Anjali Haryana

"What takes power can also give power"

- I have always had a commitment to fight discrimination and injustice. It’s been with me since I was a child and has been important in my family. My commitment also has a clear source in my own experiences. I was born in Sweden but I am Indian. I know what it means to be included and excluded. I think it’s inevitable when you have an appearance that does not fit into the norm. But what takes power can also give power.

- The core of Malmö Against Discrimination (Malmö mot Diskriminering) is that we work for those who have rights and feel they have been discriminated against. But we also work with those responsible and train organisations that want to know how to work with their employees to prevent discrimination.

- I am a value-driven person. But you have to review your own values, what your own driving forces are, and reflect on them. Otherwise, it’s easy to become moralistic and to tell others what to do. I’ve worked as a yoga teacher for 20 years and understand the importance of contemplation. You have to look inward. It’s very difficult, but you need self-reflection to be able to act outwards.

- You often want to influence others but are not prepared to interact with them. There is a lot to learn here. It is not the Muslim, the Jew, or the Christian you know who is the enemy, but always the other. The unidentifiable. It’s very important to dare to do what is difficult and meet the other. We must find the courage and be prepared for paradoxes, for many questions the answer is both yes and no.

- Maybe we can create a more inclusive story where it is not just about us and them, but a story that is about us? A common story. Amanda Gorman's reading of her poem when Joe Biden was sworn in as President of the United States was fantastic. It was a very strong experience for me. She talked about the story of us. That was a sentence that particularly stuck with me. She said "And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us". It's so easy to focus on what separates instead of meeting. It is only through meeting each other that we can truly know each other.