The story of Natasha Al-Hariri – How did she end up doing what she is doing!
By Ouafa Zaidi, cultural reporter intern at Crossing Borders March 03, 2022, at 17.00 – Ubuntu Huset At Crossing Borders headquarters, on March 03, 2022, for the third Food For Thought event, we had the pleasure of welcoming Natasha Al-Hariri, director of DFUNK – Danish Refugee Council Youth -, lawyer, organizer, and debater of Palestinian origin. A well-known face to the Danish public, who know her through her various media appearances where she speaks about gender inequality and issues of acceptance and/or integration of immigrants, but today we are trying to get to know a little more about the lady behind these hot topics and get her opinion on the challenges the refugees face. With an audience as remarkable as the guest of honor, the event was particularly stimulating and concluded as usual with the healthiest and most succulent of meals, this time prepared by our dear Syrian refugee Manal. A moment of sharing in which we highlighted what is holding us back, and what should be said and done. But I will let you discover it through an interview without complacency. Please let’s take a leap in the past and tell us a little bit about your family history and your experience in Denmark. N: My parents fled the civil war in Lebanon and on the way, I was born in the Netherlands. So, they sought asylum in the Netherlands because that’s where they ended up. But during that time my uncle, my father’s brother, came to Denmark and his other brother came to Poland. And seeing their family shredded into so many pieces was hard for them and they wanted to reunite the family, so they came to Denmark and asked for asylum again. We ended up in a municipality just north of Copenhagen, in a very white rich neighborhood with very few refugees. I think for my parents to have that as a home was both very safe but also very unsafe. They had no one to have their morning coffee with. They had no one who understood them, they had no one they could relate to. But at the same time, the people around them, their neighbors introduced them to the local neighborhood and have dinner with them, and so on, which was really important to my parents. Being raised with that hope was pretty interesting. But I was just a kid as any kid at that time. I didn’t put so many thoughts into who I was or the color of my skin, and the people around me didn’t either. At least not in the way we see it today. It wasn’t until I was 13 years old and started wearing the hijab, and that was my first confrontation with society. That’s when I started to feel different, not just physically, because of the way I looked, but also because of the way society treated me. And I had encountered racism and discrimination, whether it was against me or my family. But I didn’t have the tools to deal with it, and neither did my parents. And who could we talk to about it? We didn’t even have language about it. We couldn’t say it was racist, it just wasn’t acceptable to point it out. But my parents always made room for conversations about it at home and it was very important for me to be able to express myself. R: I understand that your personal experience and your family history have led you to where you are today. But I think that to continue in this field and to keep this will for activism and fight to change the immigration system and integration policy, takes more than some sort of historical or personal connection. Tell us why your work is so important and meaningful to you, aside from the obvious causal links. N: I think my work with DFUNK is important because DFUNK is a place where one can create change. A space for young people who have fled to Denmark and who can now grab the mic and come to sit around the table where decisions are being made. It’s so important for me because even at the hardest times, even at the most traumatizing times, I have a space where I can come and feel safe. And I think for us it is so important to engage in the local communities, always be looking at who we can engage with and how we can continue to create change in Denmark. We try in our work to be where people need us. And a lot of people in our community want to be in a safe space where they can engage. For example, we have this food concept, where once a week we make food, we eat, we dance, we do whatever we want/need together. And for a lot of people, their main community is DFUNK. So, it’s really important for them to be where they can feel safe, where they can feel welcome, where they don’t have to talk or do anything they don’t want to. And unfortunately, women are the most vulnerable and the most targeted. So, we’ve done campaigns and we’ve engaged politicians in this. We also have a program for young refugees who want to participate in public debate, so we have people who teach them how to interact with journalists, how to get on a stage, and how to write a speech. All this is to be able to protect ourselves, for our own sake, but also for the sake of what we are here for. R: In Denmark, the integration of Danish immigrants and their descendants is an often-debated social issue. This debate frequently leads to how to create and/or maintain cohesion in societies, while inevitably becoming more ethnically and culturally mixed. Can you tell us how it is possible to create mutual political and social recognition between the two parties? N: I think some of it can be created within the law system, so we need good politicians and good lawmakers. But we
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