Falckenstein
(August 6, 2004) During the past weeks I had been busy writing down the tour memories. Now the book was almost finished. The manuscript laid beneath me in the sun. An entering ferry-boat violently honked at some swimmers who stayed in the water in the vicinity of the pier. It was a light day. A cool wind blew across the beach, I put my black T-shirt on again. Falckenstein. It was the right decision to come back here today, after having given a concert yesterday in the summer camp of the "Federation of the Democratic Working Class Associations" (DIDF). This roof organisation was founded 25 years ago with the aim to represent the interests of the Turkish workers in Germany in an organized way. About 300 young people from all over Germany had come together for a long week in Kiel/Falckenstein, in the very north of Germany. There was a cultural and an academic program, including camp-fire music, and I was invited from Attac circles. (And when I say "Attac" I mean the network, not the cadre.) It was my pleasure and I also needed practise. I also played the brandnew song, "Give Your Lonely Heart Away", of which Björn had said it was one of my best. Together with Björn Högsdal from AssembleArt I was currently recording the crocodile jingle, he is a rapper and writer and he organizes cultural events in Kiel with growing success.
There really is a strange thing about inspiration: on Friday I received a mail from Nina (name changed by editor) after five years. On Saturday something dragged me to pick up the guitar, by evening time I had found some themes and at two o'clock in the morning the song was finished without me having the intention to write anything, at all. Like in the old days. For two years I had not composed a single song. Nina actually is not completely in the wrong place here, as she was also involved in the creation of "Wie oft wirst du es noch tun". How does she do that? We should start a business together and share the dough. But this was something I was forbidden to further think about, and I didn't want to, either. I analyzed myself. Was not a hundred per cent happy. There were several things I was concerned with, most of all this manuscript. Could I finish it now? Above me a seagull croaked. In front of me the waves, behind me the hill with the forest, the area of the summer camp. I put my hand on the front page of the manuscript and closed my eyes. Was there anything left to add? Did I not forget important things, was I fair in the more critical passages?
In my mind I went through all the pages. Originally, I wanted to have written more about conflict solutions. But this would mean to write about the family, for in the end the major event which ever since has been giving me hope and which has brought me to the conviction that every conflict can be solved was the settlement with my parents after five years of substantial conflict. But this would imply writing about my sisters and the German relatives and I did not want that. To be fair one has to make clear that "every conflict can be solved" does not mean the same as "every conflict will indeed be solved", not even that every conflict should be solved.
I also wanted to write something about aggression management, but I skip this now, like I skip the story of an American friend who after September 11 changed in a drastic manner, developing an alienating nationalism matched with enemy thinking. I saw parallels to some of the topics of the tour memories, concerning the idealisation of valiant states. The Sudan I at least wanted to mention, because for months the fact has been shocking me that the UN and the world are so completely failing, after that they did have the chance to learn. So many people die every day, it is a terrible scandal! I am convinced that even for such grave conflicts there are nonviolent solutions. If people just agreed on shared values. This is the supposition and it is quite realistic, according to my experiences. To reach this we need dialogues and signs of trust. At this thought I noticed an urge to continue "Omega 5", the novel which deals with an alternative form of society with a nonviolent tradition.
Any events from the tour that I forgot to mention? Maybe that we were recorded by Babel TV during the extra concert in the Jewish highschool in Berlin. I talked to the man from Babel TV and he told me that it is a Jewish program which transmits seminars and concerts and the like. At this performance in Berlin I had a little press experience of which I did not tell. Before the show we were interviewed and photographed. The photoprapher showed us into poses: turn it like this, now like that. And you now please with the chin to this side etc. After about twenty photos I couldn't stand it anymore. I apologized and went out on the corridor where I took a deep breath. Then - to the relief of the Duo Rubin - I re-entered, murmuring something about basically having quit with the times of taking orders, yet being willed to be constructive. We continued and it was no problem. About the Duo Rubin I did not write all the things I witnessed, but only relevant things for the purpose of the book and some human impressions. This has to be considered while reading, in case some things should sound distanced. Oh yes, here is something I forgot to mention: when one evening in Berlin I had said goodnight to Ithay and Gabriella, on my way to bed, I asked Ithay if I could take this half a bottle of water from the table, for the night. Ithay replied: "Of course, I don't belong to those folks who take the water from the Palestinians." I found that remarkably funny.
