These last days have been quite hectic with all the work, friends, and family issues.

My parents called me because one of my uncles is coming to visit them for few weeks and told me i had to spend most of my free time at home since noone knows in Algeria and here I already left home to live a single's life ..in Paris.

Now, my parents are Muslim Algerians. In a code that was written centuries ago, even before the first dynosaure appeared, it is written in GOLDEN MARBLE CAPITAL LETTERS that Muslims girls can't leave their parents home before getting married. Even if the above mentioned girl isn't married by 45. A parents' job, or should i say a mother's job isn't finished until she properly marries her daughter, especially the eldest, and attends the baby's birth, helps choosing the name, babysits the baby and finally takes over the parents.

I am 31, still single, nowhere near getting married in the next 5 years, so she's getting a bit desperate because she realises she is nowhere near having a quiet life unbringing my 3 children while my very rich and honorable husband and I work.

Since I left home, they always had to lie to our friends and neighbours because... they never told them I had left home. So I'm either working very late "poor good hardworking girl", or living at my cousins" because office is so far and it would be a 4 hour trip everyday", or attending some kind of professional Muslim network " to improve her chances of having a great job, getting to know more people of our community, especially if he's a lawyer or a doctor, Muslim of course, and coming from a big Algerian family, from either Algiers, Oran, Tlemcen, or Mascara"!

I told Mum I couldn't be there every evening just to make him believe I was still living with them. She got angry saying that I'd rather be with my friends than with my family, that I couldn't even make an effort for something so important to them, that I had forgotten who I am, where I came from, my god, and that I'd probably get married to a Jewish American if I could - is Gabriel a Jewish American?- So I agreed to spend the next three week-ends at home pretending I'm a good Muslim girl. For the rest of the week, I will be in Lyon doing a management training in German.

Meanwhile, all I want to do is have some nice girly drunken fun. Clara called. There is a quizz in an Irish pub tonight. Theme: L.O.V.E ! Can't wait to be there!

Outlandish: You hear them, you see me ***

I am a very complicated girl, that is a fact, but that's also because of the cultural shock I've always had to deal with. I was born in France, from Muslim Algerian parents.
My heart, my soul are from both sides of the Mediterranean sea. I love it. I am both African and European, Algerian and French, of Muslim and Christian cultures. I feel great about it. We all should feel lucky about all these sources of intellectual and cultural wealth!

France is such a great country. Beautiful, with great history, great social and cultural achievements as well as awful aspects, just as any country I suppose. But it has that unique quality that the world envies us, even if it annoys them at the same time.

Why do I feel the need to justify myself for being what I am? Why am I starting to feel the fear my origins could provoke in some people's minds? It never happened before.

Why is France so afraid of this new diverse and challenging generation? Because she fears all the wrong she did before would hit her back on the face? But it is our country, why would we hurt it?! I feel we are a democracy and the country, the people and the governement should respect all its aspects. Encourage the good ones, as social and cultural diversity. And fight the ones who don't approve them.
I may be naive, but I suppose we all want to be happy, but we should learn how to be happy together.

France shouldn't forget who and what she is: a very generous nation, based on social solidarity and international awareness of human rights. A dream place where freedom has its real power and practice. Where is our freedom going?

All I want is people and the government to understand it and fight for the right things, not for bourgeois privileges and promotion of ignorance.

These guys are Outlandish, a Danish hip hop band whose members belong to the Pakistani, Moroccan, Hondurian, Muslim, Christian communities in Denmark, could we even say Europe! Their sound is really cool and diverse. It takes its origins in the musical and social background that surrounded them. They sing in English, Danish, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic and their lyrics are about life, diversity, social inequality, good and evil in this world, international peace, love of course! Please check them out, they're great. They could be so successful in France. They would be an echo to what's happening here. Lots of people could relate to them.

You see them, you see me. You hear them, you hear me!