In "Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud writes: "We can therefore understand how it is that the melancholy which arises from the occasion of love-death may come to occupy the space vacated by the loss of the object."
We are always losing things we care about, and hopefully finding something. Berlin is full of people arriving, after leaving something, meeting everyday, sometimes in parks, or clubs, sometimes in reading groups or classes, trying to figure out what happened, how did we get here?
Why is Berlin so full of refugees, many ask. What do they offer this city? How did they get here? Why did they flee? How did they handle things when they got here?
@refugeevoicestours.org writes: “In 2015 an estimated 1 million people arrived in Europe seeking refuge, many of these people came from Syria. The media focuses intensely on the so-called 'refugee crisis' but often fails to mention why people have been forced to flee their countries.”
Saturday, I joined a tour, led by Mohammed, a Syrian refugee, now a student in Berlin. In it, he “tried to help us understand, first-hand, the situation in Syria and why it became too dangerous for many people to stay. Using places of historical significance in Berlin, the walking tour” explores “parallels between what has happened in the history of Berlin and what is currently happening in Syria. …[N]one of us is immune to turbulent times, that the refugees of today are escaping real danger and that we have the means to offer them a safe place in Europe. By understanding the situation in Syria, we can start to change our attitudes to those fleeing to Europe.”
We met at the U-Bahn station of Mohrenstrasse. A student at Humboldt University here in Berlin, Mohammed greets us, beginning our day of exploring the history of workers and refugees, strikes and migrants, those who come and leave, and the impacts their movements have on both the communities they left behind the places they come. We’ve spent the year coming to grips with Caroline’s mom’s departure from Germany, those circumstances, the difficulties, the wounds that still linger, decades after her abrupt departure from Germany after the cataclysm of war, relocating in New York City, marrying, renouncing her citizenship, meeting Al, having Caroline. Mohammed came here via Libya, fleeing the civil war in Syria. His story, that he does not reveal until the end of the tour, becomes the central question of our tour: Why do people leave and how do they get here?
Delving into this question, our first stop is at Detlev Rohwedder Building, in the Wilhelmstraße, the former House of Ministers, in former East Berlin. There workers organized a series of demonstrations and strikes over imposed work quotas on the 16th and 17th of June, 1953. Known as the East German Uprising, this strike became a turning point. “We sent you all those tanks,” Nikita Khrushchev, of the USSR, was said to have said at the time. “Use them.” And they did, in a crackdown foreshadowing what would happen in Budapest in 1956 and Prague 1968. The Soviets rolled in the tanks, some 500 killed or injured. The Stasi system upped the ante after that, with a system of surveillance, chilling dissent for decades.
Walking, Mohammed tells us a story about modern Syria. In 1947, it was independent, with democratically elected officials until the 1950. Syria and Egypt unified from 1958-61, before the entire system crashed. Years of coups and presidents, inevitably caught in the larger struggles of the Cold War era, follow, East ever dueling with West. By 1963, Hafez al-Assad took over, shutting down civil society, cementing power, after a coup d'état that ushered in the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. Opponents and friends were found shot, one with six bullets after a ‘suicide” attempt. A reign of terror followed. In 1980, the Muslim Brotherhood began. Outside governments were terrified, turning the other cheek as Assad cracked down, murdering some 21,000 people, 8% of the population. The Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies razed one town for almost a month, in the Hama Massacre of February 1982. The crackdown was mostly covered up. We didn’t know about it growing up, said Mohammed. US journalist Rober Fisk, watched tanks shell the city, posting the story on the horrors, the broken families, he saw there once he was back in the United States. “Smoke hung over the city,” recalled Fisk. Fear set in, people afraid to speak out, much less stand up against the government in the subsequent years. Those who did found themselves in jail or worse. The parallels and differences with the GDR are many.
