EPISODE 9
July 21, 2021
Yasmin Abdel-Hak was born and raised in Denmark. Her father is Egyptian. Her mother Danish. For several generations the migratory paths on both sides of her family have stretched from the Middle East to Scandinavia, the US and Europe. Her Danish childhood was somewhat unconventional as her father is Muslim and her maternal grandfather, who was in the resistance movement during World War II, is a communist and staunch atheist. In contrast, Yasmin attended a private Christian school for girls in Copenhagen. Her career as a Human Rights Lawyer began at the Danish Immigration Service, where she worked with asylum seekers, refugees from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Today, commuting between Lisbon and Copenhagen, she runs her own consultancy, Global Migration and Politics. As a consultant, researcher, and blogger on Middle East issues, she works specifically with analysis and commentaries on the politics and the power games that define the region and the economic, religious and ethnic problems of the Middle East. https://www.gmpc.dk/
TRANSCRIPT
Louise: Hello, welcome to Women Who Walk. I’m Louise Ross, writer and author of Women Who Walk the book, the inspiration for this podcast. And just as I did for the book here, I’ll be interviewing and unpacking the journeys of impressive, intrepid women, who’ve made multiple international moves for work, for adventure, for love, for freedom. You can find show notes to each episode and my books on my website, LouiseRoss.com.
[00:00:46] Hello listeners. Welcome to Episode 9 of Women Who Walk.
[00:00:51] My guest today is Yasmin Abdel-Hak. Yasmin was born and raised in Denmark. Her father is Egyptian. Her mother Danish. For several generations the migratory paths on both sides of her family have stretched from the Middle East to Scandinavia, the US and Europe, for financial reasons, in pursuit of education, for adventure, and for love.
[00:01:15] Her Danish childhood was somewhat unconventional as her father is Muslim and her maternal grandfather, who was in the resistance movement during World War II, is a communist and staunch atheist. In contrast, Yasmin attended a private Christian school for girls in Copenhagen, founded in 1799, followed by a high school, founded by the Bishop of Copenhagen in 1209.
[00:01:43] Graduating university with a degree in Human Rights Law, she began her career at the Danish Immigration Service, working with asylum seekers, eventually focusing on refugees from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
[00:01:58] She then moved into policymaking in the Immigration Service’s International Department. This involved capacity-building projects in the new candidate countries applying for EU membership, such as Poland, the Baltics, Romania, and Turkey. The job necessitated extensive travel, including weekly trips to Switzerland.
[00:02:20] Wanting a list demanding work-life, she began working for the Ombudsman for the Municipality of Copenhagen. Within a couple of years, she’d met her future husband, who was offered a position with the EU commission in Portugal. The couple left Copenhagen for Lisbon in 2007. Continuing on a freelance basis with Denmark’s Immigration Service, Yasmin commuted back and forth between Copenhagen and Lisbon. After her second son was born, she began studying remotely for a Master’s degree in Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies, specializing in Saudi Arabia.
[00:03:00] In 2017, Yasmin founded her own consultancy, Global Migration and Politics. As a consultant, researcher, and blogger on Middle East issues, she works specifically with analysis and commentaries on the politics and the power games that define the region and the economic, religious and ethnic problems of the Middle East.
[00:03:24] She regularly lectures on global citizenship, human rights and civic empowerment to year-5 through year-11 schoolchildren; also arranging workshops and presentations on topical Middle East issues, while availing herself as a reviewer of books relating to the Middle East, the nonfiction titles being of particular interest to Middle East scholars.
[00:03:51] Prior to this recorded interview I met with Yasmin and asked if she could define the Middle East by country for me; she responded that it covers Libya, Egypt, Israel, including the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Oman, Yemen, the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, and Iran. Turkey, though regarded as a key player, is not regarded as the Middle East, per se. And Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco are often referred to as MENA or Middle East, North Africa. And they’re usually not part of the general term Middle East.
