Translator: Nadine Hennig Reviewer: Mile Živković
As a young man
with an immigrant background
as well as an immigrant “foreground,”
I am pleased to note
that the great majority of German citizens are very tolerant
and open-minded when it comes to foreign cultures
and displaced people.
By the same token, late one evening in February of last year,
I saw a Facebook video with chants
of “Go home! Resistance!
We are the people! We are the people! We are the people!”
In the video, a group of men all dressed in black can be seen.
A very angry mob yells insults with fists raised in the air
as they form a wall blocking a bus
carrying women and children,
preventing them from making their way
toward accommodation centers for refugees.
Through the windows in the bus, you could see women and children crying,
clinging to each other, not daring to leave the bus.
Those scenes
remain with me to this day.
So, imagine for a moment
that along with this angry mob,
you were there too.
The men are here,
the bus is here, and here you are.
What would have been your reaction?
Some might have been afraid in the face of such aggressive men.
Some might have tried to intervene, if only they had known how.
And some might have returned to their homes
terrified by what they had witnessed, wondering what they could do
to keep a scene like that from ever happening again.
I must admit that back then
I didn’t know how to react.
But allow me to tell you,
in the next ten minutes or so,
how I would react today.
Through my own story, I will explain how I react
when confronted with xenophobia and hatred today.
My name is – as you can clearly see from my face –
Ali Can.
In my 23 years here on earth,
I have occasionally experienced racism,
like when my friends and I wanted to get into a club and party
and they were allowed entrance and I was not. Why?
“We’re full,” they said but the others were allowed in.
Or when I dated a German, blonde, Bavarian, Catholic girl,
and people regularly gave me dirty looks and made comments.
I put up with such treatment,
until I saw this video from Claußnitz
of an angry mob
blocking a bus.
And I really wanted to do something about it.
I didn’t want to watch in silence anymore
as these innocent people, women and children
who had fled war and terror,
were immediately confronted
with hate and hostility.
“What could I do?”
I asked myself but I didn’t know the answer.
Over time, I thought
that perhaps I should go to these hotspots of racism
highlighted in news reports,
places like the one I saw in the video.
Perhaps then I would come to know
how to respond to xenophobia.
I began to do research.
I noticed that over the last two or three years,
several places had been mentioned repeatedly in such reports.
One such town, for example, is Hoyerswerda,
where a very bad arson attack was carried out on a refugee center.
Very bad.
The police were not able to keep things under control.
It was a town further to the east than I had ever been.
I decided to go there.
Once I got there, I had many discussions.
It was my first time there, and, I have to say, it is a very beautiful town.
Most of the people I met were very friendly.
I had to rearrange my thinking.
When leaving, I asked two boys for directions.
“Which way is it to the train station?” I asked.
“That way,” they said.
“Okay,” I said.
I took my backpack
and headed in that direction
but there was no train station.
I walked and walked, but found nothing.
Turning around,
I saw that these boys were coming in my direction.
I don’t know about you but do you know that queasy feeling you get
when your stomach starts to tie itself in knots?
I wanted to say to them, “Well, sorry, I didn’t find it.”
One of them started in: “What are you doing here, you shitty foreigner?”
The other yelled, “What do you want in our country? Get the fuck out of here!”
and he kicked me.
Reflexively, I grabbed my knee.
I was bewildered.
I wanted to say something, but instead,
took my backpack and ran away.
It was two against one
and a rational conversation with them was impossible.
I continued walking, angry.
I took a taxi to the train station
so that I could hurry on to Dresden,
my next intended destination.
I honestly couldn’t think straight,
I was so angry.
I cursed that entire town.
I cursed and damned the people who lived there.
I thought it was all awful.
Emotionally, I was seething,
It was a very unpleasant experience
that I would not commend to anyone.
I got to Dresden, went to my hotel room,
lay down, and continued to curse the place.
After a time, my phone rang.
It was my cousin checking to see how I was feeling.
How was I supposed to feel?
Of course, I told him what had happened,
that for the first time in Germany,
I had been physically attacked by very racist young men.
He listened patiently without commenting.
Then, finally, he said, “Yes, Ali, what happened is bad.
