Your heart is the center of humility, your mind could be the source of arrogance.

No civilisation can claim to have a monopoly on universal values and no one can claim to be always faithful to his own values.

Culture constitutes an essential element of social and political liberation. As people rise up across the Middle East and North Africa, the diversity of their cultures is not only the means but also the ultimate goal of their liberation and their freedom.

What we have within the Sunni tradition is this clash between the literalists and all the other trends and the Salafi movement, that are very much acting on the ground and using the popular sentiment to act against the West.

Even the concept of the infidel is misleading, because the infidel is normally someone with a different faith, someone who refuses to recognize the truth of the words of the Koran, as revealed by God. He has every right to do so, as long as he does not question my right to believe in my truth.

I wouldn't call it naive but silly. History does not work like this. If you look at the dynamics of Eastern Europe or even Germany post reunification, you realize that change takes time. No one can deny the fact that we are still not there - I am advocating something which has to go from uprisings to revolutions. It is not coming straight away that it is not going to come but what we have to advocate is that the democratization process is always better than state dictatorship.

Those organisations, al-Qaeda being the first one, have all settled in areas full of mining and oil resources or in geostrategic zones. They settled in Afghanistan which underground is filled with oil and lithium. North Mali is filled with mining resources (uranium). It is essential to question the impact and role of some international players that create or let those organisations settle there.