Photo: Düzen Tekkal (in the center)  with her uncle, mother and brother, 1982

In today’s world, where culture moves at the speed of social feed, critical thinking isn’t as visible as it used to be. Critical thinkers are less popular — or, probably they have never been — especially if they are women. I'm in awe of the brave  women protesting Iran's tyrannical regime, fighting for their right to exist on their own terms. It is painful to hear how many young women are being tortured, raped and killed on a daily in their fight  against their government, but then I feel a sense of relief to see that the protests are continuing to sweep Iran. This might be the turning point and milestone in female empowerment   across the  world.  While you imagine the end of   men being able to intimidate women because of their uncontrolled projection,  meet Düzen Tekkal

Intro: Rafaela Kaćunić
Assisting Editors: Jakub Laska, Yildiz Krahn

Rafaela: You grew up in Germany as a Kurdish Yazidi, as a minority of a minority, and you work as a war correspondent, journalist and human rights activist, to name a few. I guess the following question must be a common one for you: how did you find your calling?

Düzen: I must say, even though I’m often asked this question, I always answer it very differently. It always has to do with the situation I find myself in. If you ask me today, I would say I had no other choice. The subject found me because my religion and my nationality, and therefore my identity, have been questioned for as long as I can remember. As a child of Kurdish-Yazidi refugees, we were at demonstrations every weekend, whether by the Society for Threatened People or Amnesty International — I felt, even though I was very young, that there was a lot at stake. 


R: Your vocation was inherited, so to speak…

D: Exactly, my parents started this work as political refugees. They came to Germany in the course of the recruitment of guest workers over 50 years ago — first as guest workers, but then relatively quickly to apply for political asylum as well. 


R: How did you create a career out of your purpose?

D: I had phases in my life where the topic was very present and I had phases where it was quite far away. But it never disappeared. I always had a close relationship with the fate of my family and the Yazidi people. That's why I studied politics and German studies, and wrote my master's thesis on Kurdish Yazidis in the diaspora and the sociopolitical conditions of their integration. My professors at the time already saw me as an integration consultant when, despite all expectations, I simply went to work for private television. You could say that my decision to not go into politics for the time being was a typical move on my part. I think that sometimes you try to suppress and avoid your life’s purpose for as long as possible.


R: But then it caught up with you again. What was the crucial moment?

D: When the genocide of the Yazidis happened in 2014, suddenly my studies and everything I had ever learned before was a preparation to tell the story of our people, especially because no one else seemed to be interested in it. It sounds macabre, but with the deadly crimes of the Islamic State, the story of my people suddenly became tellable, because the pictures from the Sinjar mountains went around the world. There, people were seen dying of thirst and starvation, children were seen buried and men beheaded. Who are these gangs of murderers and why are they killing these people? What did these people do, who are these people anyway? The fact that there were a lot of people out there who didn't even know what Yazidis were, made me want to become a journalist to investigate this very question and to create a level of awareness for it. Because I realised quite quickly that the injustice that is hushed up and identity that is suppressed or erased only strengthens the perpetrators. For that reason, I became aware: the Yazidi suffering has to get out. 

R: In November 2021, the Háwar.Help Human Rights Award was given to 17-year-old IS survivor Jihan Alomar, among others, in Berlin. It was a moving moment to see this young, courageous woman and her mother together. With your initiative Háwar.Help you support minorities, especially girls and women, who are persecuted, discriminated against and exposed to violence in Iraq, but also in Germany. What does this help currently look like?

D: Háwar.Help takes place collectively, but also individually. We have a women's centre in Iraq, in the Kurdistan Region, and we are just opening the second women's centre. There we take care of IS survivors and the project is called 'Back to Life'. There are over 800 participants and what's important to me is that all this work is multi-ethnic and multi-religious. So we have found that the issue of violence knows neither nationalities nor religions, but for us it has always been clear that if we want to work out solutions, then it can only be done together — and I am very proud of that. In view of the fact that we are in the midst of an ongoing genocide, it was not easy at all to push this through. But we are convinced that this peace reconciliation can only succeed if we bring together women of all religions. We started, for example, with sewing and literacy courses, and now we are quite far along. We now have English courses, digitalization, and entrepreneurship. In other words, the women in these regions naturally have the same desires as we do, and in the age of digitization, they are also very, very much in the loop. And as a result, desires and dreams are naturally developing anew. Nevertheless, they have, unfortunately, very different living conditions. 


R: How exactly does the work look like on site? How does Háwar.Help support these women on a structural as well as individual level?