And you are right, such things shouldn’t happen to anyone.
But I want to tell you something else.
Do you think
it’s right for you to also react with hateful words,
like they did?
But aren’t you just like them?
How are you going to make these people more tolerant
if you yourself over generalize?
Aren’t you acting just like those right-wing populists
who take all immigrants for criminals,
who frame all Muslims as terrorists,
simply because of what you experienced in this city?
Aren’t you exactly like them?”
I yelled back.
“Well what am I supposed to do? Do you know how bad it is?”
He said, “Look, what is your goal?
What is it you stand for –
not against,
but for?
Why did you start this journey?”
All night long, I stewed about this.
But it wasn’t until the following day, to be honest,
that I understood something of what he wanted to tell me.
What I saw in the video,
in the news reports, and in what happened to me,
these are the things I was against.
My cousin said, “But what are you for?”
I realized I could answer his question in the opposite:
love, understanding, compassion.
These are the things I’m for.
Then I thought,
I will not be like all those populists.
I will not be like those people
who stereotype and generalize.
To do so would do injustice to all of the other people in this town.
So I continued,
taking the next leg in my journey: Dresden,
location of the “Pegida” demonstration.
The Pegida demonstration
is a protest consisting of thousands of people,
who simply put, view Muslims with great skepticism.
I had never been there,
so I went there to learn more about it. Why?
Because the Pegida protesters also chant,
“We are the people! We are the people!”
So similar to the video that had deeply impacted me.
But conversation with them was impossible.
Everyone I tried to talk to said,
“You need to pay attention to what we’re saying.”
And I was like, “But I came all the way from Hesse
to dialogue with you.”
I was like a little snowflake who went there
wanting to learn something.
They, of course, had a different view:
“Criminal asylum-seekers are constantly coming to our country.
All Muslims are a danger to us,”
said the speaker at the microphone.
And here comes someone who looks like me wanting to have a conversation.
Like that’s going to work.
But eventually, we were all singing the German national anthem.
And for the first time, I felt connected with these people.
(Laughter)
I have the same feeling when I watch soccer matches.
I do like living in Germany.
Afterward, the speaker began talking about German traditions.
My visit to the Pegida demonstration took place one week before Easter,
so, consequently, he discussed Christian traditions like Easter.
I was really hungry and my stomach growled.
Then I remembered having just the right thing in my backpack.
So as I’m going through my backpack,
I noticed a couple watching me
who seemed to be asking themselves,
“What is he doing there? What is he up to?”
My beard was a bit longer then than it is now.
(Laughter)
It seemed like there were a thousand things
in that backpack: videos, cameras.
And then I found what I was looking for and then noticed
seemed to be very nervous. I was also getting nervous at this point, actually.
I needed to show them what I had.
I opened my hand, so they could see it.
And what did I have? A chocolate Easter bunny.
(Laughter)
At that moment,
I saw the frown lines on the woman’s face disappear
and then she did like that.
I wanted to give her the chocolate Easter bunny,
because I thought it was so touching
that she would smile at me in this situation.
But at this moment where I wanted to share,
the speaker said something – I didn’t understand what –
that brought the crowd back to once again shouting:
“We are the people! We are the people.”
The woman who had smiled went back to demonstrating
and I ended up keeping my Easter bunny
that I had wanted to give to her.
But I noticed that this Easter bunny
had triggered something.
I was reminded of something a good friend named Darius
once said to me.
“Ali, if you want women to be interested in you,
you have to pique their curiosity. You have to show a humorous side.”
(Laughter)
I’m still single, so I don’t know if I’ve succeeded at that with women
but the thing is, at that moment, it clearly worked.
My chocolate Easter bunny
had served as a bridge builder.
That Easter bunny, with its connection to Christianity
– at least commercially – allowed me, an immigrant,
to signal positive intentions toward persons
whose culture is Judeo-Christian or Western.
This chocolate Easter bunny was a great conversation starter.
Before, I would say, something like,
“Excuse me….”
But now, with this Easter bunny,
I could just hold it up and do this smirk.
(Laughter)
Whereas previously, I had to take the first step, now they were coming to me.
