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(Applause)
Hello.
Oh, good, there is no one.
(Laughter)
This is my competitive advantage,
that I don't see you, so I feel less nervous.
Nah, it's a real pleasure to be here with you,
since you have chosen to be here,
and you have asked me to impress you,
so let's start!
I'm going to make a small clairvoyant
intervention.
Does that mean a sighted blind?
It's the first time, right?
And just like all the sighted people, I don't want to get it wrong,
so I'm going to predict your past.
And let me tell you something:
your grandfather was handicapped.
No, no, please don't look at me like that.
It's not the joke with "the fool", no.
It's serious.
You know that, in the beginning,
the earth was full of water.
It was inhabited by amphibians
who used to swim, splash, have fun, and so on.
Among them, there was one
that was born with lungs.
An amphibian with lungs, that's not practical!
You cannot sleep! As soon as you sleep, you swallow a mouthful!
As soon as you stop breathing, you sink.
Oh, he had some good amphibian friends
who carried him a little.
The other amphibians, they made fun of him,
"hahaha, you cannot swim fast...". Alright.
Oh, this one tried hard.
He tried hard and his mother counted on him,
but it was difficult.
Just until one day the water went away.
All the amphibians that were being mean,
well, they all died.
He remained,
the amphibian with lungs, and he started to breathe.
He hadn't been breathing for a long time, poor thing.
He must have found a female amphibian,
like that, with lungs too, left behind.
They would do things together,
and you and me, we stem from these two amphibians.
So you see, the world, it stems from a deviation from the norm.
The dictatorship of the norm is the end of the world.
This is the reason why I dedicated my life
to fighting against the dictatorship of the norm.
Well, my life, for me, didn't start out very well.
I don't know why but I believe I must have been in a hurry.
In the factory where they make babies,
they shipped me with with one cable less:
the brain works, so it it seems.
The eyes work,
but they forgot to put a cable between the two.
Born blind: first failure.
I was born in Algiers, so I am
blind and an Arab. (Laughter)
Well, in Algiers, being Arab is not so bad,
there are quite a few of us left. (Laughter)
(Applause)
But among the benefits of colonisation,
they didn't count ophthalmologists,
so I had to leave. (Laughter)
I took a boat to France.
and from there, second revelation, my friends,
I learned where heaven is.
Oh, you are all looking for it!
Well, I found it.
Paradise is France.
That surprises you, right?
We don't stop saying,
"Yeah, we are pessimistic, we take tranquillisers..."
No, no, I call France my grandmother,
because she has a little bit of Alzheimer's.
That's why I like her,
I like her very much,
and I like her so much that every time she recognizes me,
I throw her a party.
Sometimes she recognises the Arab, she doesn't recognize the blind.
Sometimes she recognizes the blind, but she doesn't recognize the Arab.
Sometimes she recognises both, like today, for example.
You see, France, she...
(Applause)
she gave me everything.
She have me light.
Did you know that France
was the first to provide schools
for the blind and the deaf?
Did you know that in 1749
Diderot wrote a letter about the blind
to those who can see?
Did you know that France was the first country
to provide schools for autistic children
using behavioural methods?
Things have changed since.
We would put them in daycare hospitals, in prison, that is.
But France educated me,
teaching me in a proper way.
She treated me like a special person,
and she gave me more,
because I had less.
But oops, don't say that,
this is what we call positive discrimination,
and it doesn't match the republican model.
In my case, I was taught in a class
with 8 people per class.
Oh, we were all blind.
But it was good because while we were all short sighted,
we forgot we were Arabs, so it was practical. (Laughter)
We had a piano per student,
on the weekends, we went to a castle,
we went to museums.
It wasn't difficult, I didn't want to go home any more.
And yet I had a good home.
I had parents, I have parents, who are fantastic.
My mother's couscous, well, that's really it.
My father was a florist.
He swapped his florist's outfit for a working man's blue collar.
My mother made couscous,
she continued making couscous.
She raised the children. And I was nourished
with kabyle language and couscous.
My parents gave me endless love.
They always told me, you do what you want.
You are a double looser anyway,
so it will be very good. (Laughter)
If you go up, we will push you, if you fall, we will hold you.
So go ahead! And if you can't do it for yourself,
do it for us.
Because we had a hard time!
This immoderate love from my parents and the passion from my teachers
are the two pillars which
supported me to build myself.
I quit the national institute for the young blind
to enroll in a normal high school, I graduated,
I became an engineer of one of the biggest french universities,
and I remembered a lesson from my parents:
nothing will ever be too beautiful for you.
Hamou, events are neutral.
It's you who has to give them colors.
So, well, I went ahead.