[00:04:34] I am honored to welcome Yasmin to the podcast today, especially because she often interviews others for print media on the topic of human rights and the Middle East, but this is the first time she has been interviewed.
[00:04:48]
[00:05:00] Welcome Yasmin. And thank you for being a guest on Women Who Walk.
[00:05:03] Yasmin: Thank you for having me, Louise.
[00:05:05] Louise: Okay, now you’re about an hour ahead of Lisbon. Why don’t you tell us where you are, perhaps give listeners a sense of your neighborhood, maybe describe what you see out your windows.
[00:05:16] Yasmin: Yes, I’m in Copenhagen, in a small island called, or actually it’s a peninsula um, called Ama. And it’s very close to the Copenhagen airport. I’m here in my apartment block. All the apartments are with balconies and they’re all decorated with flowers. There are flowers everywhere. There are some beautiful lawns in between the apartment blocks with some lovely apple trees. And there’s a small playground for children and there’s a little hill and in the winter, when it’s covered with snow, it’s a lovely place for children to go sleigh riding. And in the summer it’s used for barbecuing. There’s a small public grill there for people to use for barbecuing and late nights out. So that’s, it’s a lovely place.
[00:06:11] Louise: I saw a small documentary about apartment living in Copenhagen where it’s very community oriented. So there’s a lot of sort of community space, a lot of sharing of space. Is that right?
[00:06:25] Yasmin: Absolutely. Yeah. There are lots of activities here, especially for senior residents. Before COVID there were, um, gatherings, you know, people would share a meal together in the evening. There are singing clubs where people can meet up and sing on Sundays. There’s bowling. There is a gym. There are lots of communal activities going on here. Yeah.
[00:06:50] Louise: I love it. I love the sound of that. So now growing up in Denmark with an Egyptian Muslim father, a Danish mother and a communist, atheist grandfather sounds very colorful. Can you tell us a little about your childhood?
[00:07:05] Yasmin: Yeah, I think it, it does sound very colorful. I don’t really think I was aware of it. Aware of how colorful it might’ve been perceived by others, but to me that was just, that was normal. Um, but obviously it was different. Um, I wasn’t raised as a Muslim as such. My father is more of a cultural Muslim, let’s say. He’s not really that religious, so I wasn’t raised as a Muslim, but I grew up in this environment knowing about my religion, my family’s Egyptian family’s background.
[00:07:42] I grew up with my Egyptian family present in my life. We would spend holidays in Egypt. I would also grow up with being aware of my grandfather’s political profile and how he was interested in politics and how he would, he would take me to parties at the communists, um, union, they would have a house for their parties and meetings, and I would grow up going to parties there as well.
Great Pyramids of Egypt, Giza
[00:08:12] So it was, it was this really interesting mixture of an Egyptian family and being in Egypt on holidays and being in, in a school in a Christian school, not that we were taught about Christianity, it was just a private school, but based on the Christian foundation, but it wasn’t more religious as such. It was just the foundation it was based on. And, um, and then this communist granddad who would take me to Christmas parties at the communist’s community house. They would host parties. So that was quite interesting, yeah, and diverse. I think is the word you would use.
[00:08:59] Louise: Yeah. Very diverse.
[00:09:00] Yasmin: Yeah.
[00:09:02] Louise: So were there experiences from your family’s migratory past that influenced your worldview?
[00:09:10] Yasmin: I guess it has on some unconscious level. It was not really something that we were really ah, conscious about. I mean, that was just, it’s just normal. This is the way our family has been doing for, for generations. It’s actually interesting because growing up, I always wanted to be one of those families not migrating. I always thought it was so, um, interesting to see families who would live in the same city for generations on end and just have their roots there. I always thought somehow we were more or less, we’re not rootless, but my aunts would come from America and they would go back and forth all the time. My family was in Egypt and I would go there for holidays. I’d go to the States for holidays.
[00:10:06] We would be traveling all the time, but for me that was fascinating to see other families being in the same place, not migrating for generations. There was something really, uh, I don’t know if it was attractive, but fascinating to me. It was very different. And I suppose anything different from your own way of living is always fascinating.
[00:10:34] So I always thought, but I don’t want to be one of those traveling all the time. I want to be settled. I want to stay in one place and just grow up there and just have my family there and not be one of those people traveling all the time. And then I ended up doing exactly the same myself.
[00:10:56] Louise: You did indeed. In the introduction, I mentioned that you were traveling constantly with your work.
[00:11:03] Yasmin: Yeah.
[00:11:04] Louise: You also identify as an adult, third culture kid and your children, two sons, are third culture kids. Can you tell us a little about what it is like to raise two boys going back and forth between Copenhagen and Portugal? Uh, your husband is Danish; you have such an interesting background yourself. How do your children see their heritage, or how does that very rich heritage influence their worldview?
[00:11:40] Yasmin: There’s the European championship going on right now and they very much identify as Danes, of course. They’re cheering for the Danish team. I think they are very much aware of our cultural heritage in terms of being Danish and Egyptian. They both want, they want both parts to be part of their identity. And they are also aware of growing up in Portugal in an international school, there are so many different nationalities, and you put all that together, it’s a big melting pot of all sorts of identities and nationalities. And I think they are very much third culture kids too, but they do identify as Danes with an Egyptian background growing up in Portugal. So they cover all three countries, if you like. And they are growing up in that awareness, I think.
[00:12:40] Louise: Just for listeners. Could you give us your definition of a third culture kid?
[00:12:47] Yasmin: Third culture kids are, for instance, um, children of diplomats who will grow up in different countries, and they will move to different countries after four years. Sometimes they will go home for maybe a year or two and then be posted in a new country. So these are children growing up in, in different settings, cultural settings, over time.
[00:13:11] I think there’s lots of literature on this topic. It’s a concept, third culture kids, and often I think people will say, well, you fit in everywhere and you don’t really fit in anywhere so you can fit in wherever you go. But it doesn’t necessarily give you the sense of foundation in that specific country you’re in. Probably the best definition: that you can fit in everywhere, but you don’t really belong anywhere.
[00:13:39] Louise: It is a hot topic these days because families so easily cross borders, either for work or for many reasons, in fact. And there’s a number of different working definitions and another one I like, which I think is particular to your family is parents from two different cultures and then the family moves to a third culture. So, that would be definitely the experience of, of your boys.
[00:14:08] Yasmin: Yes, very much. Yeah.
[00:14:11] Louise: Now, you went on to study Human Rights Law and then to specialize in consulting on Middle East issues. Can you give us a sense of the background of your life experience that led you in that direction?
[00:14:27] Yasmin: I’ve always been interested in the Middle East and I’ve always been discussing political issues and politics or the Middle East with my dad. So the politics of Middle East has always been a huge part of my growing up. And I remember from even from primary school, I would do assignments on political crisis in the Middle East.
[00:14:47] So what I’m doing now very clearly has a Red Thread all the way back to my primary years. This has always been a very, very big thing in my life. I’ve always had an interest, and I think what has always bothered me is the very simplistic way the Middle East has been portrayed and constantly is being portrayed in the media.
[00:15:10] There are so many more nuances to the media coverages that media, is in general, missing out on. And I think obviously having family in the Middle East, I can’t say I grew up in the Middle East, but I spent a lot of time there on holidays with my family. So things are not always as they are portrayed in mainstream media. And I think that’s always what I’ve wanted to bring to the table. I always wanted to bring more nuances to the table on this topic.
[00:15:48] Louise: As a bi-cultural kid in a Christian school in Denmark, which I imagine when you were growing up very homogeneous, was there any, err, like misunderstanding from the other children or any bullying that you experienced?