To tell you the truth, this was the first time I actually realized
that not everyone here was racist.
I needed to do a bit of rethinking.
This Easter Bunny was making it possible for me
to engage people in really meaningful conversations.
One conversation went like this: An old man came to me and said,
“Hello. So, is this a Pegida Easter Bunny?”
(Laughter)
And I said, “Yes. I got it
for doing such a good job of assimilating as an immigrant.”
“Awesome. So, where do you come from?” And I said, “From Gießen in Hesse.”
“No, I mean, where are you really from?”
Then we talked and exchanged thoughts.
It was obvious he was really intrigued.
To him, I was a non-threatening, “apporachable migrant.”
(Laughter)
And why?
Because I held out to him this symbol,
a friendly gesture.
I also offered him chocolate,
but he said he wasn’t into sweets.
Anyway, this was a loving gesture.
And this is what I mean by showing people love –
even people you view as racist
or who say racist things.
Because the first thing you realize is that not everyone is a racist.
The second thing is that by starting conversations,
you reduce prejudices on both sides,
and that’s what I’m about.
Rumi once said, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.”
These people who are angry and demonstrate,
most of them have yet to actually meet a Muslim.
Most haven’t even seen a displaced person
for any length of time.
So why were they there? For complicated reasons.
So I felt it important to seek out encounters,
respectful encounters, with friendly gestures
that showed them I wanted to listen to them.
I created a safe environment and I listened to them.
So this is a little bit of my work
that I wanted to tell you about.
Since, I have founded
a hotline for concerned citizens.
I am the approachable migrant people can call anonymously.
People can call to let off steam.
They can ask questions. I’m being serious. Why?
Because I believe we have to get back to listening to each other again.
We have to engage each other with respect.
Sometimes you have to be creative, sometimes loving,
and sometimes you have to get out of this dog-eat-dog mentality.
Rather than stereotype people,
meet them without prejudices.
If we want people to be more tolerant
toward refugees or immigrants, we have to be tolerant ourselves.
What could be, at once, more open and democratic?
We have to reach out to people with love.
To open racists to love,
you yourself have to begin by being love.
Thank you.
(Applause)
As a young man
with an immigrant background
as well as an immigrant “foreground,”
I am pleased to note
that the great majority of German citizens are very tolerant
and open-minded when it comes to foreign cultures
and displaced people.
By the same token, late one evening in February of last year,
I saw a Facebook video with chants
of “Go home! Resistance!
We are the people! We are the people! We are the people!”
In the video, a group of men all dressed in black can be seen.
A very angry mob yells insults with fists raised in the air
as they form a wall blocking a bus
carrying women and children,
preventing them from making their way
toward accommodation centers for refugees.
Through the windows in the bus, you could see women and children crying,
clinging to each other, not daring to leave the bus.
Those scenes
remain with me to this day.
So, imagine for a moment
that along with this angry mob,
you were there too.
The men are here,
the bus is here, and here you are.
What would have been your reaction?
Some might have been afraid in the face of such aggressive men.
Some might have tried to intervene, if only they had known how.
And some might have returned to their homes
terrified by what they had witnessed, wondering what they could do
to keep a scene like that from ever happening again.
I must admit that back then
I didn’t know how to react.
But allow me to tell you,
in the next ten minutes or so,
how I would react today.
Through my own story, I will explain how I react
when confronted with xenophobia and hatred today.
My name is – as you can clearly see from my face –
Ali Can.
In my 23 years here on earth,
I have occasionally experienced racism,
like when my friends and I wanted to get into a club and party
and they were allowed entrance and I was not. Why?
“We’re full,” they said but the others were allowed in.
Or when I dated a German, blonde, Bavarian, Catholic girl,
and people regularly gave me dirty looks and made comments.
I put up with such treatment,
until I saw this video from Claußnitz
of an angry mob
blocking a bus.
And I really wanted to do something about it.
I didn’t want to watch in silence anymore
as these innocent people, women and children
who had fled war and terror,
were immediately confronted
with hate and hostility.
“What could I do?”
I asked myself but I didn’t know the answer.
Over time, I thought
that perhaps I should go to these hotspots of racism
highlighted in news reports,
places like the one I saw in the video.