Standing at the site of the former headquarters of the Gestapo, SS, and Reich Security Main Office in Berlin, the stories of Nazis are many. Mohammed tells us a few. Some escaped to South America after the war; others to the Middle East. One such Nazi was Alois Brunner, who escaped to Syria after the war. Captured, he confessed he had certain skills which could be useful to his captors, specifically regarding what to do with prisoners. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, he seemed to understand. He knew how to interrogate prisoners, with particularly grotesque techniques, which he seemed to enjoy watching, even fetishizing. Unlike Germany’s centralized system in the 1930’s and ‘40’s, Assad organized a system of twenty competing security teams, charged with keeping the peace, interrogating political prisoners. Once one was released, the next team would pick them up, and put them through it again. One could go through this again and again for years, unless they left the country immediately, if they survived “interrogation.” Yet, this seems hard to imagine. Borrowing from Nazi era German Chair used to torture, Assad stayed in power. He would remain until 2000, when his son was elected to take over, not Basi, the son prepped for the job, who died in a car crash, but Bashar, the eye doctor from London. People asked for trials for the disappeared, only to be pushed out of planes or charged themselves. At a prison uprising, his brother disposed with 2000 people in three hours.
Within a decade, the Arab Spring exploded with possibilities. Watching the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, a group of kids posted graffiti, with a message for the regime, “You are next!” “You are going to fall?” The kids found themselves in the hands of Assad’s totalitarian security state. Parents are told not to get them. Forget them, the ever empathic security guards tell them. Finally the parents go to check on the kids, asking to beat them themselves, please just let them out. Forget your kids; they tell them. Go make more or leave your wives with us and we will make better ones. They are beaten. Outside protests, spontaneous uprisings follow the mix of incredulous grief and rage. Covered with torture marks, the kids are eventually eventually released, like the Nazis who swiftly put away Sophie Scholl and the White Rose. Their reactions unleashed more protests, followed by crackdowns from the police state. Each mournful funeral procession became the reason for another crackdown, more killings, followed by more processions, for family members, sister, mom, brother disappeared, maimed, dead, gutted raw feelings along with insurrectionary funeral processions. Between the Arab Spring and funeral processions, civil war broke out throughout Syria. Many started fleeing, millions. Checkpoints were everywhere. Assad unleashes chemical weapons attacks on the people of Syria. Obama draws a line in the sand. Syria crosses it. Mohammed recalls French planes flying overhead, turning away as Obama wavers. All the while, Mohammed was trying to get to school, through the six heavy security points. “Get lost,” they tell him. Civil war grows. ISIS kills thousands, taking a third of the country. The US drags its feet, finally striking ISIS along with five other Arab countries in September of 2014. Europe stops helping. The country becomes unlivable. People lose hope, as the country splits into factions. The government controls half the country, the Kurdish groups a third, and opposition, another 10 to 20 percent. The country is becoming ever more chaotic and unlivable. People are starving, few basic services or water, the dark ages again. When I was drafted, my parents said it was time for me to go, recalled Mohammed.
He walks us to the old US checkpoint, telling more stories about the process in Syria. Women are speaking up more and more, through whatever platforms they have. They know they have power, and they use it to voice opposition, promoting an alternate narrative of rebellion. The government tries to stop them. ISIS decides that Yazidi should be slaves, imprisoning and beheading them. According to the Guardian, some “6,383 Yazidis – mostly women and children – were enslaved.” That’s what is meant to go through the checkpoints throughout Syria, says Mohammed. There are twenty of them going out of the country. Entering them, you don’t know which persona to wear, the one for the government or for ISIS. If you pick the wrong one, the results could be horrendous. Two million Syrians go to Jordan, adding to the population of seven million. 1.5 million go to Lebanon, adding to the influx. Lebanon doesn’t have the capacity to stop them from coming. Jordan forces them into camps. All they can hope for is a meal a day. That's it. Some nine million refugees leave, seven to eight million displaced. It's hard to get accurate numbers. Mohammed’s are not that far off. A wiki search suggests some 13 million Syrians have been displaced, six six point seven pushed out, six million internally displaced, three point five million to Turkey, one million to Lebanon, 700,000 to Egypt, Sudan, etc.
By 2015, refugees turn to Europe, says Mohammed. Many are living in tents in camps, subsiding on a meal a day, Turkey is only taking those with passports. Some start saying, let's just go. We’re going to die here if we stay. Might as well leave. 20% chance to die. Going is better than dying slowly. So groups leave. It's easier that way to get to Turkey to Greece. Those with a little money go to Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Libya to Italy. European Union law says you must stay in the entry point of the first EU country in which you arrive. This is usually Greece or Italy. It's beyond their capacity. Poland and Hungry say, deal with it. Italy fights the policy. France is silent. The UK leaves the EU entirely. Everything falls on Germany.