[00:16:06] Yasmin: No. None at all. No. I’ve never experienced bullying of any sort. I was the only one with a very unusual name and it was always hard for people to pronounce it obviously, but I was never being bullied at all. It was just accepted that I was there and also given that my mum is Danish, I probably was just considered a normal girl with an unusual name. So there was nothing special about it at all.
[00:16:34] Louise: Well, that’s good to hear. It’s really interesting that you mentioned that there is just one perspective that appears in the media about the Middle East and it really does not paint a very attractive image. And in fact, in Episode 4, my guest talks about relocating with her spouse to Qatar for his work, and she reflected, and this is a quote from her episode: “The Middle East was really fun to start with. The desert landscapes were amazing. The culture was really interesting. You have these images of what it might be like living there, and it wasn’t as scary as what I thought it might be.”
[00:17:16] Why do you think that Westerners imagine the Middle East to be a scary place?
[00:17:21] Yasmin: Well, I think that’s only natural because of the way it’s presented in mainstream media. We don’t get to see anything other than the atrocities and Islamic State and how women are being treated. And the general presentation of the Middle East is quite one-sided. I’m not trying to diminish the atrocities and the human rights violations that are taking place, not at all. But there are other things to it as well. And there are wonderful things as well that is part of the whole picture. So I’m not surprised that your previous guest was initially afraid to move to Qatar. Simply based on the media info we get, it is very sort of one-sided in many ways. Having said that I know lots of women who have actually lived in Saudi Arabia, and in Qatar, and they’ve all enjoyed it actually very much. Once you get to know it and get to know the culture and the mindset, people can have great experiences living there.
[00:18:34] Louise: Just as you can in any country. And interestingly the interview previous to yours, is with a Islamic cultural expert that takes tours to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and Iran. And one of the things that she says is that the beauty of these cultural tours, and their small group tours, is that they’re able to meet locals, and get to know regular people. And of course they’re just people.
[00:19:06] Yasmin: Yeah.
[00:19:06] Louise: Just as people are in any country of the world.
[00:19:08] Yasmin: Exactly.
[00:19:11] Louise: So you’ve gone on to work with asylum seekers.
[00:19:16] Yasmin: Yeah.
[00:19:17] Louise: Who are applying for refugee status. Can you tell us a little about what that was like?
[00:19:23] Yasmin: I think that is a fascinating job. I absolutely loved it. I think you really need to understand, you get to know human nature dealing with that situation, because it’s a very, it can be a very emotional situation that interview, because people can get asylum based on that interview or they can get rejected.
[00:19:51] So this is a very defining interview for their future. And obviously people can be extremely nervous. They often are extremely nervous. And they’re afraid to say the wrong thing, or they’re afraid to say the truth, will that be enough? Will that help me get asylum or will it not help me get asylum?
[00:20:10] So it’s, it’s a very tense situation and people are often very nervous. Yes, absolutely. So it’s, you need to understand the severity of the situation and how defining that situation can be for the person in front of you. And you need to understand how difficult it is for that person to show empathy. And to understand that this is, this is tough.
[00:20:39] Louise: Obviously the people that you’re interviewing are coming from pretty extreme situations. So perhaps they’re in crisis or really suffering from some kind of trauma, and at what point in the process are they talking to you? Are you the first, um, point of entry?
[00:20:58] Yasmin: No, this is not the first point of entry. That would have been usually seven-to-eight months prior to our interview. So during those seven-to-eight months, and sometimes even longer, they have been waiting in refugee camps, just waiting for the interview. So the first point of entry is with police and they will take their data. And what the police is trying to sort out their identity and whether they have already been registered in other European countries as asylum seekers. So that’s often why it takes so long.
[00:21:34] Louise: And is their permanent entry into Denmark dependent on the result of your interview with them?
[00:21:42] Yasmin: Yes. Based on that interview, the authorities will decide whether or not that person should be granted asylum or not. As it is now, asylum is not permanent permission to stay. It’s a temporary permission and it will be reviewed. Possibly renewed after a couple of years. And I think after seven years it might become a permanent status.
[00:22:10] Louise: That feels like an enormous responsibility to me. Do you feel that way?
[00:22:14] Yasmin: Oh yes, absolutely and it’s not something that should be taken lightly at all.
[00:22:19] Louise: What is it like when you make a decision to negate someone’s entry?
[00:22:24] Yasmin: One has to be aware of the responsibility as a civil servant. We don’t, we’re not there to save the world and we are not there to reject every asylum seeker. We are there to do the right decision. And that right decision is based on the facts that are presented to us and background information and country reports and all those things held together is a foundation for a decision. So it’s not like you get personally involved in every single asylum seeker. You have to keep a professional distance and obviously make the right decision. And that right decision might be a rejection sometimes. And in other cases it’s an approval and a granting of asylum status.
Yasmin (2nd from right) presenting on Syria for Unicef Portugal
[00:23:14] Louise: I understand. One of the things I mentioned in your introduction is that you often lecture on global citizenship and human rights and civic empowerment to school children.
[00:23:28] Yasmin: Yes.
[00:23:28] Louise: Can you talk a little about lecturing to school children and what their response is to those presentations.
[00:23:36] Yasmin: Yes. But first of all, I’m not a teacher. So when I was asked to do these lectures, I was a little hesitant because I don’t actually have the professional tools as teachers do, but I have all the professional knowledge and have been working for so many years. So I thought, well, I’m just going to give it a go and see how this works out. And it’s just really worked out really well. Of course it’s learning by doing and some things work better than others.
[00:24:07] But it has been a real eye-opener to be teaching children about these topics, because these are really abstract topics that can be so difficult for children to grasp. But through role playing, quizzes and presentations, there are all sorts of approaches to these topics. And through this variety of approaches, it’s worked out really well. And to see them getting an in-depth understanding of these topics, that feels really good.
[00:24:39] Louise: Oh, I bet it does. Do you find that some of the kids come to the presentations with biases or prejudices that perhaps they’ve learned at home from their parents?
[00:24:51] Yasmin: No, not at all. No, not really. I find them very curious, and open-minded about it. Yeah. It’s been a really positive experience.
[00:25:02] Louise: Now is that both here in Portugal and then in Copenhagen?
[00:25:08] Yasmin: It’s in Portugal only. Number of international schools, and after-school activities.
[00:25:13] Louise: I wonder if someone like Nadia Nadim – the soccer player born in Afghanistan, fled with her family when she was 11 to Denmark on the back of a truck; she went on to become a professional football player, representing the Danish national team, I believe, and scoring a couple of hundred goals; speaks 11 languages; completed a medical degree – I wonder if she is someone that kids understand as the potential that every child has to manifest a life or skills, opportunities in a new country ?
[00:25:53] Yasmin: I would certainly hope so. I mean, her background, her history is really, really fascinating and she is a fascinating young woman. I would hope that everybody would look up to her. I would also hope that people wouldn’t see her as a refugee as such. She’s just a wonderful, inspiring role model. But without the labeling, I mean, we shouldn’t see people with all these different labels. Often being a refugee is a label. And I think in many societies, people are looked down upon and I think that’s quite often the case with refugees.
[00:26:31] I do understand your point that she has really managed to overcome a lot of barriers. But I wish people wouldn’t see her through that lens of being a refugee. I wish people would just see her as an extraordinary woman and an extraordinary human being. And not because she’s a refugee. Being a refugee, it’s just part of her story.
[00:26:55] Louise: Well, that brings me to the next question. When we met, you told me that you have a project that you want to evolve and that’s a podcast called Let’s Talk About The Middle East.
[00:27:07] Yasmin: Yeah.
[00:27:08] Louise: And I believe that your intention is to, to talk about women in the region and female agency and so on. Can you tell us a little about your vision for this?
