WEBVTT

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Allaa Faham: Ladies and gentlemen,

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we are GLS.

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I'm Abdul, he is Allaa.

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Abdul Abbasi: The other way
around. I'm Abdul.

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AF: Sorry. I'm Allaa, he is Abdul.

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We come from Syria.

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I've been in Germany for about
two years, Abdul for three years.

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We started our project about one year ago.

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Basically, it is about -

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AF: our -
- AA: Allaa!

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AF: overcoming the -
- AA: Allaa!

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AF: prejudices between the -
- AA: Allaa, Allaa! - AF: What?

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AA: Do you actually have Nutella
in Syria? That choco -

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Do you actually eat chocolate in Syria?
It's nothing you know about.

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AF: We do.

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AA: You have four wives in Syria, right?

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Every man needs four wives.
One is not enough, right?

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Of course, I understand.
I am multicultural - no problem.

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AF: But it's not true.

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(Laughter)

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AA: But they all work at home.

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AF: No, my mother works outside it.

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AA: Outside in the garden? (Laughter)

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AF: No, at a company, actually.

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AA: But they are all veiled.

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How can you tell your wives apart?

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Must be difficult.

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But I have an idea.

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Every wife has a number
like the people at the Olympics.

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(Laughter)

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AF: Stop it. That's not true at all.

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That's not true.

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AA: Of course, it's true.
You are from Syria.

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AF: Nope.

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AA: But I have this question,
I'm 100% certain about it.

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AF: OK, shoot.

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AA: Do you have free elections in Syria?

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AF: Yes, of course, we have - elections?

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AA: Yes?

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AF: No.

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AA: See. It's true. It's really bombastic
where you live, right?

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AF: Bombastic?

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AA: Yes, I mean, Syrians, bombs.
Do you have a bomb with you?

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AF: Abdul, do you want to see
a real bomb right now?

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Do you want to see a real bomb right now?

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AA: Let's continue.
We make cool videos, people.

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AF: I am talking to you.

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AA: Nope.

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AF: Do you want to see
a real bomb right now?

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AA: 400 [people]. Allaa, no.

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AF: One, two, three.

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Yes, that's my bomb right here.

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(Applause)

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Many people associate my identity,
my Syrian passport, where I come from,

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with bombs, with death,
with violence, with war, with blood,

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but to these bombs
that we always show, no matter where,

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United States, France, Germany,
Austria, Hungary, anywhere,

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they pay little attention,

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unlike to the real bombs, of course.

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This, ladies and gentleman,
is the step to take

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to be a real stereotype.

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We get the kind of jokes
we just showed you

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from a lot of people,

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AA: Ha.

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AF: Abdul, get up.

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AA: Are we in paradise?

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AF: No, we're still in Münster.

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AA: God!

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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AF: When you hear these ideas,
these questions, this information,

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you get the impression
that we look like this in Syria.

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AA: On YouTube,
we sometimes get hate comments,

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they write: 'Go back to your camel!'

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That would be really cool.

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(Laughter)

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I would love to have a camel in Aleppo,
but unfortunately we don't have camels.

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I'd love to, but it would be difficult.

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What's the real problem
when faced with something we don't know?

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We become somehow insecure,

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and this insecurity
is really a sign of weakness.

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And this weakness
demonstrates vulnerability.

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That's why we try to make it go away
as well as we possibly can.

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And if we ask a question

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about a certain community
that we don't know,

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we try to answer the question
by making generalizations.

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We use our own selective
individual experiences.

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Maybe I once got to know
someone from Mexico,

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and then I have this picture in my head
of how Mexicans maybe are.

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That's wrong.

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For example, on holidays.

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You are simply everywhere.

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No matter where you go,
there are always Germans.

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In Syria, there is war,

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but maybe there's
a few Germans there on holiday.

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Holidays are important.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Once, I saw this man
at six in the morning,

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and he reserved a beach chair with
- What is the word? -

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a towel - at six in the morning.

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And now, when I think of or about Germans,

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there's only this one image in my head,

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and I use it to be able to say
that I know what Germans are like.

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Yes, all of them at six in the morning -

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Actually what I am doing here
is I am building stereotypes.

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AF: The thing with stereotypes is,
although we try to do without them -

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Abdul doesn't really try.

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The thing is that it is
a general characteristic of us all.

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It is in our nature.

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People make mistakes.

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I, for example, knew
only three things about Germany:

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Oktoberfest, Mannschaft
and the sentence 'I love you'.

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At the beginning,
I only knew this sentence.

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So I said to anyone, 'I love you.'

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(Laughter)

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What? Why?

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AA: Yes, I understand.

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AF: You probably know that Germans
are often stereotyped as angry, serious -

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and not having a sense of humour.

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Which isn't really true, is it?

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AA: Well, my girlfriend
is sitting here. Of course, it's true.

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AF: Even if the Germans

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are incomparable in their tolerance
towards other cultures,

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at least in my experience,

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there are still those stereotypes
about Syrians in Germany.

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The reason for that, of course,
is that we, Germans and Syrians,

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have little contact with one another.

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This is where we need to build bridges.

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It is important that we communicate
with each other more,

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that we talk to each other more.

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It is important that we remind ourselves

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that we are not all peas
from the same pod.

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Germans aren't clones, nor are Syrians.

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AA: The word 'social',
or in German 'sozial',

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comes from the Latin word -

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Habibi?

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Can I look at my text? -

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'socialis'.

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This word was used in Latin
to describe communities

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that are nice, polite, cool to each other.

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We can actually use this original meaning

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and apply it to today's situation.

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We can describe humanity
as a 'social community'

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that has both good eggs and bad eggs.

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And for that reason, ladies and gentlemen,

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we founded GLS, German LifeStyle.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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AF: Nice.
- AA: Cool, right?

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AF: We started our project a year ago.

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Basically, it is
about us Germans and Syrians

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talking more to each other,

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together overcoming prejudices
towards Germans

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as well as those towards us, Syrians,

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understanding our differences.

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We now have approx. 90,000
[supporters] on Facebook.

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AA: Yeah, approximately 90,000.

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AF: And 20,000 [subscribers] on YouTube.

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This is one of our videos.

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It's actually a little old but -

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AA: Wait.

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That's what we do.

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(Laughter)

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Try again.

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We've done that too.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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No problem. We just do it live. Yes?

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(Video) [The Germans]

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AF: Do you want some chocolate?

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AA: No, thanks. Not for me. I'm OK.

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AF: OK.

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[The Syrians]

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(Arabic)

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AF: Very nice.

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(Arabic)

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We were completely contented
with our lives.

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Before the war, scarcely any of us
actually thought about leaving Syria,

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but it has sort of come to us
as our destiny,

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and it all really hurts.

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We want to integrate ourselves
into your society,

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we want to respect
the German constitution.

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We want to live together
with you peacefully,

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and for us to uphold each other,

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because together we are stronger.

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But we can't do it on our own,
and neither can you.

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Therefore, it would be good
if we supported each other,

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because we'd like
[something to become of us].

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We have lost a lot,

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but we still hold onto our dreams

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and we want to make them come true,

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to become full participants
in German society.

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(End of video)

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(Applause)

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AF: Thank you.

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After thinking about it a lot,
we came to this thought:

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We have two different societies
with a bridge between them,

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and we need to cross that bridge.

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So we asked ourselves:

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How can we cross that bridge?

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How can we break the ice?

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It is so easy.

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It's actually like
getting to know a woman.

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AA: Yes.
- AF: Abdul?

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AA: No.
- AF: Might you explain to us -

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AA: Exactly. Thank you.

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AF: - how you get to know women?

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AA: No.

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AF: Why?

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AA: It's all in the past.
I don't want to talk about it.

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AF: Please!

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AA: I am a completely
different person now.

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I am not a horse anymore.

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AF: 400 people are waiting.

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AA: (Arabic)

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AF: Please!

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Come here.

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The stage is yours.

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And after that?

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(Laughter)

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What did you do next?

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Please!

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Careful, careful!

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(Sings: 'My Heart Will Go On')

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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AA: Humour.

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You see, with humour,
you can actually break the ice.

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For us, humour is actually
a universal language,

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and no one is afraid
to speak or understand it.

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You are, for example,
in a foreign culture.

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You are afraid to do something wrong.

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Your counterparts are also afraid
of doing something wrong.

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But suddenly, you all laugh.

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Now, it's not more important
what you have done.

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Maybe you did something wrong
in the other culture.

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But that is not important,
no worry - you all laugh -

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no drawing apart, no judging each other;
you share the moment.

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You feel a connection with each other.

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AF: Wow.

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Nice.
- AA: Good, right?

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AF: But still, there are people

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who don't want to open up
to other cultures and countries.

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They don't want to make the effort.

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And it does take an effort,

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discussion is always difficult,

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it's difficult to change ideas
you have had for so long.

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But the question is now:

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What do these people miss?

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AA: Many people shy differences.

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For us, there is nothing wrong
with being different.

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Being different isn't always
a negative thing.

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Our experience has shown us

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that multicultural people
are more open, more tolerant,

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than people in isolated, closed societies.

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We can learn a lot from
each other and share things.

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You -

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me, for example, we -

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I can show you how to cook, can't I?

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And you, for example, can give me
your German passport.

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(Laughter)

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German passport.

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AF: Religious bigotry, racism
and nationalism build boundaries.

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We can only overcome this boundary

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by getting to know each other;

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by realizing what we all have in common:

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we are all humans.

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AA: That is actually
the goal of our project,

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the goal of GLS.

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Now, back to my first point.

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I don't want to have
just one image of Germany.

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AF: I don't want to have
just one image of Syria.

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AA: And it's irrelevant

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whether it's a good picture
or a bad picture.

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We firmly believe
that no society in this world

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should be reduced
to one single stereotype.

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That's wrong. That's bad.

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(Applause)

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We, I, Allaa, the horse and many refugees,

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many new refugees,
many new members of society,

00:16:46.428 --> 00:16:48.925
just want to tell you

00:16:48.925 --> 00:16:55.779
that the war must not be allowed
to be stronger than us.

00:16:55.779 --> 00:17:01.560
Our fate must not be allowed
to get the better of us.

00:17:02.950 --> 00:17:06.368
AF: We are stronger than our reality.

00:17:07.769 --> 00:17:10.530
White is actually the colour of peace,

00:17:11.010 --> 00:17:14.319
and we now have four flowers.

00:17:16.449 --> 00:17:17.920
AA: This one here -

00:17:19.250 --> 00:17:23.290
is for my destroyed country,

00:17:24.460 --> 00:17:26.290
for my city.

00:17:26.290 --> 00:17:28.438
AF: This one is for Germany.

00:17:30.228 --> 00:17:33.170
AA: This one is for all the people
in the world

00:17:33.170 --> 00:17:36.700
who suffer as a result of war.

00:17:37.690 --> 00:17:41.510
AF: And this one is for everyone
who stands for humanity.

00:17:42.730 --> 00:17:44.356
AA: Thank you.
- AF: Thanks.

00:17:44.356 --> 00:17:49.356
(Applause)