His country has garnered a reputation for breeding Islamic radicalization in ghettos where disaffected second- and third-generation Muslims live. A coordinated attack in the Brussels airport and metro system killed 35 people in March.
"I really don鈥檛 find that I, the group or the community that I belong to, is threatened. I don鈥檛 feel that my safety is threatened.
"But my image, maybe, yes. For example, today there is a [bill] in Belgium where they can send people with a criminal background [with double nationality] back to their home countries even if they were born in Belgium, if they鈥檙e a third-generation immigrant in Belgium. We were saying [at the center] today, 鈥極k, so when are you truly Belgian? How many generations do you have to be here before you feel 100 percent, fully Belgian?鈥�
"鈥� It鈥檚 a strange thing 鈥� you鈥檙e born in Belgium, you were raised here, you speak Dutch, you have the same hobbies [as everyone else], etc. but you鈥檙e not accepted as a full Belgian citizen. ... My parents were born in Spain, and I was born in Belgium. 鈥� So I feel that my roots are still with my family in Spain, and then if you go further back, by four or five generations, it鈥檚 Morocco. So I don鈥檛 feel only Flemish or Belgian, I feel more than that, I鈥檓 European.
"What we see now in Europe is that there are a lot of right-wing political parties that are sending the wrong information to people about xenophobia, Muslims, refugees; that everything is going wrong in Europe. It鈥檚 like what happened in the UK with Brexit. We also see something similar in the Netherlands and Hungary, Italy, even in France, where there are people saying, 鈥榊es, we also want to exit from the European Union.鈥� It鈥檚 all based on lies.
"... It鈥檚 not even that people are against refugees or against Muslims but now in Europe, you get the feeling that people are against Europe and against each other. The UK against France, against Germany. It鈥檚 not good - It feels like we鈥檙e going back 60 years."