D: I was once asked by an initiative how I would approach this work and slogans like "Down with patriarchy" etc. came up. But these kinds of phrases won’t bring any change, because I can't even get through the front door in Iraq with such an attitude. Human rights work is not just black or white. 

Women on the ground have to fight for their rights in a completely different way. They fight for basic things that have been taken for granted here in Europe. We don't need to tell them how to go about it on the ground, they already know that themselves. The women there say, "Remove the obstacles from our path so that we can continue here, because we fight for our women's rights every day." 

That's sort of the structural, collective thing I mean. Because we are convinced that women, as agents of change, belong in self-determination and through that they also have to become breadwinners, breadmakers. They must be given the opportunity to finance their own income and advancement so that they can pursue their tasks in a self-determined manner. Interestingly, self-determination even protects them from violence, but this is of course not a given, because their human rights continue to be threatened. We try to empower these women, so that they can develop their possibilities and potentials and so that, in the best sense, the causes of emigration can be combated.

R: You also work closely with women in Germany. What does your work look like here? What are the differences from your work in Iraq?

D: Well, my sister, for example, does the Scoring Girls project, where she now has five locations in Berlin: in Kreuzberg, Wedding, Hellersdorf and Marzahn. There are many girls from Afghan, Palestinian, Kurdish and Turkish families, but also from families without an immigrant background, who come to soccer training partly supervised by national coaches. There are great workshops they can participate in. My sister Tugba always says, "There must be another place where the world is okay." These girls are in crisis, but when they are on the court, they laugh and fight. They're not all the best players in the world, but they forget their worries for a moment. In addition, we have project partners like Deutsche Bahn, for example, with whom we subsequently also help with job placement. Of course, we also help with everyday things like homework. Especially now during pandemic times it is important to signal: You are not alone. In general, it's also about breaking down prejudices. We have a lot of girls who also wear headscarves, but we see it through a completely different lens. It's not about discussing whether it's good or bad — those are not the parameters by which we judge. We are grateful for every girl who is with us. Our coaches are all female and I think that's important too, and it makes us proud that girls who would never go to a traditional soccer club join ours. It shows that we have also become a safe space. 


R: And that you’re ultimately building bridges….

D: …because we know both worlds. We grew up with an understanding of tradition and we know the problems. We know the parents' concerns, we speak the languages, and I think that creates trust and that helps. That's why it's so important that we, too, have become agents of change; that we, too, can develop and facilitate completely different projects from the different cultural circles with the socialisation that we have gone through. These girls have a completely different perspective, because their life’s reality is completely different from their parents’ life, and much more complex. I think that is really the special thing about our work, whether at Háwar.Help or also German Dream. However, unfortunately, we also have cases where women contact us who are severely affected by violence and emotional abuse. This includes threats of honour killings or forced marriages, which is why many of them approach us. 


R: Do people who have been deprived of their rights still carry freedom inside of themselves?

D: I believe there is no stronger value than that of freedom. People are willing to die for their freedom. That has always been the case, and that will always be the case. I actually believe that the freedom muscle needs to be exercised and that it is quite important to appeal precisely to this individual freedom. Nelson Mandela, who was in prison for decades, had said very wise and true things about this at the time. Although he was locked up, he had maintained an inner freedom. I think it’s important to acknowledge that no shackles in this world can prevent human beings from their urge to be free. In my opinion, only people who have experienced an unfree life know what it means to be free and how precious freedom is.

Jakob: Do you think there is such a thing as universal freedom and should this concept be forced? Or is it a voluntary offer from a society that can be rejected?

D: If the concept of freedom is exclusively linked to performance, for example, then it is obviously problematic.  

I think that the concept of freedom cannot be imposed by anyone. It has to be a movement that emerges from within, at least in order to remain.

R: It almost feels like self-sabotage to somehow come to terms with my own fragmented identity and tendency to ‘self-other’ as a means to distinguish myself from other Germans. To what extent do you recognise yourself in this? What does 'being German' mean to you?

D: For me it was actually the other way around. I always wanted to be German. Especially since I had the feeling that I was wrong and that I wasn't enough. That's why I always wanted to belong, and I think there was a kind of overidentification in my younger years. I remember the moment when I realised that it was the supposed deficit, that being foreign was exactly the reason why people pointed their fingers at us. We were too loud, we were too much. For the fact that we were so different, we were also too self-confident and too cheeky. We grew up in Hannover Linden. Large family, many aunts, all tattooed, colourful dresses, red dresses, women wore skirts. So we always sat in the park and felt both the derogatory looks and the prejudices that came with it. I always found myself thinking, "If you only knew what we were really like." 


R: What were you like?

