Düzen Tekkal on empathy and fighting spirit: “The present is not for the faint of heart”

Duzen Tekkalis a human rights activist, journalist and author – and our conscience. Because the 46-year-old from Hanover becomes loud when others become quiet: thanks are due to women and their stories, which without her would no longer even be in the marginal columnspresent.or Afghanistan? Thanks to Tekkal, who founded the aid organization HÁWAR.help together with her sister, they remain in the media.

Düzen Tekkal works tirelessly for women – no matter where. She wants women's rights to be expanded and protected. She doesn't give up when people say that with all the crises there is simply no time for feminism and women's issues at the moment. Düzen Tekkal becomes loud when others no longer have a voice. And she doesn't call for weapons or arguments, but rather she is firmly convinced that with empathy and love you can make the world a better, fairer place. Düzen Tekkal is an absolute role model for us and will be honored for her commitment and courageas“Human Rights Activist”excellent.

Düzen Tekkal in an interview about the future of democracy and what women's rights have to do with it

We need people like Düzen Tekkal: those who never give up believing in the good in people and in justice. Instead of giving in and despairing, they stand strong with their noses against the wind and show everyone else out there how things can be fairer and more equal. Women and minorities have thanks to the “Human Rights Activist” award winnerOne vote in 2024.

In our interview, she revealed how she feels about the multitude of current crises, what motivates her and what scares her.

GLAMOR: We are pleased that you are celebrating the Women of the Year 2024 with us. If you were on the jury, who would be your Woman of the Year?

Düzen Tekkal: Mariam Claren. She is the daughter of Nahid Taghavi, who is in Tehran's Evin Prison, and I have the honor of working very closely with her. I experience her rollercoaster of emotions and can only admire her. For example, a few days ago her mother's release from prison expired and she was supposed to return. Of course Mariam could have broken down and despaired, but she is brave and doesn't do exactly that. She wiped away tears after this terrible news and decided to move on. That motivates me because I also ask myself: Where does she get this strength, this resilience from? I would honor her and her mother.

If you could give your teenage self one tip, what would it be?

Just keep going – no matter how hard the headwind is. I often think of the saying from “Pippi Longstocking”: “The storm is getting stronger, but so are we.”

If you had one wish for a freer/more equal/better world, what would it be? What needs to change most urgently?

Perhaps what needs to be addressed most urgently is the situationchange. These women were deprived of their connection to the world and were deprived of all their rights. I would like the connection to the world that defines our free societies to be enshrined in law. Everywhere. Because these are spaces of opportunity, about education, about freedom. If you take that away from people, you take their lives. This explains, among other things, the high suicide rate among Afghan women.

I've just come from a women's rights conference that we attendedHÁWAR.helpand the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy. A participant in the panel reported on a medieval torture instrument that was once placed around the heads of rebellious women and tied their tongues. She sometimes has the impression that we women still have this imaginary clamp around our heads. I think so too: Why don't we use our freedom of speech much more often in our democratic country?

Looking back, what has been the biggest hurdle in your career or life so far? How did you overcome them?

In general: freedom, the relationship between freedom. The biggest hurdle in my life is that my fight for the freedom of others threatens my personal freedom.

What advice do you have for young women?

What I also live by: going where the fear is. Not to be afraid of resistance. Occupy spaces, move on, go in where it hurts. This creates a movement that lasts.

What scares you? What gives you confidence?

The power of people who are doomed to die and then develop an incomprehensible and incredibly fearless life force gives me confidence. The women from the Evin torture prison give me strength - and survivors who consciously chose to live despite all the oppression and all the terror. Whenever I meet people who have lost everything and still carry on, it strengthens me.

You spoke at an event during the last UN General Assembly in New York. What does the international community need to worry about today more than ever? Is there still a need for a peace-affirming organization like the UN?

The UN must ensure peace in this world at a time when our known world order is under greater pressure than ever before. With the sober realization that liberal democracies have not prevailed. The Western age is over: we have moved from a political bloc system to an individual system in which the previously known international architecture no longer works. Now there are new players in the struggle for power.

It must be understood that the world map has never been as complicated as it is today. It has never been more important that we ask ourselves: Who are we? How do we want to live? What values ​​are important to us as a society?

At the same time, it becomes important how we can bring people together again. At the moment you can see a division in society: We see that we are currently losing a lot of people - and I believe that the Western world is currently in the greatest credibility crisis since its existence. How come? Maybe because we always promise values ​​but pursue interests. And this Western promise is currently suffering a credibility crisis. You can only solve this by defining who you actually want to be. The craziness of the world must not become the craziness of our own country.

Why has the system of western liberal democracies failed?

Because democracy is the most fragile political system, the most fragile legal form. Nothing hangs by a thread like our democracy, no veneer is thinner. But there is nothing more complicated than our democracies, especially in a world of despotism and unjust regimes.

We must understand that the aggressors are ganging up. They are prepared to put the lives of their respective civil societies at risk. In 2023, a Russian government propagandist issued the slogan on state television: “Life is overrated.” A willingness to make sacrifices is required of the individual. This is a logic of war that liberal, open democracies do not entertain.

What defines us in the West is the yes to life, the yes to this world and not to the hereafter. Having to discuss things with autocrats, despots and unjust regimes makes us vulnerable to blackmail. We have become vulnerable to blackmail with our own values. I believe I understand that a new era is now approaching - one in which values ​​may also have to be defended differently.

Everyone is currently discussing war and peace, arms deliveries or not, or which side you are on, but you should not forget two things in particular: that we must not give up our own democratic values ​​and that we must not divide the world into black and white . This is difficult for Europeanized, individualized societies: they are missing that. We urgently need a foundation of values ​​that we can agree on together. But unfortunately I'm currently seeing the opposite: that people are drifting apart. I see silence and withdrawal, how the fearmongers become more and more successful and how those who have something to say become more and more quiet. In this situation, society urgently needs to be shaken, including by the defenders of democracy. We need to move closer together again because we can see how civil society sometimes becomes disconnected from the political leadership.

Anti-Semitism, racism, the growing AfD, which is mainly voted for by boys – what does this shift to the right in Germany cause you to do? Does he scare you?

The shift to the right scares me because, alongside anti-Muslim racism and anti-Semitism, I still see it as one of the greatest dangers in our country. I observe that the bourgeois center right up to the left get into a fight, argue and are so busy with themselves that we let the right-wing extremists have their way and don't even realize that these inner-democratic struggles contribute to exactly that. The fight that is now at stake is that of democrats against anti-democrats: We do not have to fight for anything more or less than the preservation of our democracy and our constitutional state, which is about to be undermined.

When I look at the results of the state elections, what I see most of all is how the constitutional parties are shouting and fighting each other. But I don't see a closed alliance against the right. This is particularly bitter at a time when many are unsettled and exposed to great mental stress and are and have been pushed to their limits. The AfD of course benefits from the fact that we, as the majority society, cannot agree on clear lines. The fight against anti-Semitism plays an incredibly important role because it is a seismograph for what democracy means or doesn't mean.

Sadly, we live in a time when Jewish fellow citizens are held responsible for a government that is waging war against a terrorist organization. But people who have relatives in our European societies are dying on both sides. What we didn't understand about this conflict is that the extremists have long since taken over the sovereignty of interpretation. This Middle East conflict has the potential to divide the world in two globally, which is why it is so difficult to compare with other wars.

It must not be the case that we suddenly negotiate one of the longest and most complicated conflicts only in black and white, oppressor and oppressed, because neither one side nor the other deserves that. I think this example clearly shows our double standards and that all the people affected suffer and don't feel seen. Only a very few people, who are of both Palestinian and Israeli origin, enter into conversation. This war will also end at some point.

What I'm missing right now, however, is a perspective on how things can continue politically for Israelis and Palestinians. In my view, the Israelis, as the stronger side in the conflict, should move forward and take the initiative. A plan is needed for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Decades of military occupation of the Palestinian autonomous areas have not brought peace to the Israelis. Given the balance of power in the Israeli government, where right-wing hardliners rule the roost and a prime minister who wants to stay in power at all costs, peace efforts are in very poor shape.

Have you been surprised by how many people have suddenly taken a political stance since October 7, 2023?

It's interesting to see that it's always someone else's fault. I am amazed at how differently victim groups are negotiated and the cascade of victim competition that can arise. Pressure comes into play, or peer pressure and a guilty conscience. When our Yazidi women were raped and murdered, everyone was silent - even those who have now become very loud and accuse others of not taking a stand. But I advise you to be careful of those who want to force us to take a position!

Ultimately, our empathy must grow beyond our own concern. At the moment we are primarily seeing a maximum consensus that requires 100 percent agreement. If you don't agree, you are automatically the enemy. This marking of the enemy has devastating consequences, especially for those who are unsettled or have not yet been able to form a final political opinion.

For me as a Yazidi woman, my origins are both a blessing and a curse: Because we know who we are and have always been and are persecuted for that, we know our way around this minefield.

The present is not for the faint of heart; without the resilience I have learned, I would have already flown out of the curve. But I want to listen to the people affected who say: Our suffering is not your ego party. Since October 7th, virtually everyone has become an expert in international law... We've been debating cultural appropriation for years, but what's happening now is emotional appropriation - and that's adding fuel to the fire. It is quite clear that in general the heart needs to be softened.

So is it once again empathy that people have lost in these conflicts and debates?

