it's going to be published in next month in fact by Penguin in English which is The Arab Awakening, Islam and the New Middle East and it's really about what is happening but beyond what is happening the deep questions and the important questions for the Muslim majority countries in the Middle East and in North Africa as to their future and in which way things could evolve. The first thing that I would question when we speak about what is happening and I know that sometimes when I have been visiting many Arab countries these last months I'm questioning the way we name what is happening. I'm not talking about revolutions and I'm not talking about Arab Spring because I still don't know what is really happening so I'm talking about Arab rising and awakening not more not less but if I have to discuss what is happening in the Middle East and in North Africa the only country where I can see something is happening which apparently is good is Tunisia today where things are moving slowly but I wouldn't say that the other appraisings I'm very worried about what is happening in Egypt today very worried about what is happening in Libya and in Yemen as much also as in Bahrain we don't talk about Bahrain because it seems to be far it's a petromanarchy but if the movements were to something would have happened there the whole situation for the other petromanarchies would have been very very difficult and now it's not it's still we are still dealing with repression and it's also the case in Syria what also it's important for me it's not to be naive about what happened before so I took some time and I'm still talking about this about what happened and to understand what are the causes of what happened I think that there is something which is we were talking about people demonstrating after the self-formulation of Muhammad Boazizi in Tunisia and all this was right this was this were facts and the price you know the bread price and the social economic realities in the country all the ingredients in Tunisia were there to have such a mobilization and demonstrations against the dictatorship and this is not this cannot be controlled and this came from the people while at the same time what we need to know and these are things that are clear in the necessity for the Americans and for the European countries to change their policy in the region is something which was known it was not it was not new when in 2003 the president Bush was explaining what was happening in Iraq as the beginning of the process toward democratization of the the region he was saying something which was important in the American strategy and there is something which is known today about the training of bloggers cyber dissidents towards nonviolent mobilization that's not new I came with all the facts and this was this is we know now there is this cyber dissident organization in the states that they had many meetings and even in 2008 the American ambassador sending a message to the state department saying they are young mobilizing now and going through a process of acting and demonstrating and their objective is to throw away the current government and they were talking about September before September 2011 so the point for me is that the ingredients for the people to act against the government and to say no to dictators and to corrupt regimes was there while I don't think that the West didn't know that this is something what what happening I don't buy this at all because I heard about it before because we have the facts and we have even and it's not only WikiLeaks it's also people working foreign affairs newspaper papers and and we have these facts written and and for me it's important why because when it comes to the Middle East we have to avoid only thinking about the political dimension and thinking all these are people for democracy no we are dealing with socioeconomic factors that's true but we are dealing with geo strategy and we are dealing with economic factors and I think that this is also quite important in all the new dimensions that are taking place in the region so I am not I don't want to be only obsessed with oh it's a question of democracy let us ask ourselves are the Islamists ready for democracy and by the way I liked something that I heard by the personal advisor to the the Turkish prime minister when we were in the meeting with the alliance of civilization saying the question might be not if the Arabs are ready for democracy but is the West ready for the Arabs experiencing democracy which is a good one so I think that we have to we need to have a comprehensive approach when it comes to to this and and and to get the socioeconomic factors right that they were the ingredients in Egypt in Tunisia and other countries but also the socioeconomic the geo-strategic realities and the economic dimensions now if I want to add a few things about what we knew it's also two things that were quite important with the dictatorships in the region we knew and this was known and for the last five years for example in Tunisia the american administration was in touch with the opposition and with this with the Islamists also european countries not directly there but we know today that they are very often meeting in Qatar they are meeting in other places but this relationship is not new so the west dealing with Islamists and talking to them knowing trying to know what they want and what is the future is something which is important and there was something which was clear is that the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia was an old regime and the future was problematic so the transition was problematic exactly the same with Egypt and we heard that the president Mubarak was thinking about his son Gamal and Gamal was taking over 60 percent of the great businesses and enterprises in Egypt and starting to go towards east dealing with the Chinese which also it's a question in the region about the new actors you can't get a right understanding of what is happening in the Middle East if you don't take into account the new actors in the region and China and Russia as much as Brazil South Africa and mainly of course China China over the last 10 years multiplied by seven its commercial relationship with the region they are everywhere and the point is that when China is in the Middle East the perception of for example some of the important dimensions in the Middle East and let us start with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it's completely different China has not the same take on the conflict as the Americans and the Europeans and these are things that we have to take into account in the evolution and we can't speak about democratic processes in the region if we forget the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we have to get it right it's in the middle of many of the questions that we have now but not only but I want to put this as something which is a more comprehensive dimension and as much as I agree with the fact that we can speak about the domino effect when it came to Tunisia and then Egypt and then Yemen and other countries I think that when it comes to politics and what to come to socio geostrategic interest is much more a chess game than a domino effect it's really that we have to take every country and to try to understand where it sits in the hole in the whole picture now the second point which is important so the first is this one is the dictatorships were