Would you like to join Özlem Cekic and Jair Melchior as they kick off their lecture tour? It will take place on February 6 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Rysensteen Gymnasium in Copenhagen.
The occasion is the launch of their conversation book 'Despite Differences and Disagreements' (På trods af forskelle og uenigheder), which will be published by Gyldendal on February 4.
While unrest and conflicts between different ethnicities and religions threaten to divide society, friends Özlem Cekic and Jair Melchior insist on conversation – on dialogue. Together, they have made it their joint project to build bridges between people who represent seemingly irreconcilable positions.
This project has been severely challenged by the war in Gaza. The conflict has direct links to Denmark, where it has left serious marks on public discourse – and on our relationships with each other.
The book and lecture tell the story of two bridge builders who know what it means to have things rumbling and roaring around you. It is also the story of two friends who have experienced seeing everything that separates them. And then it is the story of how to find the way forward – despite differences and disagreements.
Rysensteen High School, Tuesday, January 28, 4:00–6:30 p.m.
The climate crisis calls for action – but also for dialogue, with the battle lines firmly drawn on the issue of the green transition. While politicians are entering into historic agreements on nature and agricultural transition, climate activists are staging hunger strikes in protest.
Join us when Brobyggerne invites you to Green Dialogue Coffee under the heading "Hunger Strike and Green Tripartite: Is there hope for green dialogue?" in the hope of strengthening dialogue, nuancing the debate, and counteracting polarization on the issue of agriculture and the green transition. The evening will feature expert presentations, panel discussions, and dialogue exercises in the hall.
4:00 p.m. Welcome by Özlem Cekic, Secretary General of Brobyggerne
4:10 PM Presentation by Jesper Theilgaard, author and meteorologist
4:30 p.m. Conversation between Jeppe Bruus, Minister for Green Tripartite Cooperation, and Selma De Montgomery, activist in the Green Youth Movement
5:00 p.m. Dialogue at the tables
5:30 p.m. Conversation with Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil (S), Member of Parliament, and Nikoline Borgermann, PhD in biochemistry and participant in Nødbremsen.
For many, Christmas is the time of year when they can relax in a safe environment and loving company.
For at least as many, however, it is also a time that tests both patience and tolerance.
Regardless of which category you belong to, Christmas is a reminder that the need for bridge-building is alive and well.
"The gift that builds bridges" was incredibly popular last year, so we are offering it again this year: We believe it fits into the uplifting category: a donation to Brobyggerne (Bridge Builders) so that we can continue our work for conversational democracy.
We will send you a digital thank-you card featuring a unique painting by Camilla Blachmann, created in support of our work. Read more here.
If you need to fill the space under the Christmas tree, I can also tell you that you can get a lot of good and educational moments out of the Bridge Builder game.
In March 2024, we launched our project, Green Dialogue Coffee. Over the next three years, we will use the project to strengthen the dialogue on the green transition and counteract polarization in the debate.
We have successfully held Green Dialogue Coffee events in Nyborg, Bjerringbro, and Aalborg.
Here, we brought together local actors from civil society, business, politics, and youth organizations to nuance the debate on local climate and environmental issues.
We are kicking off the new year with a round of Green Dialogue Coffee at Rysensteen Gymnasium in Copenhagen under the headingHunger Strike and Green Party: Is there hope for green dialogue? The program is being updated regularly, but you can already look forward to meeting activist Selma De Montgomery, politician Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil, and PhD Nikoline Borgermann. As usual, I will be moderating the panel discussion.
It will take place on January 28, 2025, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Read more and register here – it's free! We hope to see you there.
Are you coming to the US lecture in Aarhus?
You probably already know this. I was in the US on a dialogue tour leading up to the fateful election that ended in a big victory for Trump.
During the trip, I tried to gain a better understanding of the polarization in the US and what we can learn from it here at home. I met with Trump and Harris voters, Latinos, women's rights activists, campaigners, dialogue experts, religious bridge builders, Danish-Americans, passionate advocates fighting fake news, university lecturers, and many others.
