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Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here with us this evening.
This is the first edition of a cycle of conference called Re:Action! organized by the HIA France Network
in partnership with the International Human Rights Film Festival.
The HIA France Network is an association of young people
who all have in common a very strong interest in diversity through a historical approach
that is comparative and linked to on the reality on the ground.
For us it's interesting to approach the question of human rights through the angle of diversity.
Often human rights appear as something far away,
that don't concern our country.
The idea was to say "no, human rights also start here,
and also start through the approach to diversity in our own country".
The first conference was on the theme of audiovisual and human rights.
We had the head of the History and Memory Department of UNESCO,
a production company that works on diversity,
and also a collective called "Stop Racial Profiling" that works on the ground and produced a web series.
So it was about how to utilize video to raise awareness about human rights,
to raise awareness about diversity and the questions we currently encounter.
I'm very happy to be here because it takes us out of our meeting rooms where things are much more formal.
Often we work with researchers, we work with states, with governments.
So for me this evening is a type of contact that I find we don't often have.
The second conference was organized around the theme feminism and Islam and took place at the Institute of Islamic Cultures.
A young member of the HIA France Network spoke as an expert at this conference
along with other associations and sociologists and researchers.
When I see a woman who has a headscarf right away the first image I'll have in my head is a submissive woman.
And so when I see "feminism and Islam" it really pleases me because I've never had the answer to this question:
what do you see, ladies, behind the headscarf?
Why a conference on the theme of feminism and Islam?
The reason is very simple, it's a theme that is often poorly addressed in France
which is often the subject of polemics but never the subject of debates in the public sphere,
notably in the media.
And through the HIA France Network it was possible to organize a real debate in a open space
where arguments meet that don't always go in the same direction,
but among people who respect each other and who are capable, with their many opinions,
to create something that contributes to communal action.
The third conference was on the Roma in Europe,
The idea was a to have a young person from the HIA Network who works on the ground
and other speakers from the associative world who don't necessarily work on the same questions,
but who all focus on this fight against discrimination.
We don't talk about Roma who are doing well.
If you see me in the metro you would never think I am Roma. But I am Roma.
The fourth conference was about Rwanda.
We had a filmmaker, a young person from the HIA Network who is an expert on this topic,
and a doctoral student from the EHESS.
This diversity of speakers brought an original perspective to this question.
Let me explain that we'll talk about the genocide of Tutsis
and not the Rwandan genocide as we often see in the press.
This is more precise than the term Rwandan genocide, which is not very clear and doesn't identify the victims,
and it's important to remember that.
The fifth conference, which concluded this first cycle of the Re:Action conference, was about Islamophobia after September 11th,
a comparative analysis of Great Britain and France,
how is this question addressed in Great Britain and in France in their particular and different realities.
The term Islamophobia was used for the first time in France,
in the work of a French painter who had converted to Islam, Etienne Dinet.
It was in 1921, so contrary to what we think, the use of this term was French first, English after.
The originality of the HIA France Network is that it's non-partisan youth who have diverse paths,
diverse opinions, diverse origins, religions, who seize these questions of diversity
and through the HIA France Network they think about, react, and propose solutions.
Through conferences, grassroots action, and trainings,
the HIA France Network is positioning itself as a think and do tank,
that's to a say a place for young people to think and take action.