May 27, 2006

Dr Mounira Maya Charrad ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Your Excellency Nejib Hachana,

Dear Friends,

            I am delighted to be here again with all of you to celebrate the second Ibn Khaldun Award event.  I was deeply honored to receive the award last year. 

            I wish to thank His Excellency Nejib Hachana.  His support since he took post in the US has made a difference for me personally as an academic and as a member of the Tunisian American community.  I extend my congratulations to this year’s award recipient this year.  Mr. Mellouli, we are proud of you and your impressive accomplishments.  We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Director of the Tunisian American Community Center, Mr. Khemili, for his continuous commitment and his boundless energy.

            When we had our inaugural event last year, we thought we were starting a tradition.  This year, we have moved closer to making this a tradition for many years to come.  The Tunisian American community is stronger and will continue to grow.  We come to this gala dinner from all corners of the US because we want to remain connected to our home country and to our fellow Tunisians in America.  Whatever other communities we are part of in our daily lives, in our place of work and in our respective cities in the US, we are at this event because we all feel the need to belong to a Tunisian American community.

            Tonight, I was asked to speak about the legacy of Ibn Khadun and the significance of his thought for today’s world.  Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis in the fourteenth century, on May 27th 1332.  He died in Cairo on March 17th 1406 and this year is the 600th anniversary of his death.  His work has received more and more recognition internationally, as is shown by the numerous conferences about this contribution organized in many countries around the world. The question is:  how come we are still paying attention to someone who lived and wrote 600 years ago? 

            I want to suggest three major reasons:

            1.  Ibn Khadlun was a great mind, a man of creativity and intelligence, who gave us the gift of writing.  He wrote books with eloquence and depth.  What makes a great mind is a mystery.  The point is that Ibn Khadun was one of the great thinkers of all times – and he was ours.  He was Tunisian.  We need to claim him as a great mind of our own history.  We must give him a proper place in our past and take pride in having him in our heritage.

            2.  The second reason for his legacy is that Ibn Khaldun was among the early thinkers who developed a science of history and society.  He claimed that scientific thinking did not apply only to physics, chemistry and the like, but also the study of society, politics and culture.  Today, major organizations such as the World Bank are hiring social scientists, sociologists and anthropologists, to be part of their projects because it has become amply clear to them that policies work only if and when we take into account cultural values.  Ibn Khaldun said something to that effect six hundred years ago.

            Ibn Khaldun also wanted to know how come countries evolve along different paths and take different courses.  I have built on his ideas in my own work.  I have examined how countries of the Maghreb have followed divergent courses with respect to women’s rights.  In particular, I have considered why Tunisia has been at the forefront of the Arab World in regard to family law and women’s status.  In my own writing, I am also highlighting Ibn Khaldun’s contribution to the fields of sociology, political science, and history in an effort to increase my colleagues’ awareness of his work.  The social sciences did not start only in Western societies.  We too in Tunisia had our own brilliant social scientist as early on as in the fourteenth century.

            3.  My third point is that Ibn Khaldun’s brilliance rests heavily with the concept of Asabiya, generally translated as solidarity, social cohesion, or sense of community.  Ibn Khaldun argued that Asabiya gives strength.  I believe he was right.  People cannot live without a sense of community.  We need solidarity and community as we need food, shelter, and other basic resources.  Today, medical researchers are discovering that social isolation is an enormous health risk.  In a nutshell, it is dangerous to our health to be alone.  People who have solidarity, community, and social relationships live longer, recover faster from illness, and remain healthier throughout their lives.  In focusing on Asabiya, Ibn Khaldun knew the importance of social solidarity for individual happiness as well as for the welfare of society.

            All of us here who have made a life away from home are in a position to understand his message better than anyone.  The more I have the pleasure to get to know some of you, the more I realize that just about everyone is this room has a story to tell about losing and finding community.  I bet that for most of us the story has to do with our dreams to create a life and a community here in America.  At the same time, I believe that most of us feel a little nostalgia for the world we left behind. 

            A piece of our heart is here in America, and another piece is in Tunisia.  We have no choice, my friends.  We have to bring our two worlds together, to bridge them, to connect them. This is our journey and our mandate.  And this, none of us can do alone. We will do much better if we hold hands.  As I said last year, our shared roots, our shared experiences, and our shared bonds to Tunisia will help us in our journey.  As Ibn Khaldun said and modern medicine has confirmed, Asabiya is good for us.  Let us strengthen our sense of community. 

My fellow Tunisian Americans, I look forward to seeing all of you here again next year, same time, same place, to celebrate our community and the next Ibn Khaldun Award. Thank you.