in crisis and they were we we were facing a transitory period how this could be controlled or this could be how we can go along the whole process was a question that we have in the West but also in the Middle East itself the second point is all these young people who are using the internet and social network and all this the point is and we saw this with the election they were very powerful against but they didn't have a vision for so against dictators but for the future this was not there even the 6 april movement very powerful you know I don't know if you saw the the two programs that were done on them on on El Jazeera in English and in Arabic very very strong vision about how do we mobilize and and once again they were trained and we know this it started in the two in 2000 2003 with uh Serja Popovich everything which happened in in against Milosevic and this vision planning discipline the non-violent discipline this is known these are things that are known but they were very powerful and in the program they were saying how they wanted to go and which you know everything was thought about it's it's about for example the the slogan nothing should be said against the West everything should be said against the regime it was very disciplined it was very well done now when it came to what is your vision for the future nothing nothing clear we know why we are against we don't know what we want as the future talking about democracy and freedom and what happened is something that we had here in the west but it was not only a western understanding or a western projection straight after the first step in Tunisia and then in Egypt the big question what about the Islamist what about the secular and the discussion was a polarization between the secular and the Islamist so this is the main point here today where we we we need to to deal with this why because when you you you talk to people in the region and coming from Tunisia and Egypt they say oh this is a western business they are looking at us as you know Islamist against secular but in fact it's not true it's not coming from the west it's also coming from the Muslim majority countries that you have this polarization in all the discussion and when you have this polarization in all the discussion this is what I call the contemporary crisis in the Arab mind and in the Muslim mind is the way you portray the whole political discussion and economic discussion in the Muslim majority countries now is to to have this discussion between the secular and the Islamist and to take it as the big question for now and for the future and ending by asking ourselves what about the democratic process what about transparency what about representation within the country but if you listen to the deep discussion that we have now and that we had because it's changing for example in in Tunisia now it's changing but for the first months what we had is the secular saying you are Islamist you are backward you are imposing religion and they were taking their legitimacy as being progressive against the religious people and on the other side religious people saying but you are westernized you are working with the west you have been for some of you supporting the dictator Ben Ali and now we have the religious credibility at the end of this course and the political discourse in the Arab majority the Arab world and the Muslim majority countries is about credential and we have the religious credential or we have the progressive credential and I think that this is where something should change in this and this is still what we have in Egypt the Muslim majority countries cannot evolve towards something which is truly democratic if we end up with this discussion about the secular against Islamist and having a monolithic understanding of what Islamist is a monolithic understanding of what secular is that's wrong and the people who won in Tunisia were the people who said no to this polarization Monsef Marzouk who is now the president from the very beginning it's not new he's not playing with this and by the way he is ethically very very strong this is someone who for whom I have great respect why because he was working for human rights for years and from the very beginning he was saying to the fundamental the the secular fundamentalists he was telling them you are not you are not in touch with the country there is only one way to deal with our country is you might be right but you need to work with the Islamist that are open for the dialogue so he wanted this link to happen and he was the second as the political party he was elected then as the the president and in the Islamist there is something that we have to stop now is to what we have been a cell for sold for for years you have only one choice the dictators or the Islamist and the Islamists are all dangerous this attitude towards the Islamist is completely wrong and now we understand that there are trends within Islamist you have the reformist you have the legalists and even among the reformists if someone is talking about the Muslim Brotherhood for example in Egypt thinking that today it's one organization with one vision that's completely wrong it exploded under the pressure of the demonstrations in Egypt the young generation asking the the the elder generation we have to go to Medan at Dahrir and the elder say no we have to wait and they waited till two days before it happened so this was an explosion why because the young generation is closer to the secular opposition and the young who are against the the the the dictator who were against the dictator then towards the the only the Salafi and now you have another trend which is we we were understanding in the west that the Salafi which are the literalists were supporting the Iqwan in fact it's a very very strong ideological competition between the literalists and the Iqwan the Muslim Brotherhood I think that if we we we don't understand this if we don't understand that the Islamist there is a wide range it's not only the radicals it's not only the radicalists the radicals but it's also something which is the reformist and within the reformist many visions for years that's true they were refusing the concept of democracy some now are saying democracy is nothing and the first by the way who said that I don't have a problem with democracy is Rashid Ranushi who is the president of the the Nader now in in Tunisia so the point is that we have a diversity of Islamist attitudes a political stance and we have a wide range of secular attitudes some are very much against anything which has to do with the religious reference and others are saying we have no choice but we deal to deal with them so my main point here is this polarization that was the reality in Tunisia and still is the reality in Egypt there is only one way towards democracy in these countries is to go beyond that is to go beyond this polarization and to come to policies of political vision and I would say that this is why I'm saying in in Tunisia we see that they are starting to come with okay what about our economic policy what about education what about women in the country they now start to speak about politics and not about this only ideological clash that was the reality just after the first election even and the first uprising in Tunisia in Egypt today we are still within this discussion and you can see now that why I'm worried because we have now people pushing it's pushed