#rp26 speaker Gilda Sahebi: Unite rather than divide

Do we live in a country full of drama, conflict and division? Anyone looking at German society or some daily newspapers today might come to this conclusion. 

Journalist, author and physician Gilda Sahebi disagrees: ‘That's a lie. We are not divided. But we are supposed to believe it.’ Because division is primarily an instrument of power. A society that is divided (or at least appears to be so), that fights against each other instead of with and for each other, is easily exposed to the tyranny of power.

For this reason, authoritarian forces – today and in the past – always rely on division. Whether it's Donald Trump, the AfD or Vladimir Putin: they all need to convince parts of the population that there is a ‘good’ side and an ‘evil’ side – and that those who support them are on the ‘good’ side, fighting against ‘evil’. In the fight against evil, anything will do. More so, a lack of empathy and compassion for the ‘other’ side is fuel for violence and war. 

For Gilda, the first step is always to gain more knowledge: ‘I can't change what I don't see.’ At re:publica 26, she will talk about which divisive narratives are particularly powerful in Germany – and why. She will also present an important antidote: connection.

Gilda Sahebi is a trained physician and political scientist. As a freelance journalist, she writes about authoritarian systems, social polarisation, and German domestic and foreign policy, among other topics. She is a contributor to the taz and Der Spiegel newspapers and works for ARD, among others. Her books ‘Unser Schwert ist Liebe. Die feministische Revolte im Iran’ (Our Sword is Love: The Feminist Revolt in Iran) and ‘Wie wir uns Rassismus beibringen. Eine Analyse deutscher Debatten’ (How We Teach Ourselves Racism: An Analysis of German Debates) were published in 2023 and 2024. Her current book, ‘Verbinden statt spalten. Eine Antwort auf die Politik der Polarisierung’ (Connecting Instead of Dividing: A Response to the Politics of Polarisation), was published in September 2025.