Abdinasser Rezkallah, 29, is one of those future/current leaders, and he attended the MLT world conference last January in Qatar, where the group penned an Open Letter to the World Leaders of Today, which ran as a full page in the Washington Post the same day as Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration.

“Like Obama says, it’s time for change,” says Rezkallah. “We decided to tell Obama – and all the leaders of the world – that there are all these people who are taking action to commit to a global society. It’s an extended hand to world leaders so they can help Muslim leaders do a better job.”

The job they are trying to do is “avoid the radicalisation of people,” explains Rezkallah, who is also a youth worker in Antwerp. And how they plan to accomplish that is to tackle specific problems in different countries. “Every country has its own problems,” he says. “In Europe, it’s mostly socio-economic; in the US, where Muslims are better educated, the focus is more on awareness and policymaking.”

In Belgium, the biggest problems facing the Muslim community are lack of education and employment and, like in many countries, media representation. Take, for instance, the statistics from a survey that were printed in every Flemish newspaper at the end of January showing that huge percentages of Flemish people believe that Muslims have little respect for the rights of women and that Islam is a “threat to European cultural values” and has “no positive contribution to make to Western culture”.

“How are the questions formulated? How are they being asked?” questions Rezkallah. But most importantly, he says, “What is the knowledge of those answering the questions? There is no monotheistic Islam. Every individual deals with religion in his or her own way.”

And statistics, of course, do not tell the whole story. “Would the answers have been different 10 years ago or even five?” asks Rezkallah. “Images are always changing. I wonder how that would be seen if that research was about another group of people. It might have been the same results.”

Add to this kind of press coverage, the notion of the “Muslim terrorist”. Rezkallah: “When a terrorist is from another part of the world, they are just ‘terrorists’ or some other name entirely. With us, it’s always Muslim first.”

The last two years in Flanders have been a particularly volatile time with the infamous banning of the hijab, the headscarf worn by Muslim women, among public service employees in Antwerp and Ghent.

All of this is part of “a growing Islamophobia in Belgium,” says Rezkallah. “All of those things slow down the integration of Muslims in society. It polarises the problem – and the community. If you constantly label them ‘Muslim terrorists’, then that is what you will get.”

This vicious circle has complex causes, but Rezkallah is looking for some simple changes in Belgium. Instead of banning the hijab in schools and workplaces, for instance, “recognising the religious holidays of our youth so they can stay home legally would be a step in the right direction”, he says. And “if the media would give an accurate view of Muslims, that would help a lot. A whole lot.”

Rezkallah is a youth worker with the Platform of Migrant Youth Associations in Antwerp, an umbrella organisation for migrant youth groups across Flanders. When he was born in Dendermonde to immigrant parents, there were very few groups for migrant youth available in Flanders. Now there are many. “Someone who’s active in a youth organisation develops much faster,” Rezkallah explains. “He or she learns how to work in a group and uses different skills, finds new interests.”

It’s another way this Muslim Leader of Tomorrow works towards the goal of social unification. In a youth group, he says, “you feel valued because you are proving your are worth something. It’s a place to prove yourself.”

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