I have compiled all the stories and pictures into a lecture – and you are invited.
The event will take placeonJanuary 7, 2025, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Dokk1 in Aarhus.
I hope to see many of our friends and supporting members from Jutland! Buy your ticket here.
This is now the third time that we are commemorating Bent Melchior, the first chairman of Brobyggerne, by presenting an award in his name. It must be said that Bent's message of bridge building has become no less relevant when we look at the state of the world today.
It has only been a few days since I returned from my dialogue coffee trip to the US. As we all know, Donald Trump won the presidential election with the unequivocal support of a majority of Americans. It gives pause for thought that a campaign based so heavily on divisive messages and demonization of others could be so successful.
It has confirmed my belief that we must make an extra effort to hold on to what binds us together, rather than focusing on what divides us.
The award honors a passionate individual who, with perseverance and patience, makes an effort to step out onto the bridge and meet the other person – with openness, curiosity, and a critical stance.
This year's award winner is Sarah Smed, who is the museum director at the Danish Welfare Museum in Svendborg and an unparalleled driving force.
As former Bent Melchior Prize winner (2022) Henrik Vestergaard Stokholm said in his motivational speech:
“She has thrown herself into the fight for the weak and put herself on the line. She has insisted that we all must face the monster and recognize that everyone has a responsibility for the vulnerable and disadvantaged. That we can do much better. That we must treat vulnerable people with dignity, respect, and compassion, and give a voice to the forgotten and the timid. Not just in speeches like this, but every day when we encounter vulnerable people on our path.”
“I had to pinch myself to realize that I (!) am the recipient of this honorable award, named after such an important person – and from an association, an initiative, a way of thinking that inspires me so much – wow!”
This is how Sarah Smed began her acceptance speech, and as you can see in the photo below, there was no doubt that we were dealing with a surprised recipient of this year's Bent Melchior Award.
However, her speech, which you can read here , also offered what I think is a welcome and much-needed rebuke:
“Because when all is said and done, I have learned that ‘the others’, ‘the vulnerable’ – they are part of ‘us’. It can be so damn uncomfortable to think that it could happen to us too. That exclusion. […] So couldn't we instead make an effort to talk about 'us', about 'we' and much less about 'the others' and 'the vulnerable'? Because words leave their mark. And I believe that one of the cornerstones of a more dignified welfare effort is laid when we as a society become aware of the words we use. About their power. And about how they are experienced and felt by those at whom they are directed."
Special thanks to:
Moltke's Palace for providing such a distinguished venue for the event.
Frellsen for the cream puffs and coffee bags for our guests.
Our anonymous donors, who once again this year have been a great support to our work in planning and executing the awards ceremony.
The artists and panel participants for enriching us all with moving stories and reminding us of the importance of valuing those who are vulnerable.
My good friend, designer Søren Le Schmidt, for my beautiful dress.
Photographer Erling Brodersen for taking the beautiful pictures.
Bent Melchior always said: "If you feel that something needs to be done, don't say, 'Someone else will have to do it. ' You have to do it yourself! You have to make a difference." We couldn't have made that difference without your support. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
And if you are looking for some "Bent Melchior Prize atmosphere" at home, I may have something for you too. In our webshop, you can purchase one (or all) of our beautiful bridge-builder posters. If you're looking for something to immerse yourself in, you can buy Anders Jerichow's book Brobyggere (Bridge Builders). Özlem Cekic and Bent Melchior.
If you are looking for a Christmas gift, I can also say that the Bridge Builder game offers many enjoyable and educational moments.And speaking of enjoyable and educational moments, we think that a ticket to one (or all) of the Ethical Evenings in January would be a great gift to put under the Christmas tree.
Finally, I would like to thank you, dear reader, for faithfully following our work. It means more than you know that we have a platform through which we can communicate and which interacts with us to such a high degree.