Perhaps then I would come to know
how to respond to xenophobia.
I began to do research.
I noticed that over the last two or three years,
several places had been mentioned repeatedly in such reports.
One such town, for example, is Hoyerswerda,
where a very bad arson attack was carried out on a refugee center.
Very bad.
The police were not able to keep things under control.
It was a town further to the east than I had ever been.
I decided to go there.
Once I got there, I had many discussions.
It was my first time there, and, I have to say, it is a very beautiful town.
Most of the people I met were very friendly.
I had to rearrange my thinking.
When leaving, I asked two boys for directions.
“Which way is it to the train station?” I asked.
“That way,” they said.
“Okay,” I said.
I took my backpack
and headed in that direction
but there was no train station.
I walked and walked, but found nothing.
Turning around,
I saw that these boys were coming in my direction.
I don’t know about you but do you know that queasy feeling you get
when your stomach starts to tie itself in knots?
I wanted to say to them, “Well, sorry, I didn’t find it.”
One of them started in: “What are you doing here, you shitty foreigner?”
The other yelled, “What do you want in our country? Get the fuck out of here!”
and he kicked me.
Reflexively, I grabbed my knee.
I was bewildered.
I wanted to say something, but instead,
took my backpack and ran away.
It was two against one
and a rational conversation with them was impossible.
I continued walking, angry.
I took a taxi to the train station
so that I could hurry on to Dresden,
my next intended destination.
I honestly couldn’t think straight,
I was so angry.
I cursed that entire town.
I cursed and damned the people who lived there.
I thought it was all awful.
Emotionally, I was seething,
It was a very unpleasant experience
that I would not commend to anyone.
I got to Dresden, went to my hotel room,
lay down, and continued to curse the place.
After a time, my phone rang.
It was my cousin checking to see how I was feeling.
How was I supposed to feel?
Of course, I told him what had happened,
that for the first time in Germany,
I had been physically attacked by very racist young men.
He listened patiently without commenting.
Then, finally, he said, “Yes, Ali, what happened is bad.
And you are right, such things shouldn’t happen to anyone.
But I want to tell you something else.
Do you think
it’s right for you to also react with hateful words,
like they did?
But aren’t you just like them?
How are you going to make these people more tolerant
if you yourself over generalize?
Aren’t you acting just like those right-wing populists
who take all immigrants for criminals,
who frame all Muslims as terrorists,
simply because of what you experienced in this city?
Aren’t you exactly like them?”
I yelled back.
“Well what am I supposed to do? Do you know how bad it is?”
He said, “Look, what is your goal?
What is it you stand for –
not against,
but for?
Why did you start this journey?”
All night long, I stewed about this.
But it wasn’t until the following day, to be honest,
that I understood something of what he wanted to tell me.
What I saw in the video,
in the news reports, and in what happened to me,
these are the things I was against.
My cousin said, “But what are you for?”
I realized I could answer his question in the opposite:
love, understanding, compassion.
These are the things I’m for.
Then I thought,
I will not be like all those populists.
I will not be like those people
who stereotype and generalize.
To do so would do injustice to all of the other people in this town.
So I continued,
taking the next leg in my journey: Dresden,
location of the “Pegida” demonstration.
The Pegida demonstration
is a protest consisting of thousands of people,
who simply put, view Muslims with great skepticism.
I had never been there,
so I went there to learn more about it. Why?
Because the Pegida protesters also chant,
“We are the people! We are the people!”
So similar to the video that had deeply impacted me.
But conversation with them was impossible.
Everyone I tried to talk to said,
“You need to pay attention to what we’re saying.”
And I was like, “But I came all the way from Hesse
to dialogue with you.”
I was like a little snowflake who went there
wanting to learn something.
They, of course, had a different view:
“Criminal asylum-seekers are constantly coming to our country.
All Muslims are a danger to us,”
said the speaker at the microphone.
And here comes someone who looks like me wanting to have a conversation.
Like that’s going to work.
But eventually, we were all singing the German national anthem.
And for the first time, I felt connected with these people.
(Laughter)
I have the same feeling when I watch soccer matches.
