Why I have coffee with people who send me hate mail zlem Cekic
My inbox is full of hate mails
and personal abuse
and has been for years.
In 2010, I started answering those mails
and suggesting to the writer
that we might meet for coffee and a chat.
I have had hundreds of encounters.
They have taught me something important
that I want to share with you.
I was born in Turkey from Kurdish parents
and we moved to Denmark
when I was a young child.
In 2007, I ran for a seat
in the Danish parliament
as one of the first women
with a minority background.
I was elected,
but I soon found out
that not everyone was happy about it
as I had to quickly get used
to finding hate messages in my inbox.
Those emails would begin
with something like this:
“What’s a raghead like you
doing in our parliament?”
I never answered.
I’d just delete the emails.
I just thought that the senders
and I had nothing in common.
They didn’t understand me,
and I didn’t understand them.
Then one day, one of my colleagues
in the parliament said
that I should save the hate mails.
“When something happens to you,
it will give the police a lead.”
(Laughter)
I noticed that she said,
“When something happens” and not “if.”
(Laughter)
Sometimes hateful letters
were also sent to my home address.
The more I became involved
in public debate,
the more hate mail and threats I received.
After a while, I got a secret address
and I had to take extra precautions
to protect my family.
Then in 2010, a Nazi began to harass me.
It was a man who had attacked
Muslim women on the street.
Over time, it became much worse.
I was at the zoo with my children,
and the phone was ringing constantly.
It was the Nazi.
I had the impression that he was close.
We headed home.
When we got back,
my son asked, “Why does
he hate you so much, Mom,
when he doesn’t even know you?”
“Some people are just stupid,” I said.
And at the time, I actually thought
that was a pretty clever answer.
And I suspect that that is the answer
most of us would give.
The others –
they are stupid, brainwashed, ignorant.
We are the good guys
and they are the bad guys, period.
Several weeks later
I was at a friend’s house,
and I was very upset and angry
about all the hate and racism I had met.
It was he who suggested
that I should call them up
and visit them.
“They will kill me,” I said.
“They would never attack a member
of the Danish Parliament,” he said.
“And anyway, if they killed you,
you would become a martyr.”
(Laughter)
“So it’s pure win-win situation for you.”
(Laughter)
His advice was so unexpected,
when I got home,
I turned on my computer
and opened the folder
where I had saved all the hate mail.
There were literally hundreds of them.
Emails that started
with words like “terrorist,”
“raghead,”
“rat,” “whore.”
I decided to contact the one
who had sent me the most.
His name was Ingolf.
I decided to contact him just once
so I could say at least I had tried.
To my surprise and shock,
he answered the phone.
I blurted out, “Hello, my name is Özlem.
You have sent me so many hate mails.
You don’t know me, I don’t know you.
I was wondering if I could come around
and we can drink a coffee together
and talk about it?”
(Laughter)
There was silence on the line.
And then he said,
“I have to ask my wife.”
(Laughter)
What?
The racist has a wife?
(Laughter)
A couple of days later,
we met at his house.
I will never forget
when he opened his front door
and reached out to shake my hand.
I felt so disappointed.
(Laughter)
because he looked
nothing like I’d imagined.
I had expected a horrible person –
dirty, messy house.
It was not.
His house smelled of coffee
which was served from a coffee set
identical to the one my parents used.
I ended up staying
for two and a half hours.
And we had so many things in common.
Even our prejudices were alike.
(Laughter)
Ingolf told me
that when he waits for the bus
and the bus stops 10 meters away from him,
it was because the driver was a “raghead.”
I recognized that feeling.
When I was young
and I waited for the bus
and it stopped 10 meters away from me,
I was sure that the driver was a racist.
When I got home,
I was very ambivalent about my experience.
On the one hand, I really liked Ingolf.
He was easy and pleasant to talk to,
but on the other hand,
I couldn’t stand the idea
of having so much in common
with someone who had
such clearly racist views.
Gradually,
and painfully,
I came to realize
that I had been just as judgmental
of those who had sent me hate mails
as they had been of me.
This was the beginning
of what I call #dialoguecoffee.
Basically, I sit down for coffee
with people who have said
the most terrible things to me
to try to understand
why they hate people like me
when they don’t even know me.
I have been doing this
the last eight years.
The vast majority of people
I approach agree to meet me.
Most of them are men,
but I have also met women.
I have made it a rule
to always meet them in their house
to convey from the outset
that I trust them.
I always bring food
because when we eat together,
it is easier to find
what we have in common
and make peace together.
Along the way, I have learned
some valuable lessons.