Over the past two weeks, our Secretary General, Özlem Cekic, has been remarkably absentandpresent at the same time.
Even though she has been thousands of miles away from Denmark, she has had plenty to keep her busy. In the final stages of the US election campaign, she has visited West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore. At the time of writing, on this fateful US election day, she is right where all the action is: Washington, DC.
Perhaps you have been following Özlem's Facebook page and other social media and have read about her meeting with Shelby in Charleston, West Virginia, who works for Trump's campaign in the city. Or about the dialogue-coffees Özlem has hosted for Danish-Americans in various states. Perhaps you have read her comment in Politiken about the conditions for free abortion in the US – and what we can learn from this here at home.
Özlem has met Trump and Harris voters, Latinos, women's rights activists, Trump campaigners, dialogue experts, religious bridge builders, Danish-Americans, passionate advocates fighting fake news, university lecturers, and many others. Here, she has gained insight into how polarized American society is and what we can learn from this in Denmark.
Özlem has compiled all the stories and pictures into a lecture –and you are invited.
Copenhagen Date: Nov. 18, 2024, 7-9 p.m. Location: KVUC, Vognmagergade 8, 1120, Copenhagen Click here to buy tickets.
Aarhus Date: January 7, 2025, 7-9 p.m. Location: Dokk1, Hack Kampmanns Plads 2, 8000 Aarhus Click here to buy tickets.
Is Trump a fascist and dangerous? That is the question Americans are debating in the final stages of the election campaign. The rhetoric – in general, and especially from Trump – is fierce. Here are a few quotes from him:
– Don't buy their crap. We should sue them.
– They [immigrants] are animals.
– Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it.
– Do you want to see me beat people up (Trump's microphone isn't working)
– Self-absorbed cat ladies (about women who don't have children)
– Democrats are a bunch of crooks.
– Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained to her face (about a Republican member who disagrees with Trump)
– You're a shitty president (about Kamala Harris)
Trump consistently undermines the authority of government. He talks about election fraud, even though there is no evidence to support this. He incites violence against journalists. He undermines the legal system by attacking judges. He makes false statements. He speaks about minorities in an extremely demonizing and divisive manner.
Are Democrats angels? No. Biden called Trump's voters trash. Kamala thinks Trump is a fascist. But no matter how you look at it, the Democrats' statements are nowhere near what Trump says and does.
The population of the United States has turned against each other, and mistrust, polarization, and distance are growing. This is an extremely dangerous condition for democracy.
What can we learn from this in Denmark? When we look at the US, we can see that this development did not happen overnight.
But when language becomes poisoned, it destroys relationships between people. Not immediately, but slowly. And the chronic state of mistrust is difficult to get rid of afterwards. That is why you must speak up every time you see hate speech. And remember that hate cannot be fought with hate.
I'm holding my breath and crossing my fingers that the US will choose dialogue.
Irshad Manji has every reason to be angry and bitter. She is a lesbian. A Muslim. A professor. She is a well-known critic of radical Islamism and orthodox interpretations of the Koran, and believes that we Muslims have a duty to reform Islam from within. I agree!
The New York Times has described her as "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare." She has received tons of threats, criticism, hate mail, and, sadly, has also been the victim of assault.
But when I meet her, I am surprised by how gentle , and in harmony with herself she is. There is no trace of anger or bitterness in her voice or soul.
I start by asking her how polarized she thinks they are in the US.
“Many say that the US is polarized on issues. But I don't buy that. There are plenty of issues that unite Americans. So what is it that divides us? It is “the other” that we don't trust. We assume that they have very specific views and therefore don't even bother to try to engage with them. We think 'the other' is wasting our time. And when that's the starting point, why should we be open and curious about the other's opinion?"
She works to give people tools for dialogue. It's not about convincing or persuading. People have to want it themselves. It's far better to focus your energy on them than to try to get everyone on board.