What else? Should the Chefs for Peace interview, which I had just conducted, be part of this book? Well, no, it already can be found at Anis Online. Reuven from the Golan Heights Winery, this was an interesting encounter, after all, he is working on occupied territory. He said, when the circumstances in Golan change he won't have a problem with leaving to Israel, if it was serving the purpose of peace. That was acceptable. Concerning the project "children teach children" in Givat Haviva I forgot to note that I like "children learn from children" better, for it does not sound so didactic. I don't really believe in didacticism, it often is close to magisterial thinking. Who teaches dominates, who learns obeys. It does not have to be this way, but we find it a lot in real life, sometimes it happens consciously, other times unconsciously. I don't exclude myself here, which is one of the reasons why I like to work artistically best. So much for the supplements. What about the politically relevant parts of the manuscript? Again I went through the book from cover to cover. Some of the passages I had revised several times already. I wanted to write it in a way that I could reach the public with it and at the same time not hide any relevant opinion and analysis of mine. Was this possible at all? I did not know. The wheel would turn, no doubt. My karma would change with the publication of the manuscript. Where to? I did not know. A good friend, Sabine Yacoub, was reading the last chapters now, before I would mail them to the main participants of the tour.
I decided to leave the manuscript after that for a week and to put it online on the anniversary of Elvis's death on August 16. It had to get out. I wanted to go ahead.
I packed the manuscript back into the rucksack, drank some Cola, shook the sand from the sheet and folded it. The tank was full again after this bath in the sun. Ten minutes later I found myself back in the camp and looked around. Between the twelve-people shacks there were some tables and chairs. They had a snackbar, and a professor was giving a lecture in Turkish on Greek mythology in the middle of the square. At the end of the corridor between the bungalows pictures were exhibited and a couple of people were painting at a long table. There also was the painter who had been with us yesterday night until the end at about two o'clock. Together with Andrea and Uwe from the multi-cultural band Colibri, whom I had joined several times, we had for some hours played and sung beneath the stage after the concert. Gregor was with us, too, Andrea's husband, and a couple of young people who listened and talked to us. Before, on stage, I had sung a couple of songs together with Andrea, taking the chance of her visit. So now I found this painter again, he was just brushing a
Che Guevara on an arm. The camp in some points was clearly Socialist. I wondered what these kids knew about Che Guevara.
In the end this was hardly connected with their real lives, there was little more than the icon which remained. Would Che bring them to freedom and unfolding? When I saw all those young people Givat Haviva came to my mind. The young folks were quite the same everywhere in the world. They had similar wishes, fears, abilities, questions, needs. I guess it is the idealism and the solidarity principle which connect me sometimes with the so-called left spectrum. But I am not left, because I don't believe in Klassenkampf. Not in this way, at any rate. My political direction is called Nonviolent Egalitarian Liberalism, I wrote the "New Pages" for explanation and detail, they are online.
I sat down next to the painter with the long hair. He was about 50 and counseled the young people who were painting at the table. There also sat Selvi, she was another one of those who had been with us yesterday until the end. She was from Frankfurt, probably a school student, and she seemed to be a bit bored. I asked her about her languages. Among the camp participants there was a majority of Turkish rooted people, yet the mother languages varied, depending on whether they were born and/or raised in Germany or in Turkey. Selvi went to school in Turkey, but her German by now had become her main language. She was perfect for the idea I just got. "Could you translate something short for me into Turkish?" I asked her, and she replied: "Sure." I took my clipboard out of the rucksack and wrote: "Kinds of Love: To rule wants human love. To heal wants divine love. Kings we are, with wings of dust." She thought about it for a moment, then she added below: "Sevginin Türleri: Hüküm etmek istiyor insanlik sevgisi. Yaralari sarmak istiyor tanrilik sevgisi. Krallariz biz, kanatlari tozdan olan." (There is an "i" without a dot in it which I cannot reproduce on the keyboard.)
