Well, I’m basically a human being before anything else. My identity is multi-layered. I’m ethnic Arabic, Muslim of religion, Danish citizen, but my nationality is Palestinian. I am proud of my background, but I also welcome what I have found here, and make it mine. I identify myself as a Palestinian because of my history, but I also consider myself Danish in certain ways. We are all strangers on this planet, but basically we are human beings and that is how we should view each other. We should put a stop to labelling people.
Books mean a lot to me. Knowledge is like light, the more you read the more you know, the deeper you can enter into the light. I do so wish more people would read more. You become more emphatic and get a better understanding of people and become a little bit more humble to the fact that there are other values in life than your own.
You also become more tolerant, and better at accepting that there are several truths if you have been reading. But I have never been into cold water, but then I got a colleague who introduced me to Viking bathing. It was pure madness, and I went from thinking crazy people to thinking it was so cool. It has changed me. Something which we initially do not care much about can suddenly become something really interesting.
34 / cultural mediator at Tønder Library / own lecture and course activities / Sønderborg / from Palestine / born in a refugee camp in Lebanon / came to Denmark in 1989 via family reunification / residence permit same year