“Are you sending them back,” a journalist asks Angela Merkel.
“No,” she replies.
Germany grants asylum. Greece sends refugees from Athens to Germany. Germany becomes in charge of security at the Greece airport. Almost one and half million refugees make it to Germany, subsidizing the support for humanitarian purposes, in 2015.
The issue divides Europe, even the United States, changing debate in the US election. From Poland to Belarus, refugees become political pawns. Italy is sinking ships of refugees on the way there, charging those helping with committing crimes.
Fast forward to 2022, no politician is complaining about the six million Ukrainian refugees, Mohammed reminds us. No one had the capacity in 2015. But now, it seems possible. In 2022, people are getting residence permits. For Mohammed, it's simple, you have a bully in your neighborhood and someone is getting bullied. They need to crash on your couch. You say sure. No problem. Germany saw Ukraine and said sure. They opened up the old Tempelhof Airport for temporary housing. Hostels got vouchers. And then they started price gouging, over charging for months, until people got housing. Today, a third of those who arrived here are working, another third are in school. The policy worked.
On we walk to the front of the French Cathedral where the Huguenot refugees came fleeing religious persecution in the 16th and 17th centuries, forming a diaspora across Europe. And “the word ‘refugee’ entered the vernacular for the first time,” says Jessica Braine. “It was to be the first use of the terminology to describe the population who had escaped from persecution in their country of origin and re-settled somewhere else in hope of a better and safer existence.” The city of Berlin made a cathedral for them, across from the German one. They could stand on equal footing, says Mohammed, summing up his argument, with a bit of a sermon. Limit the reasons people have to leave. Be prepared when they arrive. The tides of history move. When they arrive, almost no one can stop them. He turns to his own story. In 2014, my brother and I left to avoid the draft, migrating to Libya. They bribed their way in and out of Benghazi, riding in the heat of the day, in the cold desert at night. Arriving, it became a war zone. A guy with a boat said he was going to take people to Italy. Mohammed and his brother were on the next ship out. Our boat was rescued in Sicily, where they looked away when they arrived. Mohammed and his brother found their way North, out of Sicily, to a train from Milan to Munich in September 2015. Where there is a will, there is a way. Finally Mohammed settled in Berlin, where he studied at Bard and then Humboldt. My experience has been a positive one, he tells us. Germany has been a place for refugees fleeing. It's been a better experience for me. It should be this way for everyone. The experience of Yugoslavs fleeing their war in the 1990’s was different. Germany has seen the worst and the best in how to treat outsiders, people who are different, embracing them today, repelling or exterminating them 80, 90 years ago. Still Mohammed is glad he got here. He's seen the good. He wishes everyone could say the same.
Finishing the tour, the whole city opens. I ride across town, through the summer sunlight, past the old wall, looking about, feeling the history, wondering, who are all these people here? What are they thinking? How did they get here?
My friend Allesandra suggests I meet her at the Biennale Le Latitudini dell’Arte, Synonims and antonyms show opening that night at Studio 1 Kunstquartier Bethanien - Mariannenplatz 2 Berlin. Off to Kreutzberg, I ride to the show, full of art goers and spray paint. Berliners know how to make an opening. A splendid way to start a Saturday night.
Lets go to Koti for a beer, suggests Allesandra. We head there and then next door for a snack before we head out for fantastic music in a dingy bar... In this case, Frau Fisch & Lovnis @lovnis.lovethis, at BAR BOBU - Muggelstraße 9 (Friedrichshein). Rock and roll travels through Berlin.
Early night, and finally sleep after a late night the night before at Sameheads, watching the birds greet the night clubbers on their way the night before.
Sleeping late, writing and chilling, the sounds of horns fly into our apartment from the street. Critical Mass is outside the door, says Caroline. I grab my keys, helmet, run to the back to get my bike and catch the ride still passing by, some fifty thousand. I'm not sure what it's called. Can't find anyone with flyers. One guy tells me. But I can't write it down. But it seems like thousands, kids, families, people with music, elders, people pushing for bike safety. Unlike New York, the cops are helping the ride. In Berlin, when they say bike protest, they mean bike protest.
Its Radvolution, said Marina later that afternoon when told her about it.