We discussed the translation for a moment; I know some Turkish, not much. We also talked about the content of the poem and she understood what I explained to her about the wings of dust. Selvi mentioned that there were many Kurds here, too, and that we could try to get a Kurdish translation. At that I suggested to be consequent and to stroll through the camp to see how many languages we could get together. And so we did. First we encountered Dutch people. They apparently were everywhere: "Soorten Liefde: Heersen wil de menselijke liefte. Helen wil de goddelijke liefte. Koningen zijn wij, met vleugels van stof." On a bank-table-combination made of stone we saw two women, one was Spanish: "Las Formas del Amor: Dominar quiere el amor humano. Curar quiere el amor divino. Reyes somos nosotros, con alas de polvo." The other French: "Les Arts de l'Amour: C'est régner que veut l'amour humain. C'est guérir que veut l'amour divin. Nous sommes des rois, aux ailes de poussière." I asked her, whether there was a way to bring the kings in the French translation to the top of the line, but there wasn't. In the meantime some people had gathered around us. They wanted to know what we were doing there. Volunteers came for Vietnamese, Kurdish and Russian, but they had to pass. The Spanish girl asked me from where she knew me. Now I had to pass. "Didn't you use to participate in the poetry slam in Kiel in former times?" Yes, so I did. "I recognized your voice", she said. An African with a cool pair of sunglasses approached us. People had called him to us, as he knew an exotic language. First he wrote it in Portuguese, while exchanging views with the Spanish girl and the French girl: "Maneras du Amor: Dominar quero a amor humana. Curar quero a amor du deus. Nos somus reies con alas polvu." After that he hesitatingly added
a version in the language Lingala: "Ba ndenge ya bolingo: Bolingo na biso ya batu ya mokili elingi ko domine. Bolingo ya nzambe elingi ko sekua biso. Biso tosali ba rois na mapapu ya poussiére." I think people speak this in Kongo, I cannot really remember. He told us about his relatives in Zaire, who speak Portuguese. The world is full of surprises...
Selvi and I strolled on, looking for Kurdish and Polish. I supplemented the German: "Arten der Liebe: Herrschen will die menschliche Liebe. Heilen will die göttliche Liebe. Könige sind wir, mit Flügeln aus Staub." (Of course I supplemented the English here in reality, having started with the German.) I also wrote an Arabic version into the list:
"أنواع الحب:
الحكم هو مراد
الحب البشري.
الشفاء هو
مراد الحب
الإلهي. إننا ملوك
بأجنحة من
تراب."
In front of the snack-bar we found the expert for Kurdish, whom we had been looking for all the time, as he had been recommended to us by several individuals. We showed him the list with the by now nine versions and he said he only could Zaza, a dialect close to Kurdish, varying from the two Kurdish languages/dialects Kurmanci and Sorani. Fine, I replied, do it in Zaza. He frowned a little and exchanged views with a friend. They took the Turkish translation as a basis. I fetched two chairs for them and shoved theminto their knees from behind. They sat and went on discussing. Suddenly a lot of folks were standing around us, among them one who I had seen before watching the backgammon players advising them in words and gestures. Now he bent over the paper with the same look on his face, involving himself in the same manner. The result was the poem in Zaza: "Eshke Rengan: Najeno hüküm bikero êshkê insanan. Najeno birinan bipeso êshkê heke. Ma kralime, puru ma nelerao." (The "sh" originally is an "s" with a snake underneath it). They tried it in Kurdish for a while, but couldn't make it to come to a translation. Someone tried Greek, but managed to do the middle sentence only: "To kalo theli i agapi ton theon." Better than nothing. I thanked Selvi, who had a lot of fun and whose name means "cypress", then I declared the mission as successfully accomplished.
Back home I wondered how to finish the book. And where? Certainly not here in Kiel. In the book I still was in the Sorat hotel in Berlin. The last hours there I spent with Jörn. Jörn! Of course. Alright, here is what happened:
