Berlin 6: The world as it is becoming and already is

The East Berlin TV  Tower; Icon of Socialist progress

2/9-10

A circle of friends at a baptism. Late twenties to early thirties. They are from Germany. Poland. Serbia. Croatia. Scotland. England. India. Vietnam. Israel. Musicians. Teachers. A doctor. Filmmakers. Artists. Construction workers. Berliners. The world that is becoming and already is.  

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Jana

I’ve known Jana for seven or eight years now.   For three straight years she brought to West-Park groups of young people from  the Fellowship of Reconciliation to explore multicultural living, activism of peace and justice, work with the homeless. Action and reflection. I would always do an urban dynamics walk around  the block tour.  She studied sociology in  University. Compared Los Angeles and New York.

Helped host my first visit to Berlin with neighborhood clergy friends including Pastor K from SPSA and Pastor Jim from Advent. The first year we were closed, she brought her group to SPSA.

She was back to be part of our first worship service on the steps in August 2010. And back again for Woodshed’s the Tenant. Part of the West-Park family in Berlin. 

She’s working at the Berlinale, heading a staff at the Palast. She walks me around Potsdamer Platz, once an empty checkpoint near the wall, now a glistening entertainment and business center.  The Berlinale and movie posters are everywhere, black shuttle cars and vans endlessly circling. 

Tourists at the Wall

Later I meet Zeljko at the Martin Gropius Center where his booth is. We will tour Alexanderplatz, once the center of East Berlin. Today, a large cold empty urban space. The iconic ’60’s era East Berlin Television Tower looms over the Platz. Locking down another allee, stretches of Soviet era social housing. Utilitarian, functional. Not like the optimistic modernist Weimar houses nor  those of the Stalinst neo-classical monumentalist lining Karl Marx Allee. 

L’Oreal has installed a space age make up center. Across the street a young man in an East German uniform stands at the old Checkpoint Charlie. For  fee he’ll stamp your passport with a DDR stamp. Behind him tourists stand in front of a section of the wall laughing and taking pictures. 

Soviet style housing

The public housing projects north of West-Park on Amsterdam and further north are often referred to as Soviet style. Pretty accurate description.

2/11

Supposed to be in New York. Things on knife’s edge there. Days of cancelled flights back in New York leave me stranded here in Berlin. Frustrating.

Only upside: I get to see Zeljko’s screening at the Euro Film Mart. It feels good having hosted the American first advance screening  at West-Park and having welcomed so many Serbian embassy officials and diaspora people, the Serbian flag hanging from the  church balcony.

Today we’re in a screening room at the Marriott. Good  to see the film again recalling the friendship that grew between American stealth fighter pilot Dale Zelko and the Serbian gunner, Zoltan Dani, who had shot him down. And the Colonel’s visit with us. And once again how they both testify to the pointlessness of war. 

It ends with Dale’s grandfather reciting a quote from 1969 how we have learned to fly to the moon but still haven’t figured out how to live together.

Afterwards, he’s got a steady stream of potential distributors and an extended interview with a reporter from the Serbian diaspora newspaper. There also seem to be potential producers/funders for the Dream project  movie we began at West-Park.

Berlin 4: No one left to speak for me

2/8

The new luxury apartments are having some problems attracting families with children. Schools seem to be an issue. Focus groups were held and the parents wanted four things:

1. No classes with majority Turkish students
2. English taught from second grade
3. High level of German used in teaching
4. Organic food served in cafeteria

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Last night I picked Zeljko up at the airport and took him to the Martin Niemoller House to meet Uli. After time in Wedding, Dahlem Dorff feels like a little country village in the city. The Niemoller House has its rich  history. It is where Pastor Niemoller was living and working when he was picked up by the Gestapo in 1937. You can look out the window as Bonhoeffer did and see the garden where he was working when he was arrested. 

Pastor Martin Niemoller

He spent from 1937-1945 in Sachsenhuasen and then Dachau. After his release, he spent the rest of his life opposing war, meeting with Ho Chi Minh and being awarded the Lenin Peace prize in 1966. He is most famous for  this well known quote:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

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The Euro Fim Mart at the Berlinale

With Zeljko at the EFM

Go to the Euro Film Mart to meet Zeljko. The Martin Gropius Center is filled with booths from countries around the world offering their films. Zeljko’s Second Meeting is one of two documentaries being offered by the Serbian Film Commission. I feel a sense of excitement that we were able to have shown this film in New York City as its first American screening. 

We take time for falafel and donner at a Turkish stand then head off to meet Uli and Sylvija for coffee. Uli will be  arranging  a screening of Second Meeting at the Niemoller House. 

Uli, Sylvija and Zeljko

Later, I’ll meet with Micah and friends who have been involved in a  EU sponsored project that sought to develop joint projects between Israelis and Palestinians. They seemed to have half a chance since they had taken seriously the role of power differential between groups as a missing dynamic of most people to people programs. They also had sought to learn from community organizing experiences as to the importance of organizing organizations, not individuals. 

But at this point, the project no longer seems viable. It’s director, Ahmed, sees his real call in his own country of Egypt as a new country struggles to come into being navigating its way through channels of salafists, militarists, secular students...a time of hope and danger.

Their most successful leanings about conflict resolution seem to have the most potential value in intereuro, even interGerman settings. Once again, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues intractable as time for resolution disappears.