There I was, sitting on the campus square lawn with the sun on my face, unaware of the revelation I was about to have.
I sat with two students I had never met before. Initially, I assumed we had nothing in common in the discussion we were having. I started the conversation somewhat naively, and upon hearing their views on a sensitive topic, I immediately defaulted to assuming the worst of their intentions. Based on their reaction to my views, they did the same. We therefore both put up our shields. Instead of listening, we prepared soundbites; we were not talking with each other, we were talking at each other.
It wasn’t until one of us asked the simple question – “Why do you think that?” – that the shields began to lower. We realised that while our paths were different, we were both walking towards the same goal: human prosperity and peace. As the false wall between us crumbled, our shoulders became visibly lighter. We relaxed back into the grass, no longer seeing each other as existential threats, but as humans with good intentions who simply disagreed with the ‘how’.
Feeling understood made me lower my own guard; trying to understand the other side made me drop it altogether.
I recently employed this same lens when writing for Sweden’s leading newspaper Dagens Nyheter. I was responding to a man who argued that Sweden should stop building up its defences. Amidst the current geopolitical climate, I fundamentally disagreed with his assessment. However, I chose to read his text with compassion, assuming his best intentions. Through this lens, I didn’t see him as an ‘apologist’. I saw someone who wanted exactly what I want: peace. He believed in prioritising welfare over weapons; I argued that to safeguard that very welfare and freedom, we must be able to defend it. We were not enemies; we were two people debating how to protect the things we love.
What is evident to me now – from the campus square to the national stage – is that to stop seeing each other as threats, we must start by assuming the best of one another. If we want to convince others and make a positive change, we must replace our reflex of suspicion with a habit of understanding.
I now know what questions to ask the next time I’m presented with a situation like that sunny day on campus, and I encourage you to try the same. The next time you feel your shield go up, try asking “why?” before you say “no”. You might find that the person across from you is already on your side – they are just taking a different path to get there.