D: Even though we were louder and more colourful than our surroundings, we were well educated and ambitious, and those people with the evil looks had a false image of us based on prejudice and stereotypes.


R: How do you perceive such discriminatory experiences today?

D: I honestly think that's where all my strength comes from. It showed me that I feel like I belong to both worlds. At the end of the day, the question is: Do we all have to become German? Is integration when we all have become German? It's about us having a space and a home in our otherness, in our biography, in our culture, with our values, even if these are sometimes not compatible with the values of the majority of society. And that is what I mean by the German Dream: it applies to everyone. For all people, no matter what religion they belong to, who they love or where they come from.


Yildiz: German Dream is also the title of your book published in 2020 and probably the heading of numerous life stories of people in Germany with an immigrant background. What conflicts do you perceive with regard to these people's search for identity in their classification and orientation within society?

D: I think this finding of identity is also the pull that we ignite — that we are just not German. We are not a ‘German’ company in that sense, and that has nothing to do with any hostility toward my country, because Germany is my home. It's more about expanding that and making something new out of it. This is about identity and being allowed to develop identity without becoming identitarian. And we also transfer that into the classrooms, because a lot of young people are asking themselves exactly these questions. Is it possible to have African roots and still be German and combine them? And why doesn't that work? It clearly has to do with, among other things, experiences of discrimination and the resulting breach of trust that prevent one from feeling that one belongs. But de facto it also has to do with the fact that we live in a country that for a very long time gave us the feeling that we didn't belong, because it was never expressed. We were guests. How are guests supposed to fight for civil rights, if they do not feel like citizens of this country and are not negotiated and treated as such. Last sentence on this: The fact that we are an immigration society must be clearly anchored here and also spoken out. I expect a lot from the next federal government. That we manage to make this way of life, this self-evident fact, tellable once again.


R: How did you deal with the conflict between the rather collectivist culture of your parents and the desire for self-determination and realisation, which corresponds more to an individualistic, liberal culture? I have had the experience that it’s very hard to reconcile — to want to correspond to one and the other, and to have to decide somehow. What responsibility do you feel as a member of a dwindling minority?

D: Very exciting question or observation. The struggle between collectivism and individualism has actually always been the biggest challenge for me personally. I grew up in a culture that is relational. Individualism doesn't play a big role there, in fact it's somewhat frowned upon. My rights and my desires? "Nah, what's the point? You have ten brothers and sisters, we are an extended family! Now dinner has to be put on the table right away, the kids have to be changed," etc. We were lucky if we were listened to, I'll tell you how it is. How do you think I learned to express myself to the point? The Elevator Speech is nothing compared to my mother's announcement, "Be brief when you need something and when you want something." So, if there's one thing we've learned with this extended family, it's to be considerate of each other and to understand each other in relation to the community. That's why that was my lifelong struggle, because I always said, "Yes, but my freedom is also important, and my wishes." 


R: That doesn't sound like a lot of attention...

D: Honestly, attention was not necessarily pronounced in my family structure. It was more about functioning. But that also had to do with my mother's excessive demands. As a result, this individualism muscle is naturally extremely pronounced in me. I once had a coaching, and it came out that my rebellious child ego is very dominant. And I think that goes exactly into this time, because I always had the feeling that I had to fight, fight, fight — for my rights, for my self-determination, for my needs. But needs weren't even taken seriously in our house. What I mean by that is that it became clear to me relatively quickly that this collectivism had its beautiful sides, but also its dark sides, even though my parents didn't mean anything by it — they love us more than anything. I actually believe that this has made me extremely immune in today's discourse, that I no longer fall into collectivism traps.


R: Yes the feeling of ‘swimming against the tide’ and fighting for one's individualism I know well, both on a family level and on a social level. What is your experience in public discourse with your decision to live both concepts?

D: Well, I notice that I always try to break out of migration debates, if they turn into identity debates. Also, I don’t buy into the victim or persecutor narrative in the first place. I know this collectivism from home, and I see through their manipulation tactics immediately. You can't do that with me, because I’d say, I'm quite immunised against it by nature. Nevertheless, it hurts to be criticised, especially when the criticism comes from the Yazidi community, and I am held responsible for events that I could have not even seen coming. Everyone has something to say, everyone talks, everyone knows it better. Of course I’m aware that the hot topics I report on also play a role here. When problems arise somewhere in this context, people sometimes call my parents and say, "She can't do that!", whereupon my father calls me and says, "You can't do that". I don't know any German journalist, for example, to whom that would happen. Do you understand what I mean?

Photo by Markus C. Hurek

R: Yes, I can imagine. Have you ever considered turning away from your family?

D: Yes, all my life I've been between individualism and freedom on one side, and collectivism, family and community on the other side. I actually had a critical situation when I was about 18. At that time my parents were completely overwhelmed with my rebellious nature, and it wasn't easy at all. I also had to decide with all my strength to be against them, and even risked breaking up with the family. Fortunately, my parents let me go and trusted me. I am so grateful that I have both today. I have my family and I have my freedom. I say it because it’s not self-speaking in our culture. So many young women, and for that matter young men, still write to me that they have to make a decision because they are homosexual, for example, and want to live a self-determined life. Homosexuality is still a taboo subject in our culture. These young people need an identity, they need a home, and not addressing their issues within these collectivist families just erases their existence and pain.


Jakub: What worked for you in the family so that you could develop the way you have now?

D: I think my parents, like most parents, were afraid that I would go off the rails, end up under the bridge and become homeless....


R: Yeah, classic catastrophizing.

D: Exactly, catastrophization! They were living in a foreign country, which also created fear of being culturally alienated from their roots. In addition, of course, there was the fear of "What are other people going to say?" Here we are again with the topic of collectivism. "What are other people going to say, if I send my daughter to another town unmarried and then she goes off the rails and people point the finger at me, and then I lose face?" Things like that matter in collectivist cultures. Now my parents, modern as they may be, on the other hand, have a strong understanding of tradition; they also say, "If we're no longer socially accepted, then all of this is useless." The moment when they understood that we children had left to come back was a very crucial one. They had to let go in order to allow me to become who I am now. I would have never been able to report on the genocide as a journalist if they hadn't let me go so I can learn my craft. In the end, that's how I found my way back home.


Jakub: Your parents travelled with you, so to speak...

D: Exactly, they went along. Tugba, my sister, always says that we ran ahead and they slowly followed. Today we’re walking together. Today they are able to say "Look, my daughters are not all married and maybe they didn't necessarily take the path we would have liked, but they definitely became great personalities and are doing important work." Because of this strict attitude of my parents, I always felt I had to be twice as good, especially with my performance in school, my justification to be free. Today, for example, I also call strict parents when their kids write to me and say, "My mother is against me going to another city." Then I say, "Auntie why? Let her move there. You want her to grow up. It worked for me too." The main thing here is to go into the exchange and to set examples: it's possible to have the best of both worlds.

Rafaela: And in terms of the virtual collective: social media on the one hand enables indispensable connections and communication and on the other hand the algorithm amplifies the group bubble effect. Opinions are expressed, but often only mirrored and as soon as a narrative is questioned, the outrage is huge and this leads to more and more self-censorship. It seems that online discussions often just reflect echo chambers where everyone wants to be morally superior and hardly anyone knows what kind of opinion they personally represent and why. I feel like people often forget what it is all about and that we are all just people behind these screens.

D: I believe that we all have a very strong opinion, but most of us don't dare to share it, because we are always afraid to hurt, to be wrong and we fear resistance. I believe that deep inside we have many opinions and attitudes. I believe that we actually also live in such a time where we need to resonate and connect again — with what we are about and also what message we want to send. As you say, there seem to be more and more people who are holding back and clenching their fist in their pocket and I think that's highly dangerous. This discourse is now being led by a committed minority. By a loud one. These are mostly the extremists, whether from the right, left or religiously motivated. 


R: Where are your limits in such heated discussions and how do you manage to stay centred?

D: What I find difficult is when topics become ideologized. There is a fine line there, and as soon as it is crossed, I position myself very clearly. I don't work for target groups or echo chambers because I would destroy them the next day anyway. For example, I don't have a following where I know they think this or that is awesome, or they support and share everything I say. It’s always a new experience with my audience, because I always take the right to rethink my opinions and situations.


R: That means you even wish for more controversy?

D: I think that's what many people want, otherwise those heated debates wouldn't exist. It's rather a matter of enduring resistance, standing up for oneself and entering controversy. I always say that one should not fear a good argument. If I am deeply convinced of something, I’m actually curious: What is there to stand up against? I can withstand any shitstorm if I'm convinced that it's the right thing to do and I have solid arguments based on facts. Of course, I've also had phases where I wasn't sure of myself, and then you're pretty shaky. In such moments you realise there is no general justice or one worldview. And I would really like to see a bit of verbal disarmament and more tolerance towards people who have different opinions.


R: How do you filter your need to communicate on certain topics and how do you form your own opinion in today's flood of information?

