Why the Berlin wall is not in Israel

If I hear it again, I will throw up. Again, and again I hear the same when talking about the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down : how it should remind the world how "walls will never be able to "separate people", and how all other walls like the one in Israel and between the US and Mexico (interesting that it is the latter that is LESS mentioned) will come down too.

To all the liars, un-informed and one-sided of the world: The wall between Israel and Palestine and the Berlin Wall have nothing else in common, than well, being a structure made of concrete. But the reason the Berlin Wall was built was to keep their own people prisoners, to avoid them escaping. The Israeli wall is built to protect the Israeli people. Whatever reasons there might be against that wall and the means how it is being constructed are a different point, and have nothing, but nothing to do with the Berlin Wall.

Or to put it clear and straight to the point: The Berlin Wall was there to hurt the "Berliner", the Israeli Wall's aim to protect the Israelis.

As a German I can only feel sorry and ashamed that people all over the world use the symbol of the partition of my country to denigrate the people of Israel, whose well-being is one of the cores of German policy.

As a citizen of the world and a cultured person it makes me angry, seeing how one of the world's most powerful symbols of freedom is being used by anti-semites. They should be ashamed.

And to those who may find exagerrrated the label of "antisemite" for those, who constantly blame Israel for all the bad in the world and focus only on this tiny country: Why, for a change, don't they denounce the wall between the Spanish territories Ceuta and Melilla (both on African soil) and Marroco. Why don't they come to the help of the Muslim Uigur minority in China, why do we hear so few about the still existing frontiers in the former Yugoslavia, that won't let people live on either side of the ethnic fence. And: How about Corea, a nation still divided? All of these: forgotten...

Why Sweden is a dirty and corrupt country where it either rains or snows

You didn't know that Sweden was a dirty and corrupt country where it either rains or snows? Then you must have been living under a stone for the past 15 years - or have no interest whatsoever in modern popular culture - either of the two, or else you would know what I am talking about.

Now I am writing this with all due hopes that the Swedish tourism board might hear about it and take action, although I may fear this comes a little late.
Because what happened (at least in my case, and I am a reasonably cultured person, with quite a knowledge of Politcs, History and the like) is that this is the image of Sweden which during these last years has crept into my mind. Let me explain: Currently I am reading the second volume of the "Millenium"-Trilogy by Stieg Larsson and there was a sentence that went the likes of: "The trafficing of women is something that is not at all investigated in Sweden, because no-one cares." And I thought, yeah, so what - we all know that! But then it hit me: Is that the Sweden that during my childhood was the home of Pippi Longstockings and ABBA? The land of social democracy come true? The land of Olof Palme, of the Swedish Welfare State - not to forget land of Queen Silvia, German queen of the hearts, before Diana took over? Except for Queen Silvia of course, some concepts of the Swedish Welfare State and the circumstances of the Palme-murder already darkened the image of this clean country, like the controversial background of the Folkhemmet-concept and the mysterious murder of Olof Palme, which has never been solved. With this murder and the speculations around it, the idea of a land far north where everybody is happy and where good people make good politics came to and end. Another mystery shook the foundations of Sweden in the late eighthies: the sinking of the Estonia.

Whether or not these occurences prompted Henning Mankell to create his best-selling Police Investigator Kurt Wallander, fact is that with Wallander a new notion of Sweden came to be known around the world. As Wikipedia says, the underlying idea of the Wallander-series (first published in 1991) was: What went wrong with Swedish society?
And Wallander was extremly succesful. My first readings of his books left me shocked of the portrait he painted of Sweden. And now it's Larsson's turn: As I said my perception of Sweden has changed - and this is more a sub-conscious notion, because I am sufficiently capable of realizing that we talk fiction. What's more we talk fiction that is admirably frank and open on what IS wrong in modern society, because, of course, none of the problems pictured in any of the books are something inherently swedish.

So what is ist that makes Sweden the land of the bad in current popular fiction. (Apart from my very personal notion that this kind of frankness and willingness to badmouth your own country is something rather typical Northern-European/-American - it will be a long way to go until we find equally famous authors willing to describe the short-comings of their own society in such a matter-of-fact and drastic way - and not just the short-comings of others - in a country south of the Alps. But that's a different story for another post. One proof though is the more-than-happy headline the respectable Spanish newspaper "La Vanguardia" gave its article on the Larsson phenomenon: "Sweden is every bit as described by Larsson" Wow, they wouldn't do it for less....How satisfying after all these years having to listen how "developed and progressive" these northern countries are!)

If we look at the history of Swedish products though, it comes as no surprise. Call me stupid, call me ridiculous, there is something that makes Sweden and the Swedes being the best in so many categories of modern life. Whatever they do, they always come first. Need proof?

Ask anybody on the street which would be their trusted home-designer? Well, Ikea would be the obvious choice. Ask them what clothes they wear? H&M is a good guess. What is by far and large the most popular, best-selling band of all time? Well, we all know... Ask a European whose childhood-books were their favourite. It would be Astrid Lindgren's. Even the Volvo cars were something special, as the car of the non-conformist but rather wealthy decision-maker. So if we compare all this with other European nations of equal size, none comes even close. Okay, Finland has Nokia and the Pisa-study, Norway is rich and has the highest quality of life anywhere in the universe. The Danes invented Lego, but what is this against the overwhelming comercial power of Ikea, H & M and of course Abba.
The Swiss invented the secret bank account and neutralism. Luckily enough they also make good chocolate and watches, otherwise the reputation would be worse than it already is. Apart from that there is not much in terms of either popular culture (Heidi apart), famous musicians or extremly succesful (and popular) companies, that are part of modern culture: Nowhere to be seen....
The Austrians invented Mozart, Sissi and Hitler, the first and latter one still being best-sellers, though at least one of them does not really work well in terms of tourism marketing

So, in the end there is no doubt why Sweden is the land of evil, a dirty and corrupt country where it either rains or snows in modern popular fiction: Once swedish authors decided to go for that topic, it was inevitable that they would end up top. Because they are simply good at what they do - whether it's pop music, children's books, accesible furniture or having a sympathetic royal family. Maybe they were just bored with being the land of Ikea, Abba and Pippi Longstocking and, yeah, they did manage to change that image. And that's why I love this country.