I do like living in Germany.
Afterward, the speaker began talking about German traditions.
My visit to the Pegida demonstration took place one week before Easter,
so, consequently, he discussed Christian traditions like Easter.
I was really hungry and my stomach growled.
Then I remembered having just the right thing in my backpack.
So as I’m going through my backpack,
I noticed a couple watching me
who seemed to be asking themselves,
“What is he doing there? What is he up to?”
My beard was a bit longer then than it is now.
(Laughter)
It seemed like there were a thousand things
in that backpack: videos, cameras.
And then I found what I was looking for and then noticed
seemed to be very nervous. I was also getting nervous at this point, actually.
I needed to show them what I had.
I opened my hand, so they could see it.
And what did I have? A chocolate Easter bunny.
(Laughter)
At that moment,
I saw the frown lines on the woman’s face disappear
and then she did like that.
I wanted to give her the chocolate Easter bunny,
because I thought it was so touching
that she would smile at me in this situation.
But at this moment where I wanted to share,
the speaker said something – I didn’t understand what –
that brought the crowd back to once again shouting:
“We are the people! We are the people.”
The woman who had smiled went back to demonstrating
and I ended up keeping my Easter bunny
that I had wanted to give to her.
But I noticed that this Easter bunny
had triggered something.
I was reminded of something a good friend named Darius
once said to me.
“Ali, if you want women to be interested in you,
you have to pique their curiosity. You have to show a humorous side.”
(Laughter)
I’m still single, so I don’t know if I’ve succeeded at that with women
but the thing is, at that moment, it clearly worked.
My chocolate Easter bunny
had served as a bridge builder.
That Easter bunny, with its connection to Christianity
– at least commercially – allowed me, an immigrant,
to signal positive intentions toward persons
whose culture is Judeo-Christian or Western.
This chocolate Easter bunny was a great conversation starter.
Before, I would say, something like,
“Excuse me….”
But now, with this Easter bunny,
I could just hold it up and do this smirk.
(Laughter)
Whereas previously, I had to take the first step, now they were coming to me.
To tell you the truth, this was the first time I actually realized
that not everyone here was racist.
I needed to do a bit of rethinking.
This Easter Bunny was making it possible for me
to engage people in really meaningful conversations.
One conversation went like this: An old man came to me and said,
“Hello. So, is this a Pegida Easter Bunny?”
(Laughter)
And I said, “Yes. I got it
for doing such a good job of assimilating as an immigrant.”
“Awesome. So, where do you come from?” And I said, “From Gießen in Hesse.”
“No, I mean, where are you really from?”
Then we talked and exchanged thoughts.
It was obvious he was really intrigued.
To him, I was a non-threatening, “apporachable migrant.”
(Laughter)
And why?
Because I held out to him this symbol,
a friendly gesture.
I also offered him chocolate,
but he said he wasn’t into sweets.
Anyway, this was a loving gesture.
And this is what I mean by showing people love –
even people you view as racist
or who say racist things.
Because the first thing you realize is that not everyone is a racist.
The second thing is that by starting conversations,
you reduce prejudices on both sides,
and that’s what I’m about.
Rumi once said, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.”
These people who are angry and demonstrate,
most of them have yet to actually meet a Muslim.
Most haven’t even seen a displaced person
for any length of time.
So why were they there? For complicated reasons.
So I felt it important to seek out encounters,
respectful encounters, with friendly gestures
that showed them I wanted to listen to them.
I created a safe environment and I listened to them.
So this is a little bit of my work
that I wanted to tell you about.
Since, I have founded
a hotline for concerned citizens.
I am the approachable migrant people can call anonymously.
People can call to let off steam.
They can ask questions. I’m being serious. Why?
Because I believe we have to get back to listening to each other again.
We have to engage each other with respect.
Sometimes you have to be creative, sometimes loving,
and sometimes you have to get out of this dog-eat-dog mentality.
Rather than stereotype people,
meet them without prejudices.
If we want people to be more tolerant
toward refugees or immigrants, we have to be tolerant ourselves.
What could be, at once, more open and democratic?
We have to reach out to people with love.
To open racists to love,
you yourself have to begin by being love.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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