[00:27:20] Yasmin: Yes. At first I wanted to do just book reviews on books from the Middle East and books about the Middle East. It initially started out because at university, I was reading all the books we had to go through on the curriculum and some of them were good and some of them were really bad. And I thought, well, somebody should do some proper reviews on these books, especially for students on Middle Eastern Studies, that would be really helpful for them, to get proper book reviews. And then I wanted to do book reviews on authors from the region. Lots of very talented authors in the Middle East that are not known in our part of the world.
[00:28:04] And from there I wanted to do talks. Let’s talk about the Middle East. Let’s discuss the politics of the Middle East. Let’s discuss what’s going on. What is the Palestinian-Israeli problems? What is that about? What is going on in Saudi Arabia? There are so many things we can talk about.
[00:28:23] Women. How a women doing in the Middle East? I think we often have this very sort of permanent or fixed view on how women are treated in the Middle East. And yes, they are not treated well at all, but that is also the case in other parts of the world. We have to remember that women in general are often not treated very well and do not share equal rights. That is not only the case in the Middle East. I am very much aware that it is certainly a huge problem in the Middle East, but we also have to remember that there is female agency, lots of women are fighting for their rights in the Middle East.
[00:29:03] And I don’t like having this perception of, of women being victims. They are very much, um, trying to fight for their, for their rights and they are trying to fight for gender equality. And I think that needs to be celebrated as well. So I would like to have these nuances coming to the fore so we can get a broader understanding of women in the Middle East and get a broader understanding of the region.
[00:29:32] My dream and my ambition is to cover book reviews, to cover female and gender equality in the region and politics in the region. But it’s, it’s a lot to, to be covering, but that is my, my dream.
[00:29:48] Louise: It is a lot to cover and yet I think it’s sorely needed because there is such misunderstanding about the Middle East and we really need help, um, to open our eyes and broaden our understanding and perspective. And particularly on the issue of women’s rights.
[00:30:05] Yasmin: Yeah.
[00:30:05] Louise: Do you imagine interviewing women from various Middle Eastern countries?
[00:30:10] Yasmin: Yes, definitely. That is one of my many ambitions. Absolutely.
[00:30:17] Louise: I really look forward to that project being launched.
[00:30:24] Yasmin: So am I, Louise, so am I.
[00:30:24] Louise: Perhaps we can revisit it at the point at which it has launched and do another interview.
[00:30:29] Yasmin: That would be nice.
[00:30:31] Louise: Yasmin as we finish up, I generally ask if interviewees are comfortable sharing their website or Facebook page or LinkedIn.
[00:30:40] Yasmin: Yeah.
[00:30:41] Louise: Yeah. Comfortable with that?
[00:30:42] Yasmin: Yes, very much so. Thank you. Well, my company is called the Global Migration and Politics. So my website is www.gmpc.dk and on Facebook it’s Global Migration and Politics, just like that. And you can find me on LinkedIn, Yasmin Abdel-Hak.
[00:31:04] Louise: I noticed on your Facebook page, or is it on your LinkedIn page, you share articles in Danish, which of course for me is so disappointing, cause I can’t read them. You are writing mostly in Danish, is that correct?
[00:31:18] Yasmin: Yes, but my ambition is to be writing these articles in English too. Bit of a hurdle, I don’t know why, but I’m just used to writing in Danish, but that is definitely the next step to be sharing these articles in English as well.
[00:31:33] Louise: Fantastic. And then do you also speak Arabic?
[00:31:36] Yasmin: Not fluently? No, unfortunately.
[00:31:38] Louise: Well, Danish and English, and I know you speak Portuguese – three, four languages. I’m impressed.
[00:31:46] Yasmin: Thank you.
[00:31:47] Louise: Thank you so much for your time today, Yasmin.
[00:31:50] Yasmin: Thank you for having me, Louise. Thank you.
[00:31:52] Louise: Thank you for listening today. And if you would like to read a transcript of this episode, you can find it in the show notes on my website, LouiseRoss.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review Women Who Walk on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser.