Alwanat

In just ten months, Alwanat has evolved from a group of friends bonding over similar experiences to a widely-known campus association engaging students in much-needed discourse surrounding race and racism on our campus. This year, 2A Sania Mahyou and I had a tough act to follow after Moira Shoush and the rest of our now-3A founders left Menton for their third year adventures. We spent a long time thinking about the direction in which we wanted to take the association: an activism body? a safe-space? a networking opportunity? an educational tool? Our conclusion, unsurprisingly, was to combine all of these aims within the mission of our association.

One thing that we wanted to stress from the beginning was a horizontal approach to leadership. We opted against a board with poles as is typically done in SciencesPo associations. This horizontal format creates an environment where there are no hierarchies – either actual or implicit – which enables everyone in the association to contribute as much or as little as they want. This has, of course, created logistical and organisational obstacles, but it is worth it. This framework allows for members of the association to feel able to act on their own prerogative 100 percent of the time. This is important because we all have different ways of processing and navigating our experiences and there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. Participating in anti-racism activities requires effort, but should not be treated as an obligation. The work we are doing necessitates an internal motivation.

Furthermore, our recruitment campaign was informal and involved a simple chat to ensure the aims of the association were understood and that there was a shared interest with the applicants. Alwanat is a bilingual association, and we have one president from each track in hopes of creating an environment where there is no francophone or anglophone hegemony over our actions or mindset. These were all intentional steps taken to ensure that our new members were open and motivated enough to take over when the current leadership is no longer here.

Alwanat’s meetings are apolitical, typically consisting of dinners and conferences. This is a deliberate choice — we do not want to politicize anti-racism. We do not participate in debates or polemics– there is more than enough opportunity for that within Sciences Po and its existing associations!

We finished last year with an ambitious cycle of conferences, and the first guest was renowned author of “Le Triangle et L’Hexagone,” Maboula Soumahoro. In the conference, she exposed the reality of a being a Black Muslim woman in France and provided a rich reflection of the articistic, political, and literary tradition of the Black disapora in France. This was followed by a conference by Rim-Sarah Alouane which grappled with the rise of Islamophobia in France and the weaponization of laïcité in the political arena. We finished the year on a high with a celebration of people of color (POC) talent in the arts. We invited a panel of diverse artists, musicians, writers, and photographers to discuss their work, inspiration, and experience navigating their fields as POCs.

This year, we began with several organizational meetings to improve our structure before we embarked on the challenge of creating a campus-wide anti-racism training session which was to be held in October. Unfortunately, due to administrational incompetency, it was cancelled at the last minute and our hard work sadly did not yield the sessions we had envisioned. We had hoped to give general talks on anti-racism, as well as present the testimonies and data from our campus wide survey (all available on our Instagram page!). Understandably, there was low morale within the team after the administration blocked our efforts, as we had spent weeks preparing and organizing ourselves for the anglophone and francophone training sessions .

We took a little hiatus but came back with one of our best events yet – our Alwanat safe space dinners. These are an opportunity for students to come and talk over good food and company. But, it also affords members the chance to share their experiences of racism in a safe space where what they say will not be trivialised or debated. We can all empathize with each other given our shared experiences. We also welcome allies to come and learn more about the lived experiences of POCs and talk about how they can help the movement.

We also worked with different associations, co-organising the Arab Student Organization x Alwanat x Sciences 360 HAFLA party which was a celebration of Middle Eastern food and music with henna, shisha, and good vibes all round. The semester ended with our first ever in-person conference with the author of “Illegitimes,” Nesrine Slaoui, a former Sciences Po student herself. She talked about her book and navigating environments such as our university as a Brown, Muslim woman from a low socioeconomic background.

This semester, Alwanat is hoping to build on the momentum we have already created and have more dinners, parties and, of course, conferences so that we can share fun, exciting, and informative spaces with the entire campus community. We want to continue engaging the campus in important conversations about everyday racism on and off campus-as well as topical issues for us as students of the MENA region. We are always open to anyone interested in our activities, so if you want to join us please feel free to approach any member of the board to chat!

-Ismaeel Yaqoob