D: For me, it's not just about an informational goal, it's always an emotional goal as well. It's about making connections. But honestly, there are also a lot of hot topics where I say there's nothing to gain, true to the motto ‘pick your battles’. In such cases I stay out of it and rather talk about it with my friends, because of course I’m full of opinions about it. I don’t have to put every thought in a tweet and I try to fight the urge to share my opinions publicly. It often destroys more than it gains. I'm always grateful for everyone who accepts that I may have a different opinion. Like, for example, with the big issue of the Middle-East conflict. How does one want to behave there? What do you want to say? Whatever opinion you have, I think it's important to always look at both sides and not fall victim to any ideology and exploit it for your own purposes so you feel better about yourself.


R: When is the right moment to communicate?

D: When the need arises, "No, come on, let's get this out now," just be aware whether you’re posting it for the purpose itself or for self-purposes. Fortunately, my work takes place in reality, and only to a limited extent on the World Wide Web. So, I would say, listen to your gut, but use your head to filter your feelings.


R: The hot topic of the past years has been ‘privilege’. I personally think my biggest privilege is that I grew up on the poverty line between different cultures. I learned to function from an early age because it made me the person I am today. That was very painful, but at the end of the day also the best life school anyone could have asked for. I feel like it taught me every trick in the book and helped me develop resilience only few can imagine. I have the impression that people who grew up overly protected often end up having a fragile personality…

D: I am quite convinced of that. The moment I understood that these living conditions have added value to my life even if they were painful, my life’s purpose became clear. But most importantly they made me develop psychological resilience, which is a crucial trait in my job — every day is a matter of life and death. At Háwar.Help we're constantly in that in-between world, or as I like to call it: open dissonance. The consequences of our decision to react or not to act can be devastating. If I didn't come from such a culture, where constant worries seemed to hover over me, I would not be able to do all of this. 


R: Would you say that also helped you to assert yourself in a male domain and to run a social enterprise?

D: Definitely. I notice that the way we approach, solve and endure problems at Háwar.Help has a lot to do with the fact that I have taken my right to engage in male domains, that I have endured threats, that I have not let myself be intimidated. That has a lot to do with my socialisation and the fact that I wasn't born with a golden spoon in my mouth. At the same time, I don't want to condemn the people who have the luck and above all, privilege. Honestly, all the work we do wouldn't be possible either if it wasn't funded. There are a lot of people who have a lot of money and do a lot of good with it. Not everything is black and white. I see it as our task to go there and say, "Come on, support this!" To proactively tap into the wealth and redistribute it. At the end of the day, it's about the added value of what you do for others who are less privileged than you, regardless of whether you were born into a rich or poor family. The only thing that counts is what you do with the privileges you have. 


R: What is currently your greatest wish in terms of social commitment and attitude in Europe?

D: Oh that's a very difficult question. Let me think about it for a second. I do believe that we are in a very exciting phase worldwide, where new leadership is being formed. But what I would really like to see is people coming together despite all kinds of borders and also accepting each other's mistakes. We could also be a little more lenient with the people who govern us, and not judge them so harshly. Also, I’d like us to understand that the cake doesn't get smaller but bigger when we share, and that everything will be fine at the end of the day. No matter how many problems we have and how cruel the world can be, we can continue to counter talk. 

We can't abolish the evil in the world, but we can put the good next to it. That's what we try to do every day with our work. There are so many beautiful stories and experiences that give us the strength to stand up against evil.


R: Yes, it’s kind of like the Yin and Yang principle. If you can’t see the silver lining in hardship, you won’t be able to solve problems that life throws at you.

D: Exactly. Hope is the antidote to fear.

*The majority of the Yazidis belong to the Kurdish ethnic group, but they are a religious community of their own, with at least 800,000 members worldwide. Their original main settlement areas are in southeastern Turkey, northern Syria as well as northern Iraq. They have been persecuted time and again for centuries. Like Jews, Christians and Muslims, the Yazidis profess a belief in one God. However, they also worship an angel symbolised by a blue peacock named Tausi Melek. According to the creation myth, the angel was involved in the creation of Adam, and it is from him alone that all Yezidis are descended. The commandment to marry only within the faith group is based on this myth. One becomes a Yezidi exclusively by birth; both parents must belong to the community. No one can defect or be converted. This is the tradition. Today, many Yazidis are of the opinion that the laws governing marriage and acceptance into the community must be reformed. Terrorists of the so-called Islamic State (IS) murdered at least 5,000 Yazidis in northern Iraq in August 2014. Around 300,000 Yazidis now live in the large refugee camps in northern Iraq, with an estimated 200,000 in Germany. This country also has the largest community outside Iraq. In Turkey, however, the Yazidi community is practically extinct.