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Dyab Abou Jahjah


Dyab Abou Jahjah (Arabic: دياب أبو جهجه‎‎, born 24 June 1971 in Hanin, Lebanon) is an Arab political activist and writer who was active in Europe between 2001 and 2007. He is the founder and former leader of the Arab European League (AEL), a Pan-Arabist movement that supports the interests of Muslim immigrants in Europe. Since then, Abou Jahjah took distance from identity politics and is more operating out of a non-ethnic, secular and leftist framework.

He was born and grew up in southern Lebanon in Hanin, near the Lebanese-Israeli border. He obtained refugee status in 1996 and became a Belgian citizen through marriage to a Belgian woman, from whom he much later divorced. He is now married to a Muslim woman he married in Libanon. He holds a Masters degree in political science from the Université catholique de Louvain.

Abou Jahjah has written several books, among them an autobiography titled "Between Two Worlds - the Roots of a Freedom Fight" that sold 7000 copies in Belgium and the Netherlands. He was also the subject of two political biographies, one written by Mohammed Benzakour and the other by Maroun Labaki, and a political analysis book written by the Belgian renowned writer Ludo De Witte.

In 1991, at the age of 19, Abou Jahjah left Lebanon. "I wanted to go abroad like a lot of Lebanese young people". Abou Jahjah studied at the renowned UCL university in Louvain la Neuve and obtained a master's degree in political science and International relations. After several odd jobs during his study time, including factory work and construction labour, he became the director of vzw Welkom, the Immigrant working body for the Belgian ABVV trade Union.


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