from within and pushed from abroad in Egypt the Salafi movement the more literalists and I wrote an article when I was much criticized by saying if you try to understand what is happening with the literalists in Egypt you understand that there are internal dynamics but you have also people supporting from them from outside and the first country to support one trend of the Salafi is Saudi Arabia pushing them so it was also to put the Muslim Brotherhood into a situation where they are in between the literalists on and on the one hand and the army on the other hand and there is today no real future in Egypt if you don't deal with the army so the people who are in the in Medellin asking for the army to leave are people understanding that it's critical now it's a critical time where the army is still taking over and deciding on the future of of of Egypt so my main point here is for us when we try to understand if we keep on repeating that all the Islamists are the same and bad and we don't talk and we don't talk to the more pragmatic is not going to work and it's not in fact the reality now the American government and European governments now are dealing with Islamist and they are trying to find an agreement to get a better understanding and this is the way forward now the second thing which is still very important beyond these two countries is what is going to happen in Syria and what is going to happen still in Yemen and as I said in Bahrain in the Petro-Moroccan I don't see for now anything that could happen in the Petro-Moroccan I think that they are stable and they are protected at the same time something which is quite interesting and we were talking about this before is the Moroccan example pre-emptive policy to avoid demonstrations and to have controlled reform I was told before the election who was going to win the election which is good but this is also the reality you understand that it's under control we prefer to have them with us then you control them and you know how to deal with them with some room for freedom but not too much so but we also have to be aware that there are limitations in the whole process but this is where you avoid the demonstration my conclusion now and I'm sorry I understand that I'm just talking about a few points and it's just to open the floor for discussion but and it's too short to be exhaustive but I would say that if I look at what is happening now with what we call the ARP Spring and here it was called the ARP Awakening which is the word I use is one we really have beyond the only discussion on the democratic process to connect democracy and the political system with the economic stability there will be no democracy without economic stability and if we are not ready to talk about this it's not going to work and the people who are understanding this and and we may have to talk about it later if you listen to the way for example the Turkish government is entering into the discussion it's not only to talk about it it did he did it for example when he visited the president the prime minister Erdogan when he visited Egypt talking in such a way about you know the secular system that we have to deal with we don't have to be scared of the secular system this was a symbolic take he was talking to two kind of people his own people and the Arab world at the same time saying we don't have but he was not only coming with a political understanding he was coming with a take on the economic stability he was dealing with this and by the way it's quite important remember then when the president Barack Obama was talking the second talk he gave about the situation after the revolution half of the half of the talk was about the economic factors it was also about the World Bank about IMF how we have to deal to put money in the whole process and they are now putting money much more and that's quite strange much more than the Europeans if you look at what happened in Tunisia and how much the Americans were involved from the very beginning much more than the european countries you ask yourself is quite strange where were the French and in fact after this we had a deal we were in Tunisia we were in Egypt you will do the job first first only first in Libya anyway that's a hypothesis the second point is also to take into account as I said the new actors and once again the economic stability would have to do with the Chinese presence which is critical today and it's known and it's connected and should be connected as I said with the Israeli Palestinian conflict but not only the Chinese presence in Africa in the Middle East with the Indian presence the Russian presence the South African presence is shifting towards east and this is something which is of concern but we have to take this into account and I would say that if you understand the Iranian policy the Syrian policy just before and now it's going also to be on the same tracks and what is happening with the vision that we if you listen to some of the Islamist voices about what they are saying in the future they understand that they might have to have new relationship with China and understand that this is going to counterbalance the western influence and this is something which is important the so having said that it's of course the geo-strategic dimension so I wouldn't just talk about democracy in a way which is very a narrow understanding and the fourth point as I said that we have to discuss when it comes to the Middle East is the Israeli Palestinian conflict and what is happening and what is not happening in fact I don't think that we can talk about a peace process today I think that the situation is very very worrying for the Palestinians that the reality this is the way I see it and the last challenge that we will all have to deal with in the very near future but of course is one of the main challenges for the Muslim majority countries today is the relationship between Sunni and Shia it's it's critical it's really central for the relationship remember in the past the unifying factor in the Muslim majority countries was for example the opposition to Israel it was all the Arab and the Sunni and Shia were together it's this is if you listen to the voices now it's to say who are the most more effective in resisting Israel today it's not the Sunni it's the Shia it's Iran strong and and and you can understand that Ahmadinejad when he speaks the way he speaks about Israel is not only a political discourse it's a symbolic discourse he's trying to get his people he's gathering he's working on psychology and once again I said it when we were eating right now you can't understand the symbolic presence of the the prime minister Erdogan in the Arab world if you don't get it that it started when he stood up in Davos saying to the the the the Israeli president I'm not going to accept what you are doing in in Reza and then he asked for apology when they killed the people in the flotilla the symbolic dimension here is very important and today the symbolic resistance or the resistance on the ground and the symbolic credential that is used now by countries is very much on the side of the Shia. Hezbollah is a Shia organization and they are with Iran with what is happening in Syria at the middle of this fracture between the Sunni so what was yesterday a unifying force is today revealing fractures within the society and it's going to have a great impact on the Middle East in the future thank you