I can feel that she is touching a sore spot when she says that. I tell her about the hate mail I receive. The way I am attacked from both sides. From Muslims. From nationalists. It's everything from the Ramadan dinners I host to my participation in Dancing with the Stars that people criticize me for, I say.
Yes, let them say that, she says with a smile. Some people want to create as negative a narrative about you as possible so that it feeds their own hatred. Don't defend yourself. Just keep doing what you're doing. Just like I do. Those who criticize you will continue to criticize you. But if you detach yourself from the critics and continue to spend your time doing what you were put on this earth to do...
I finish her sentence in my mind: then many more will join our dialogue movement.
Where should we move when Trump wins? I had coffee with Danish Americans in Pennsylvania.
They are deeply concerned that Trump will win, but they also fear the violence that will follow if he loses.
They have all considered moving to another country if Trump wins. It could be Mexico to be close to their children, Spain, or another European country. Denmark is not an option for them due to its strict immigration rules.
“Here we are immigrants, but in our own country we are not even welcome.” We sometimes forget how unfair our immigration rules are.
They have friends who are also immigrants whose safety they fear for if Trump loses.
Their friends have started transferring money abroad in case they need to relocate.
I am shocked by how uncertain they feel about the future. I ask them where this uncertainty comes from. They tell me that there have always been two parties in the US, and both parties have had extremes. But the middle ground has always been able to talk to each other. That is no longer the case. Dialogue has been replaced by anger, suspicion, and fighting over facts.
They are particularly concerned about fake news. Many people believe in conspiracy theories. Established media outlets have lost credibility. Everyone has become an expert on social media, where they spread fake news.
For example, they talk about how some Republicans believe that Democrats are responsible for hurricanes. How can you argue against such grotesque claims, one of them asks.
I become completely absorbed by their frustration, and finally I pull myself together and ask if they themselves could build bridges to some of their Republican friends/colleagues.
The answer comes promptly from one of them: "This is not the time for bridges." But if not now, then when? I ask. We talk at length about personal responsibility for dialogue, what echo chambers do to prejudice and polarization.
There is complete silence. "I will never discuss politics with my Republican friends again. Otherwise, the last remaining connection will also disappear," says one of them.
When I leave there, I feel so sad about how serious the polarization in the US is.
I can't help thinking about my conversation with Professor Kenneth Gergen earlier this week, who said that it's not enough to bring people together. Dialogue must be supported and structured. We need help to build communities of shared values before we talk about what divides us.
Many thanks to my dear Danish-Americans for taking the time to educate me. I sincerely hope that the sun will shine on you and the country you live in.
Today, I met with a bridge builder in the US. She didn't dare to show her face in the photo. It was a very powerful experience.
She works with women's rights, but not directly with the issue of abortion. She faces fierce opposition. Even her father threw a chair at her in the middle of a discussion.
Families are divided, she tells us when we meet at a café. She is gorgeous. Insanely sharp rhetorically and incredibly committed. She has a long education and runs a large company with her father.
She devotes all her waking hours to issues such as women's rights, childcare, maternity leave regulations, and equal access to education. Her eyes well up when I ask her how much volunteer work she does alongside her job. "My children think I work all the time," she says.
She does not want to call herself an activist because she believes the word is tainted.
She calls herself a bridge builder, as she works with both Republicans and Democrats. In fact, she has helped candidates from both parties. As long as they are willing to speak up for women's rights, she will stand right behind them.
However, she never talks about "forlife" or "forchoise" herself. She believes that these words demonize and divide Americans. She wants to bring people together. In her experience, this has become an almost impossible task since 2015.
People who believe a lie don't really believe anything, she says, and in one breath contradicts a series of public lies about women.
"But I'll keep going!" she says with such strength in her voice that I don't doubt her for a second. But the reality is, as I also tell her, that human rights and civil liberties are being restricted in pretty much every country in the world.