Absolutely. I refuse to allow myself to be deprived of the opportunity to shed light on this war. I want to continue speaking to hostage relatives, to the woman who was freed but whose sister was shot in cold blood by Hamas in a tunnel. I want to be able to tell this story without being dehumanized. At the same time, I would like to tell you about how the Palestinian father lost his twins in the attacks. But these stories ofbothPages are not tolerated, positioning is required. With our human rights organization HÁWAR.help we do not represent any camp. We are concerned with civil society. We are losing humanity.

I'm currently experiencing a backlash that, interestingly enough, is once again aimed at women: women are being dehumanized and misogynistically attacked, online and offline. Femicides are increasingare threatened by racists, Islamists and anti-Semites. The common thread in all three groups is hatred of women. For that reason alone I can only encourage every woman not to give in now and to stand up and stand up for other women.

For this “especially now” we need a courageous, immune society. And here I always ask: What about those who provide support and help and then need support themselves? The answers to this are becoming very, very quiet. Therein lies the danger: if you stay quiet, it could affect me today and you tomorrow. When we start living in a time where empathy and solidarity are punished, things get very, very dark very quickly.

Can you briefly and succinctly explain why women's rights are also human rights?

It cannot be the case that one chromosome decides whether we participate in life or not. Afghanistan is the best example: Because it is the moment in which people like Afghan women are deprived of all rights and thus lose their connection to the world. They die a slow death. They face penalties for even the smallest of offenses – up to and including the death penalty. Women should never be hidden and excluded from the public.

However, it must also be noted that women here - in this country where they are allowed to do so much - are becoming less and less confident. That also has to do with the pressurepractice: They sexualize and degrade women, they mark enemies. When I look at certain structures, I see a new version of the witch hunt. Because all of these attacks on women are systemic in nature, we must defend ourselves systemically, as a group of women. But I have also seen that there is another way: when strong, solidarity-based women come together, we can do it without themand create patriarchy. And that scares the misogynists. But the silence that is becoming increasingly prevalent only helps the perpetrators.

Speaking of “silence”: Women in Iran have become relatively quiet; with a few exceptions, they have disappeared from the headlines. Do you believe, as I do, that the women who demonstrated in Iran in 2022 are a tragic symbol of the current situation in the Middle East?

The resilience of theand the symbolism must be understood as a worldwide phenomenon. That's why everyone was so excited: What thewould not only have liberated their own country. It is often overlooked that these women are the solution and the opportunity at the same time: they have not disappeared, they are not gone, but they are still there - albeit quieter. But they are there, and they are responsible for the seething in the Islamic Republic, which is waging war against its own women and its own people. The mullahs are responsible for the war in the Middle East; they are waging war in their own country and outside of their country. Iranian civil society has turned away, so they have to maintain the regime. Because if the regime falls, they fall too.

The numbers are important here: 90 percent of this population does not agree with the course of the Islamic Republic. One reason for this is thatfor women. We in the free world have failed these women and therefore ourselves. And these women's biggest fear is that we will forget them.

Dystopian conditions prevail in Afghanistan in 2024: With HÁWAR.help we have two shelters for over a hundred women and children on site; Every single person who works for us there puts their life at risk every day. Men who want to be there for their wives are also targeted by the Taliban. This is how you torture people.

You have to recognize that gender-based persecution and the mere fact that you were born a woman or a girl means that you are not allowed to participate in life, you are not allowed to dance, you are not allowed to sing, you are not allowed to go to the doctor, not Is allowed to drive a car, not allowed to study – not allowed to live. This loss of connection to the world, that they are no longer alivemay, leads to them no longer livingwant. In doing so, we are also committing suicide against Western societies and their values ​​- that's what it's all about!

Last question: What gives you strength?

I think there always has to be a reason to get up. For me this is the world reference. I then think of the women in Evin prison and how the mother says to her daughter: “My body is in Evin, but my head is free.” Thebegins in the mind, and we here in Germany, a free western country, have a responsibility to stand up for others. Anything else would be a failure to provide assistance. When we stand up and fight, we never do it just for ourselves, but for everyone, everywhere.

I feel such a strong fighting spirit within me, I definitely don't want to let the fearmongers win. There isand so much courage, but also humility. If I feel powerless, I let my surroundings motivate me and pull me along.

Let's face it: the world will become even crueler. That is why we must create communities of solidarity by building a wall of love to protect the weak.

Head of Editorial Content: Theresa Pichler
European Visual Director: Amelia Trevette
European Design Director: Helen Williamson
European Fashion Editor: Londiwe Ncube
Photographer: Julian Essink
Stylist: Lil Bulgac
Hair Stylist and Make-up Artist: Natascha Sobol
Lighting Assistant: Leon Grunau
Producer: Josi Müller
Production Assistant: Linda Helmstedt