PARIS,
November 21, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – "Abdel Rahim" has
changed his name to "Peres" and no longer brags about his
Arabic roots in public to spare himself police and employers'
discrimination, and dozens have opted for the new lease of life to
escape the harsh reality.
“Neither
my family in Morocco nor my Muslim colleagues in France knew that I
changed my name on official papers,” the 23-year-old
French-naturalized Moroccan told IslamOnline.net Monday, November 21.
“The
new name gave me a job and put me on an equal footing with my work
colleagues, who knew nothing about my background.”
He
said that his dark complexion further represented a stumbling bloc to
his ambitions.
“But
I found a way out by pretending that I was of Spanish origins,” he
said, with a bitter laugh on his face.
“When
I was Abdel Rahim, I never received any response from five companies
for which I had applied,” he added. “But Peres was accepted now in
two jobs and has to choose.”
French
Muslims and Arabs, estimated at some six million, are heavily
concentrated in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis, the scene of deadly
riots by angry immigrant youths over the past two weeks.
Years
of government negligence and marginalization have turned the northern
Paris district of Saint Denis, where half a million Muslims live, into
a hotbed for unemployment and aberration.
Initially
sparked by the electrocution deaths of two teenagers of west and North
African background hiding from police in an electrical sub-station in
a poor neighborhood northeast of Paris, the riots grew as youths from
high-immigrant districts across the country joined in.
Many
voiced anger at racial discrimination despite being born in France, a
lack of educational and employment prospects and police harassment.
First-class
Citizen
Abdel
Rahim says he now has nothing to worry about when stopped by police on
the streets to check his ID.
“They
treat me as a first-class citizen with no discrimination at all,”
Abdel Rahim said.
Karim,
22, choose Christophe to make life easy in highly background-conscious
France.
“I
have been jobless for four years though I filled some 57 job
applications and studied media in one of the French universities,”
he said.
Nigma
found a proper apartment and a job after she had changed her name to
Marianne.
Others
tried to strike a balance between their Arabic identity and reality by
giving heir children French-Arabic names like Joseph.
A
Sorbonne research released earlier in the year by the French
Observatory Against Racism found that Arab names and dark complexion
represent an obstacle to jobseekers.
The
“Discrimination at Workplace” research said that the organization
sent 325 CVs of competitive applicants, who only differ in names and
origin, to find later that the opportunity for North African
applicants to get a job is five times less than natives.
Not
a Solution
But
Ahmad Gaballah, member of the European Council of Fatwa and Research,
said changing names is not a solution to the problems of Arabs and
Muslims in France.
“I
myself do not go for this,” he told IOL. “We must address the
roots of racism, which is the problem of thousands in France.”
He
said the recent riots have drawn the attention of politicians and
media to the importance of combating this ugly phenomenon.
“As
far as religion is concerned, changing names is not prohibited as long
as the new name does not offend Islam,” he said, noting that many of
French Muslim reverts had kept their original names.
But
he warned that changing Arabic and Islamic names could be a prelude to
gradual disintegration of the original identity.