It will take decades just in the US to rectify this, she concludes.
I meet many people on my travels, but rarely do people introduce themselves as bridge builders. Her experiences are familiar to me, as she recounts how many people actively oppose dialogue on both sides of the political spectrum.
I commend her for her courage. "But I can't be the face of all the work I do, because the price would be too high. I promised my family that," she says without elaborating.
Suddenly, we are sitting there—in the middle of a book café, in the world's most free country, and we fall silent—together.
This comment was first published on Friday, October 25, 2024, in Berlingske.
In our little pond, we have constructed a convenient narrative about those on the other side of the Atlantic who have voted or intend to vote for Trump, writes Özlem Cekic.
When the then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gave a campaign speech on September 9, 2016, she called her opponent Donald Trump's core supporters a "basket of deplorables." Loosely translated, this means "a bunch of sad losers."
That's what Trump's voters were to Clinton. That comment makes it clear that citizens on the other side of the political spectrum are not worth spending time on.
There was certainly some legitimate political criticism somewhere in Clinton's tirade against Trump, but the moment she turned her sights on American voters, she undermined her own criticism and—worst of all—dug the already deep trench even deeper.
It has been some time since those condescending comments were made in 2016. And although we are unlikely to hear Kamala Harris make a similar remark, I believe that Clinton's comments reflected a problem within the Democratic Party that has yet to be resolved.
To me, Clinton's comments about Trump voters exposed the Democrats' inability to understand the challenges faced by the working class. Historically, the Democrats have been the ones who secured basic social, political, and economic rights for workers and the underclass.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris recently appeared for an interview on Fox News, which is known to be a Trump-friendly channel. When asked why she refers to Republican voters as stupid, she immediately dismissed the claim as false. This is, after all, an improvement on Clinton's remarks in 2016.
But we cannot ignore the fact that, even though neither Harris nor the Democrats directly say that Trump's voters are stupid or pathetic, an image of Trump's voters as extremists has been created not only in the US but also in the rest of the world.
This image was understandably reinforced by the storming of Congress on January 6, 2021. But this is a minority of the 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020, and we must assume that not all of them are extremists. That would be a far-fetched claim, wouldn't it?
I am, of course, aware that it is very difficult to ask this question in Denmark, and that I have probably already offended some readers.
In a new poll by the Verian Institute, 88 percent of Danes say they would vote for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris if they could vote in the US presidential election on November 5. Only five percent would vote for Trump.
I am not claiming that I am different. On the contrary. I would also vote for Harris if I could. But I still believe that because such a large majority of Danes support Harris, there is a real risk that we overlook our own bias and prejudices about Trump's voters.
Trump would be a disastrous choice for democracy, the US, and the world. I believe this partly because I disagree with him politically. But I also don't believe that he possesses the stature and human qualities needed to lead the free world.
However, this does not mean we need to make Trump voters into worse people. Since the 2016 election, we have built up a narrative in our little pond about those on the other side of the Atlantic who have voted or intend to vote for Trump.
It has been a convenient narrative because it has allowed us to quickly dismiss the radically different choice of president without actually considering why people voted the way they did. The result is a narrative that is caricatured, stigmatizing, and extremely prejudiced.
Inequality is rampant in the United States. The richest one percent of the population—popularly known as "the top one percent"—owns a full 30 percent of the country's wealth. Meanwhile, the lower and middle classes struggle to make ends meet and often have to take on multiple jobs.
I may well wonder why Trump's voters would put their cross next to the name of a man who is himself part of the upper class. But it is also part of the narrative that massive immigration is pushing wages down, creating A and B teams in the workplace, and challenging American values in the border states.
I am writing this column from West Virginia, where I am beginning my dialogue coffee tour of the United States. Here, I will travel around and learn more about Americans' attitudes and the divisions that have taken root in American society.
Perhaps I can learn more about Trump's voters, and perhaps I can even learn more about my own prejudices and blind spots.
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