My name is Michel Manen, and I am the founder of the Al-Andalus Caliphate Project. I studied politics, languages, law and international relations and became quite familiar with the history, cultures, ideas, politics and legal systems of islamic societies. As President of a real-life non-profit organisaton, CRAEDO (Coalition for the Re-formation of the Euro-American Democratic Order - http://www.craedo.com ), whose aim is to re-think what it means to be an active citizen in a 21st Century democracy, I am naturally very interested in issues of democratic participation, citizenship, intercultural communication, diversity, and human rights.

The idea of researching and developing an authentic islamic system of juridico-political governance that both reaches back to the ideas an principles of islamic law and politics preceding the colonial era, and is fully compatible with universal notions of active citizen participation, democracy, equality, human dignity, and human rights developed out of both my undergraduate studies in politics and my post-graduate studies in International Legal Issues. After spending approximately 7 months in Second Life and becoming familiar with this environment and its amazing, creative new possibilities as an exciting new platform of communication, interaction and activism, I realised there is no better place than here to attempt to bring this project to life. Being fluent in 5 languages -English, French, German, Spanish an Romanian- gives me a unique abilities to interact and talk to people from all corners of the world, discuss with them a wide variety of issues, and awaken their interest in the Al-Andalus Caliphate Project.

I was born in Bucharest, Romania, where I lived for 12 years. I then spent a year in Algeria and two in West Germany before emigrating, with my family, to Montreal, Canada. I studied politics and languages at the undergraduate level at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario and the University of Glasgow, Scotland. I also spent a semester studying Spanish in Salamanca, Spain. In my spare time I debated, voulnteered with the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves, where I was commissioned as an officer ( 2. Lieutenant) and participated in various international conferences in the United States. I studied law at McGill University, Montreal and worked with law firms there, then moved, in 1992, to London, UK, where I met andd married my wife, Valerie.

In 1993 I founded CRAEDO and continued going to various conferences on law and politics across the UK, where I presented papers and participated in discussions, while at the same time studying for a law degree and an LL.M in International Legal Studies. At the same time I worked with a number of law firms and researched my upcoming book: "The European Crucible: Democracy, Prosperity, Diversity for the 21st Century".

In 1999 Val and I came to Canada and settled in Toronto, where I worked as Director of International Operations with one of Canada's largest immigration law firms. I then moved to Ottawa and then, finally, to Vancouver, where we currently live. I now teach business law for undergraduate and MBA students at a Vancouver university, act as a consultant for an immigration law firm and continue to develop my non-profit organisation, CRAEDO. As CRAEDO's President, I joined the Vancouver Board of Trade and sit on a number of its Committes and Task Forces.

I found out about Second Life in an article in the British magasine "The Economist", was intrigued, and decided to give it a try. After exploring Second Life and being fascinated by its potential, I establised a virtual headquarters for CRAEDO as well as a conference centre on the Colonia Nova sim -part of the Community of Democratic Simulators, which is known as the only fully democratic community of SL, with its own Representative Assembly and regular elections. In January 2007 I founded a new political party, CARE (Citizens' Alliance for Rights and Equality), produced the first in-world political campaign commercial ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU-6UTiDq3I ) and was elected as one of 5 representatives to the CDS Representative Assembly. Because of fundamental differences with other CDS public officials on the manner CDS is governed, I resigned my seat in the CDS RA in May 2007 and decided to focus my time, energy and resorces on working for my company, CRAEDO, as well as on the Al-Andalus project.