Between freedom and happiness

2011-09-30

Journalists Majd Khalifeh and Pieter Stockmans, and photographer Xander Stockmans travel across North Africa and the Middle East for 5 months in search of dreams of freedom and happiness of ordinary people, workers, doctors, activists, young people, imams, priests, professors, trade union leaders, journalists, politicians,... They let the people behind the revolutions speak and share their dreams with Europe.

Somewhere between freedom and happiness. That's where the people of North Africa and the Middle East are. Does more freedom mean more happiness? How do people seek happiness despite all kinds of restrictions on their freedom?

"Ash'ab yurid" or "the people want..."! Millions of people from the Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean shout this simple and powerful slogan. They hope to climb out of a dark period of oppression and injustice. While the great masses fight for freedom, happiness and justice in their own countries, others risk their lives on fishing boats, looking for freedom and happiness in Europe.

The journey is also the quest of the journalists. Majd and Pieter will regularly enter into dialogue with each other, the 'East' in dialogue with the 'West'. Do they experience everything in the same way? Can they make the same journey? As a stateless Palestinian, is Majd as free in his own region as Pieter, a European in a foreign region?