Playwright’s Solution To Belgian Terror
If Belgium has a terror problem, Ismaël Saidi (second from left) says he has at least part of the solution. “We have to mix,” he says. According to PRI.org, ‘The 39-year-old playwright grew up the son of Moroccan immigrants in Brussels. His comedy “Djihad,†about young Belgians going off to fight in Syria and becoming disillusioned along the way, has been playing to sold-out audiences for more than a year now. It opens in Paris next month. Saidi was a police officer in Brussels for 15 years before turning to writing fulltime. He’s also an actor and director. (In “Djihad†he plays a character also called Ismaël.) He knows the toxic influences that surround the young people in segregated neighborhoods in Brussels because he grew up in one himself. He remembers the imam at a mosque he attended as a kid railing against nonbelievers and exhorting youngsters to go fight alongside the mujahadeen in Afghanistan.’ [photo: courtesy of Ismaël Saidi]
