The Opening remarks were followed by a Q and A Session:
June Zeitlin( Director of Human Rights Policy, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights) asked Soraya Post MEP how to build trust among different groups when building a coalition. Ms. Post stated that the starting point was to get to know each other, and noted that“ split diversity” was not in society’ s interest. She also noted that many international organizations work on the same topics and produce similar reports without cooperating with each other and much effort is wasted on duplicated work.
Patrick Siegele( Director of Anne Frank Centrum) questioned the supposition that the“ enemy” was only the far-right, as he noted that the discriminatory attitudes permeated all spheres of society. Ms. Post responded by stating that, indeed, mainstream parties moved more to the right, while far-right parties shifted even more to the right.
Brando Benifei MEP conceded that many who vote for mainstream parties are racist and xenophobic and that these attitudes do not only dwell in the extremes. These voters accept anti-Semitism, are against the construction of Mosques, and discriminate against women. Ms. Post agreed that mainstream politics had become racist and the overall threshold of what was acceptable had been lowered. Alfiaz Vaiya noted that better political leadership was needed to send the right message.
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
Benjamin Fischer( President of the European Union of Jewish Students) and Talia Bidussa( Board Member of the European Union of Jewish Students) presented the project“ Europe of Diasporas”. Mr. Fischer noted that the project arose from the observation that the work revolved only around Jewish communities and focused only on issues pertaining to Jewish communities. He noted further that youth and women were often excluded, resulting in the lack of progressive voices. For these reasons, the European Union of Jewish Students decided to start working with other communities. Mr. Fischer further observed that if the Jewish communities wished to advocate for their human rights, they needed to advocate for human rights of others. He also highlighted that before the implementation of the project there was a sense of“ anti-Semitism fatigue” and anti-Semitism was not part of intersectionality.
The Project focused on four communities: Roma, Jews, Assyrians and Armenians( who in their opinion share genocide experience) and had four stages, namely three seminars( Paris, June 2015, Budapest, October 2015, and Sofia, January 2016) and one conference( Brussels, May 2016). The Project rested on four fundamental pillars i. e. active participation, community involvement, external outreach and specific outcomes. The methodology consisted of getting to know each other, identifying common ground, sharing best and worst practices, defining a common path and creating new tools together.
The Paris Seminar on“ Discovering the Diasporas” focused on defining the term“ diaspora”, setting shared goals and establishing a network. The Budapest Seminar on“ Memory and Heritage” served to acknowledge each other’ s past, discuss the role of history in current 9