altmuslim - Nothing with a big meaning

On May 26th 2007, eight young Italian Muslims of second generations of Arab origin and myself (the only Christian in the team), launched a new monthly editorial project called Yalla Italia ("Let’s go Italy"). After 11 well designed and carefully thought issues published so far, we celebrated our one year birthday and we praised each other for the bet we won against the scepticism of those who claim that in a pluralistic society, citizens need to behave less Muslims to be perceived as real Italians and act less Italian to be considered good Muslims.

Yalla Italia is a monthly supplement published within Vita Magazine, the guide of the not-for-profit world in Italy. We started out with 8 contributors and now I coordinate 20. Most of them are girls… and ladies and gentlemen, they are not desperate housewives. Some of them do practise their faith, some just believe, and some others fast during Ramadan but celebrate Christmas and Easter festivities as well. In common, they share the willingness to communicate to the Italian public how the sons and daughters of Arab Muslim immigrants who were born in Italy are true Italians - keen to play a beneficial role in the society they live in and, inshallah, someday contribute to the progress of their country of origin.

When folks in Italy and Europe keep talking nonsense and writing - often without knowledge or credibility - about Islam and Arabs, Yalla Italia established itself as a publication where Italian Muslims speak about themselves, describing the challenges of being the sons and the daughters of Arab immigrants. They talk abut how it feels being Muslim in a secular pluralistic society, and articulate how to compromise their “Italianized” aspirations with the expectations of their parents and relatives.

The main challenge they are facing - forming a new identity that merges their acquired Italian culture with their family’s one - is similar to the new tasks Italy is dealing with: how to integrate the flows of immigrants from the Arab world while exploiting the skills and the cultural sensitivity of their children, whom may have exotic names like Lubna, Hassan, Layla, Ali, Imane, Rassmea, Randa, Karim, Meriem, Akram, but are fully Italians and proud to be so.

Every month we select a theme and each contributor offers a different perspective according to one’s experience. Interfaith marriages, relationships with parents, how September 11th touched their lives, how the media language and content influence their upbringing and identity, self criticism and reform - all were some of the themes Yalla Italia has addressed. Yalla Italia’s contributors have adopted and consolidated a humorous approach to their communication code. Besides a column called Yalla Comics filled with funny vignettes and jokes, the tone and the discourse of Yalla Italia are predominantly self ironic and witty.

Irony, as a matter of fact, is an exceedingly effective communication medium. If a smile is able to open doors, a good laugh can win the hearts and minds of some of those who have prejudices - those who tend to believe the stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims as men and women who are always angry at someone and who are not able to make fun of themselves, of their heritage and (why not?) of the way their religion is practiced as well.

Today, stereotypes about Muslims in Europe are very difficult to pound. However, Yalla Italia has been able to surprise its readers in a positive way and make people change their minds about Arabs and Muslims. When various academics, students, journalists attend our staff meetings, the privately tell me Yalla Italia’s contributors are so attractive, articulate and cool they should be cast for a movie or a music video. I often hear people comment, "This is Bollywood, not a newsroom." So far, only some conservative Arabs living in the north of Italy had negative comments about Yalla Italia content and style.

Even though its mother publication, Vita Magazine, reaches 400,000 eyeballs per week, Yalla Italia succeeds in what I call the spill-over effect. Since its birth, Yalla's contributors have appeared on several radio talk shows and TV programs and profiled in national publications. Undeniably, Yalla Italia turned out to be a credible platform for other media entities that are searching for new ideas, innovative points of view, and interesting life experiences. It is also a medium that allows new interpretations and values to compete in the market place that is currently saturated with conservative voices that are not doing any good for Arabs and Muslims in Italy and Europe.

In all honesty, Yalla Italia was originally envisioned as a sort of Seinfeld-like blog about nothing with an humorous tone. However, the Arab and Muslim identity put into an Italian context turned out to be much more then a publication about nothing. It is, in fact, about new citizens and new citizenships in a country that is, slowly but effectively, becoming a melting pot where funny life situations based on cultural diversity occur at school, in the coffee shop and in the living room.

Randa, for example, described how during Ramadan people in Milan keep offering her a cappuccino while she was fasting, not understanding why she declines. "Ramadan what?" they wonder. Lubna wrote how her teacher was embarrassed when she told the class the great Italian poet Dante put the prophet Mohammed in one of the Inferno rings. Imane, whose Moroccan grandfather has 3 wives, is trill trying to confess to him that she was the only girl in a classroom of 20 Italian boys and had to share the dressing room of the school with them as well. Not only she was the only girl in the class, but also the only girl in the whole school - a school for aircraft pilots. Nevertheless, the funny comments and the awkward situations described by some of Yalla Italia’s girls, like when they watch the daring, sexy content that dominates Italian television with their parents, do remind me of Seinfeld's sit-com acts.

We felt the humorous communication approach was the best way to communicate something that today seems rare: being normal. After all, that’s the biggest victory of Yalla Italia. In a country seeking a normal political class, a normal economy, a normal media discourse, a normal relationship with newcomers - and even a normal national aircraft that doesn't charge €700 for a one hour flight as Alitalia does - the fact that Arab Muslims and second generation Italians with exotic names are being perceived as funny individuals - and therefore as normal men and women - is not an achievement about nothing, it is a victory over the proponents of the clash of civilization from both sides and over the sceptics of multiculturalism.

In today’s society and media discourse, we do not tend to remember what others say, but we do not forget how others make us feel. Therefore, being perceived as normal individuals who share the same needs, dreams and aspirations of all, has become a communication commodity for European citizenship.