The people who sent
hate mails are workers,
husbands, wives,
parents like you and me.
I’m not saying that
their behavior is acceptable,
but I have learned to distance myself
from the hateful views
without distancing myself from the person
who’s expressing those views.
And I have discovered
that the people I visit are just
as afraid of people they don’t know
as I was afraid of them before
I started inviting myself for coffee.
During these meetings,
a specific theme keeps coming up.
It shows up regardless whether
I’m talking to a humanist or a racist,
a man, a woman,
a Muslim or an atheist.
They all seem to think
that other people
are to blame for the hate
and for the generalization of groups.
They all believe that other people
have to stop demonizing.
They point at politicians,
the media, their neighbor
or the bus driver
who stops 10 meters away.
But when I asked, “What about you?
What can you do?”,
the reply is usually,
“What can I do?
I have no influence.
I have no power.”
I know that feeling.
For a large part of my life,
I also thought that I didn’t have
any power or influence –
even when I was a member
of the Danish parliament.
But today I know the reality is different.
We all have power
and influence where we are,
so we must never,
never underestimate our own potential.
The #dialoguecoffee meetings
have taught me
that people of all political convictions
can be caught demonizing
the others with different views.
I know what I’m talking about.
As a young child, I hated
different population groups.
And at the time, my religious views
were very extreme.
But my friendship with Turks,
with Danes, with Jews and with racists
has vaccinated me
against my own prejudices.
I grew up in a working-class family,
and on my journey I have met many people
who have insisted on speaking to me.
They have changed my views.
They have formed me as a democratic
citizen and a bridge builder.
If you want to prevent hate and violence,
we have to talk to as many
people as possible
for as long as possible
while being as open as possible.
That can only be achieved through debate,
critical conversation
and insisting on dialogue
that doesn’t demonize people.
I’m going to ask you a question.
I invite you to think about it when
you get home and in the coming days,
but you have to be honest with yourself.
It should be easy,
no one else will know it.
The question is this …
who do you demonize?
Do you think supporters of American
President Trump are deplorables?
Or that those who voted for Turkish
President Erdoğan are crazy Islamists?
Or that those who voted for Le Pen
in France are stupid fascists?
Or perhaps you think that Americans
who voted for Bernie Sanders
are immature hippies.
(Laughter)
All those words have been used
to vilify those groups.
Maybe at this point,
do you think I am an idealist?
I want to give you a challenge.
Before the end of this year,
I challenge you to invite
someone who you demonize –
someone who you disagree with
politically and/or culturally
and don’t think you have
anything in common with.
I challenge you to invite someone
like this to #dialoguecoffee.
Remember Ingolf?
Basically, I’m asking you
to find an Ingolf in your life,
contact him or her
and suggest that you can meet
for #dialoguecofee.
When you start at #dialoguecoffee,
you have to remember this:
first, don’t give up
if the person refuses at first.
Sometimes it’s taken me nearly one year
to arrange a #dialoguecoffee meeting.
Two:
acknowledge the other person’s courage.
It isn’t just you who’s brave.
The one who’s inviting you
into their home is just as brave.
Three:
don’t judge during the conversation.
Make sure that most of the conversation
focuses on what you have in common.
As I said, bring food.
And finally, remember to finish
the conversation in a positive way
because you are going to meet again.
A bridge can’t be built in one day.
We are living in a world where many people
hold definitive and often extreme opinions
about the others
without knowing much about them.
We notice of course the prejudices
on the other side than in our own bases.
And we ban them from our lives.
We delete the hate mails.
We hang out only with people
who think like us
and talk about the others
in a category of disdain.
We unfriend people on Facebook,
and when we meet people
who are discriminating
or dehumanizing people or groups,
we don’t insist on speaking with them
to challenge their opinions.
That’s how healthy democratic
societies break down –
when we don’t check the personal
responsibility for the democracy.
We take the democracy for granted.
It is not.
Conversation is the most difficult
thing in a democracy
and also the most important.
So here’s my challenge.
Find your Ingolf.
(Laughter)
Start a conversation.
Trenches have been dug
between people, yes,
but we all have the ability to build
the bridges that cross the trenches.
And let me end by quoting my friend,
Sergeot Uzan,
who lost his son, Dan Uzan,
in a terror attack
on a Jewish synagogue in Copenhagen, 2015.
Sergio rejected any suggestion of revenge
and instead said this …
“Evil can only be defeated
by kindness between people.
Kindness demands courage.”
Dear friends,
let’s be courageous.
Thank you.
(Applause)