Foreign living

To live in a foreign country is something I always dreamed about and it came natural to me.

Cuando era joven, en mi casa se oía música griega de Mikis Theodorakis, el melancolico "Klezmer" judio, la grandiosa Mercedes Sosa, se oía música de muchos rincones del mundo.

Los amigos de mi mama vinieron de Dinamarca, de Inglaterra, de Polonia, de Somalia, de Corea, .

En la mesa había comida de todos estos países así que para mí, era normal comer comida coreana como “Tempura” lo que muchos años después iba a redescubrir en restaurantes de moda japonesa, habia ensalada de fideo al estilo coreano, Danish Apple Pie, Polish “Borschtsch”, all mixed with Greek influences and spices, that later on I would read about in fancy magazines.

It was more common for me to eat food, that many people would consider foreign than anything that others would consider typical for my country.

My friends at that time (and I mean Kindergarten, now) were not that divers: They came from Germany, Denmark, Turkey or the United States. When we moved to Frankfurt – myself aged 10 – we lived in a neighbourhood, where 70% of the population would have roots from other countries: Our neighbours came from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Portugal, Spain – just to name a few...

Now, during summer time, windows wide open, there was other music to listen to, other smells in the staircase. At school I had a good friend who often would invite me after school. Her mother was Italian, the father Greek, in her house there would be Italian food and Greek chatter or the other way round. She would always play the music of Eros Ramazotti :) and translate me all the lyrics, that’s why still today I can follow a certain line of Italian conversation. My half-French, half-German friends were nothing exotic at all. They would introduce me to the French 80s music of Indochine, Jeanne Mas and others, music I still listen too, and which gave me a hard feeling of nostalgia when listening to this music on the radio travelling France a couple of months ago.

Though my school was not very multicultural at all all of these experiences : my mother’s friends, their accents, their appearance, the food they cooked for and with us, the friends I made, the music I listened to, made me whom I am today.

I first noticed that, when at one of my first student jobs, most of the workforce weren't native Germans, they had Yugoslav, Greek, Arab, Turkish, Russian backgrounds. I felt right among them. I made friends with some of them and was introduced more thoroughly to Armenian, Turkish – and most of all! – Greek culture. And sometimes I felt they were more at ease with me, too… no questions asked, no weirdness, just relaxed normality and healthy interest.

My nephew is half-Spanish, his father is of extremeño (the Spanish region of Extremadura) heritage - he introduced me to important icons of Catalan culture: Lluis Llach, Serrat, Maria del Mar Bonet – when I told people in Catalonia, they wouldn't or couldn´t believe it: how could – of all Spaniards! – an extremeño initiate a German to Catalan culture…impossible – but to me it was natural. But it wasn't just cantautors of course, the music of Estopa (themselves "hijos de emigrantes extremeños en Catalunya") I knew before coming to Spain…

My love and interest for Spanish and Catalan culture made me move to Spain, after having spent a year in Australia: down under I worked and studied not only with Australians and Austrians, but also with people from China, Singapore and Nepal.

I even passed a brief period living and working in Thailand - again with people of all backgrounds among them Corea, Phillipines, Israel, Myanmar and India.

In Spain I met many people from the Latin American countries, who before I had barely ever met. Life in Barcelona gave me another opportunity to meet and work with people from Spain, England, Mexico, Brazil and Italy. I met people from Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru – made friends with some of them. And of course, in the end married a Chilean…Ah, and not to mention my dear friends from Switzerland! Very exotic race, too, they are! :)

I can feel at home anywhere - but the point is, after all these years, I can't call home the place where I live. I myself am too internationalized, too multi-cultural, that I can't feel at home in a place where even people from other European cultures, like myself, are constantly being labeled as "exotic". I know it's normal, and very few people have my experience and background - but I am fed up with it. Actually this post was supposed to be the introduction to the actual post on how I feel foreign here. I think this has to wait for a later post :)

Death in the times of Facebook

Michael Jackson is dead. It is weird how the death of a person you never met, can affect you. But then Michael Jackson was part of our lifes, since we were young. For people of my generation he was one of the artists who accompanied us when we started to discover, well everything you start to discover when you are 13: love, friends, music, parties. So he did form part of our lives, like a good friend, who after graduating from High School falls out of sight, and occassionally you will hear some gossip about them and just wonder what the hell has happened to them.

But now we live in times of facebook, and I really think that just as there is a before and after Internet, there is also a before and after Facebook. Now, in real time, we can follow what our friends (also known as close friends, friends, and people I just met once for 5 minutes and later would have forgetten about, if we weren’t friends on Facebook) have to say about Michael Jackson, how they say it and what their favourite songs were. I even found out about his death on Facebook! Because nowadays it’s not Yahoo, Google, or any news page I open first when connecting to Internet – it’s Facebook!