Anywhere they weren't expecting me.
I've worked as a trader, in a dealing room.
Can you imagine a blind trader working in a dealing room? (Laughter)
Well, me neither! However!
I worked for 5 years.
I had a space shuttle. Braille computers,
three of them. And I touched buttons,
and I made software
so that no one would realize that I was blind.
There was an incident where I had a client
who made contact lenses and glasses,
and she talked to be about how great her products were,
in the morning, it works for short sights,
in the afternoon, for astigmatism,
and she told me, "Oh, one day you will wear this thing,
and you will see how comfortable it is."
So I told her, " No, I don't think so, I won't wear it."
"But why not, you will see, when you get older,
you will be longsighted, astigmatic." --
I always mix up those two.
And then, finally I bet her a bottle of champagne
that I would never be all that.
Finally, I get to see her and she tells me,
"Oh, my bottle of champagne!"
She lost it.
After that, I became a technical advisor to the Paris Mayor,
and then I was deputy mayor,
and my mother also told me something important.
She told me, "My son, you know,
I like the fact that you are a civil servant,
but I can tell it's not really your thing.
You want to move, you want to do a lot of thigns, but you must know only one thing:
if ever something happens to you..." -- and you know what happens,
terms last for 6 years --
and even if you speak at TEDx,
you are not the only one voting.
You can be beaten.
Then, she told me, " Don't worry.
If anything happens to you, there is a
100 kilos of dry couscous that is waiting for you
in the storeroom."
She told me this when I was 20 years old,
and these 100 kilos of dry couscous
have always been my social
and emotional shock absorber.
It helped me to continue to climb.
And I'm not done yet, because a blind person
climbing into a space shuttle,
that would be something, right?
A blind person crossing the Atlantic,
that would be something, right?
A blind Arab, moreover,
who would be elected French or European representative
and who would take the stand to say:
"My dear friends, when you see two separate people,
don't give them boxing gloves
so that they can fight. Find them
a third, a fourth person, and turn them
into a bouquet. That is the future of France."
How beautful!
So, I continue this life, sure of one thing:
that the only handicap we do not recover from,
is a lack of love.
And l received a lot of love.
However, for me, it could have been difficult.
Being blind, it's complicated. 80% of all information
is perceived by seeing.
We run slower, we hurt ourselves, we are a cost to society.
Normally, if I really wanted to create a happening,
I would say that during these times of crisis,
I would put an end to my life.
Why yes, I cost you too much.
But no such thing will happen, my dear friends.
For so many reasons.
The first reason is that
maybe one day there will be an eclipse,
and we might need someone who can remake the world!
The second reason:
what's the use of a handicap?
A handicap can be useful for developing a society.
Did you know that the telephone was invented
to allow deaf people to read through a membrane
and to understand the messages?
Did you know that the remote control was invented
so that a person with tetraplegia could turn on a TV?
Can you live without a telephone?
Can you live without a remote control?
Did you know that the scanner was invented
so that a blind person could read?
Furthermore, I thought,
I think TEDx has a keen nose.
I told you before: the eyes work,
the brain works, but a connection is missing.
If they find something, next year,
the brain and an eye would be linked
by Wi-Fi.
Only the Arab will be left, no more blind! (Laughter)
Oh, they were lucky.
Handicaps bring out the best in everyone.
What you have in front of you, is
a walking research center.
And a handicap would help
to increase the possibilities.
Before, I was an abandoned island.
I wasn't connected to anything.
Just imagine
the number of winks from pretty girls I missed!
But now, we have mobile phones,
we have internet, I am connected permanently
to every one of you.
And until now, I have talked about heaven,
now I would like to tell you about hell.
Because I know what hell is.
Hell is not the others.
Hell, it's me being cut from the others.
I was thinking,
I have a grand mother who had Alzheimer's,
I have parents, and if I am here today,
I owe it to you. Thanks to the soul bonus
of those who spared me
5 minutes to cross a street,
5 minutes to insert a code,
5 minutes to read a letter for me,
5 minues to describe a film.
In all, I owe 100 man days to humanity.
And If i count all the people who
gave me a hand,
and gather them, I probably have
to rent a football stadium.
If I had a conclusion to make,
I would say, sometimes
when I meet people on the street, they tell me,
"Oh my god, if you do all that,
you must have a sixth sense!"
Well, I tell them, "No, I have one less, to begin with,
so that would make 5!" (Laughter)
(Applause)
But on the other hand, they are right.
It's true that I have one additional sense:
a sense that you all can improve,
a sense which you all gave me,
a sense which I want to fight for myself,
I want to fight myself so that
we develop all a sense of the others.
I would like to thank you.
(Applause)