Bicycle highlight of the year…
Together for the traffic turnaround
Back after the ride, we meet Andreas, Raooul and company for some wine and boules in the park at Auguststr and Gipssr, chatting all afternoon about Goethe and drug use, music and philosophy, taking in the luscious summer, feeling the shimmer. June past and present whirl, off to class on migrations, cleavages, social movements born, those that take fruition, and those that are rolled over, old memories. Find myself reading the NY Times, thinking about what happened to the college kids all those years ago my freshman year of college. Says Nicholas Kristof:
The impulse to remember is powerful, but so is the impulse to forget. The dance between repression and expression is a complicated one. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense was the topic for our reading in our psychoanalysis reading group. I first read it with Bert Cohler all those years ago at Chicago. In it, Anna Freud reminds us, we all navigate competing forces, the superego ever judging, forming our ethics, the ego propelling us forward, and the id, lurking below, ever knocking on the door from the subaltern regions, reminding us we all have our needs. The question is how best to allow their expression in a safe way; repression seems to be just as dangerous. So how do we remember the dreams which linger, the impulses which propell and repel us? “The affects associated with these instinctual impulses,” they are many, argues Anna Freud. “When repudiating the claims of instinct, its first task must always be to come to terms with these affects. Love, longing, jealousy, mortification, pain, and mourning accompany sexual wishes; hatred, anger, and rage accompany the impulses of aggression; if the instinctual demands with which they are associated are to be warded off, these affects must submit to all the various measures to which the ego resorts in its efforts to master them, i.e., they must under go a metamorphosis…the individual ego selects now one defensive method, now another—it may be repression, displacement, reversal, etc.—and these it can employ both in its conflict with the instincts and in its defense against the liberation of affect.”
The “conflicts” are many within these intimate realms. Scrolling through facebook, a friend has a story which seems to speak of how messy it can all get when we let loose, cross lines, even when we are having a blast, trying to navigate the complications and conflicts with ourselves, with others. “‘]I]’m a cool cat at noon, and a sick, lost soul at midnight,’” writes Lucinda Rosenfeld in “My Adventures in Deconstruction,” her new essay in the New Yorker.
“Occasionally, I’d try to integrate the two sides of myself, as I did that day in X’s office, in an attempt to get closer to others. But, for the most part, I kept them separate. Honesty was too risky a proposition."
The conflict with the instincts takes place in countless forms. But somehow it feels less present here. With beer flowing and the summer light shining, people out, things feel possible here. Caroline is going to travel for a few days with my mom. Friday, the evening starts out at a tapas place across from kino central, enjoying the sunlight in Berlin with mom amour, thinking about the shadows in New York, and the spaces in between, two months to go in this wonderful strange city. Riding off to join Andreas as Mein Bar, in Mitte, Berlin's central borough, running into artists, the great Markus Lüpertz, and Patrick from Gewalt, the German noise punk band, talking about cities, New York and Berlin, music and politics, climate change and #metoo. Each day a new story.
If there is one memory I will carry with me of my time in Berlin, it is the sunlight creeping up around the KitKat club as I walk outside at 6 am after a night of dancing, between six of seven underground dance floors, bars, some playing house, others techno, or disco, people in dark corners experimenting, getting lost, not quite able to find my way back, upstairs and down, winding between rooms, stopping, dancing, watching, chatting about the world, German and US history, talking about homelessness and androgyny and the dangers of repression, protests for Ukraine, as there were all week with shocked witnesses to the flooding there. I think about all the kind people I meet here, sharing a joint, chatting about it all, dancing. My favorite room was a tiny space dance floor. Everyone shaking. A women with no shirt, looking very androgynous, who becomes my dance partner for a bit. Her friend, a guy was DJing in sunglasses, a fake fur vest, hat, and leopard skin underwear, with two other women, rocking their set till four am,smoking, chatting, spinning records, as the group of their fans cheered them on. Bowie was right and he was wrong about the relationship between djs and their fans. It's much more dialogical, people sharing of themselves, interacting, expressing, throwing caution to the wind and dancing, pausing, thumping and shaking when that deep bass hits, launching the crowd into a roar of applause, another wave of beats, ideas, motion through time. We don't just believe in the DJ, we believe in ourselves, as do the djs.
Summertime rolls.
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