Produced by: Journalists Masih Sadat and Stefan Thorndahl, under Thorndahl Film.
At Denmark’s most recent general election, on June 5th last year, then 31-year-old, Danish-born Samira Nawa was elected to The Folketing (the Danish Parliament) as the first Danish Member of Parliament with Afghan roots (her parents fled from war in Afghanistan in 1986 and ended up in Denmark). As a member of the center-left The Social Liberal Party, Samira is their spokeswoman on both gender equality and labour market.
Despite her young age, Samira has been actively and efficiently engaged in social and political work for a long time, and she is well-known in the political arena in Denmark for several of her viral personal campaigns; One of these being the “Once I was a refugee” project – a social media campaign aiming to humanize and nuance the otherwise harsh, demonizing, and prejudiced public debate and discourse on refugees and migrants in Denmark, during which Danes of migrant and refugee background shared their personal life stories.
The recent general election in Denmark was particularly eventful and dramatic, with migrants and Islam being the hot topics yet again – this time with two new far-right, “anti-Muslim” parties on the ballots, one of which (“New Right”) made it pass the threshold, while the other, “Hard Line”, whose chairman received international attention for burning the Qoran at protests and calling for the deportation of Muslims from Denmark (and a global ‘cleansing’ of Muslims in general), received 1,8% of the votes (the threshold is 2%). Samira Nawa getting elected to the Danish parliament in this context is therefore particularly interesting, and for many members of the Afghan community in Denmark, it was something to be proud of and inspired by.
Samira’s Afghan background is of importance to her and something that she takes with her as Member of Parliament. In November, Samira invited a group of around 20 Danish Afghans for a tour in the parliament, as well as a conversation on Danish democracy and Samira’s work as a MP. A successful event, during which Samira, to her surprise, received an “Honorary Membership Diploma” by present members of an international group of Afghan lawyers, symbolizing the importance of Samira’s success and her role in Danish society for Danes of Afghan background, who, according to their own words, view her as a “bridge to Danish democracy” and a role model.
Written by Masih Sadat.