Tribulations d'Un Musulman d'Ici

From his father's arrival in Belgium in the 1970s to his own role as a father, a Belgian, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a Judeo-Christian Muslim and an artist, Ismaël Saïdi traces the journey of a child shuttled between Catholic, secular, municipal and Muslim schools, of a teenager searching for landmarks, and of a police officer of Moroccan origin arriving at an entirely white police station. How do you find your place when you are the product of such a complex blend, a true "lasagne of identities" in which all the layers of a multicultural life pile up, intermingle and are savoured? Can one reconcile multiple heritages without falling into the trap of communitarianism or erasure? With remarkable sincerity and a great deal of self-mockery, he invites you to live a stretch of his life. From his boisterous youth to his adult questionings, he recounts the encounters that shaped him and uses the power of intimate storytelling to dismantle, one by one, the mechanisms of hatred, whether it be everyday racism or the anti-Semitism he sometimes saw emerging within his own neighbourhood. Alone on stage, with candour and mischief: a show full of humour and tenderness in which cultures and identities intertwine without ever clashing. A true ode to tolerance.

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

"Telling your life story in a book was already no easy task. Baring yourself, plunging into your deepest intimacy when everything around me was modesty, things one does not say. The book's success among young people made me want to take the plunge and dare the one-man show. It is a journey I invite you to share with me, a journey to the depths of my life, surrounded by those who helped and loved me. This is a show created out of need, like a vital need to tell stories: telling in order not to forget oneself, telling in order to resemble one another, telling in order to come together."