You and I

‘I (...) only wanted people to find solidarity with each other again so they would start fighting their outrageous fate.’ 

Albert Camus, Fourth Letter. In: Letters to a German Friend

1 

We’re about the same age. Somewhere between our mid-twenties and early thirties. We grew up in the same school system. Maybe we had the same teacher, in the same school building – and the same class? We studied together, and maybe sat in the same lecture hall. Now you’re there, and I’m here. The rest of the country is scratching its head. We know each other. At that time, I never thought that our conflict would become the issue troubling this country. Back when we were teenagers on our city’s streets. You, with your head shaven, me wearing a leather jacket. I never thought you’d make it. And me? To you, I was just vermin, a parasite, who had no say. Not that I didn’t take you seriously. The day you and your friends marched against the exhibition criticizing the Wehrmacht, I printed Erich Fried’s poem ‘The Offence’ a thousand times two blocks away in the copy shop and handed it out in the city centre. I went to meetings with older teens – I hoped they had experience and knew how to deal with you and your friends. At the time, I didn’t know this was just the beginning. That we would go our different ways only to run into each other again. Did you know? Where were you? Who supported you? I was a nineteen-year-old girl who’d run off to France, sleeping on the backseats of cars until she was admitted to an elite university to study politics on a scholarship, because, of course, I had no money, as I was born to people you called ‘guest workers’, among other things. I was a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl who’d come to Germany from Russia with her parents as a quota refugee, who didn’t speak a word of German, but had received funding for a German text at the age of sixteen. Remember how you spray-painted a swastika on our refugee shelter? I was a boy whose mother cared for my bedridden father or whose mother was an alcoholic, abandoned by my politically persecuted father who had turned himself into the police in Turkey. Where were you all those years? Now you’re here. We’ve finished our studies, and I’ve found my friends who were scattered all over the place, who I didn’t know existed, and who were also wondering how they could go on like this. I don’t know how it was for you; it wasn’t easy for us, but now we’re here. Just like you are too.
What a pity. Someone from the outside, from another planet, would be confused. He’d think: why don’t they shake hands? They’re from the same country, the same school, the same time, the same place. Why don’t they stick together, plan together, set up this country, and this world, and make it homely? And it’s true, it is a pity. We’re facing twenty, thirty, at most forty years – that’s the time given to us on earth. And it’s not the same planet we were born on. We will never raise a glass together, never shake hands. Instead, I will always be here and you will always be there. I already know that your friends keep lists of the names of mine. Tell them to spell them correctly. We’re here. I’m here. For each of your efforts to destroy our plurality, we will expand it tenfold.

2017

2 

We’re about the same age. Something between thirty and our early forties. It’s been seven years since I last wrote to you. Your head is no longer shaven. Your grin is wider. Time has been kind to you, you think. But I’m still here. Deep down you know – you must know – that you need me. You need me so you can hate. You need me so that you can be you. Because you’re nobody without me. I, on the other hand, don’t need you. I’m exactly myself even without you. Oh, the stones you threw at me have left their marks. to deny that would be crazy. No, I wasn’t unscathed by your violence. I’m not untouched by the murders your carried out or the indifference so many have shown towards them. And then there were those wanted to oppose you but who had become attached to you. I am who I am because of your violence and the coldness of the times we live in. But I don’t need you as my opponent. If you disappear, I stay exactly who I am. If I disappear – and maybe you don’t realize this – you’re nothing. It’s not a contradiction though that your violence leaves traces. You killed us in that shisha bar. It wasn’t difficult for you because the police blocked the emergency exit. A year later, we drove to the city where you shot us, and we grieved for ourselves. We were there for us. We. For us. We carried out our own initiatives when other initiatives were lacking. Deep down, you know I’ll always exist, I’ll always be here. I, on the other hand, don’t know if you’ll always exist. At some point, you’ll leave. Not yet. Not by a long shot. You think you’re safe. You were refined. You were smart. You shaved. You did a doctorate in law and economics and philosophy. You learned the language of reason. It wasn’t difficult; you just had to learn to read it backwards from its repressive end. But you don’t believe in dialectics, do you? You trained elite soldiers. Your uncle made it to the top of the secret service. I know what you’re thinking: you succeeded in all this because you were right. And not only that: you believe that the others, the safe ones, also think you’re right, that deep down in their hearts they agree with you, and need you so that they can stay safe. Why else did they cover for you all those years when you were underground? Why did the Minister of Families and Youth honour you by visiting that little port city when you who set fire to the building where Vietnamese families were living? Why did the law side with you then, and not me? And am I helpless to keep looking for words when you might still use them all against me? No, I’m not helpless. Because in the end, when there’s nothing’s left and everything goes back to the beginning, only words will exist before the lights go out. And not your words.
You don’t know that your violence will also turn against the safe ones, and yes, in the end, even against yourself. Perhaps you’re right and some people, deep down, are grateful to you? Other people don’t want you to have seats in the state parliaments. And you laugh and laugh because it’s too late: you’re already sitting in them. And soon you’ll be sitting even more securely. The safe are helpless, but sometimes helplessly open to totalitarianism. The main thing is that they’re on the right side, the good side, the side you don’t stand for – not yet, you say. No one should be sure about what’s right and wrong. And I still want to print Erich Fried’s poem a thousand times and read it out in front of a large crowd, as I did at the Opera Square in my city, to protest against you. He writes to the safe, ‘good citizens’: ‘You don’t look/ closely enough/ if you don’t see in these blue / or brown / or grey eyes / for a moment / your own / reflection.’ And you keep laughing. Of course, I notice: It’s the same old record being played. Of course, I’ve known that for many years, ever since you and I went to school; I’ve been saying the same thing over and over again, things that so many others said before me and won’t stop saying after me: I want people to find their solidarity again. You know, there’s is no cultural or identity battle going on. This is about something completely different: What you’re after is the spirit, a universal idea and feeling for what defines and perpetuates the notion of humanity. That’s why the enthusiasm you whip up in so many is lacklustre, and the love you offer is narrow in scope and has a time limit. You want a Europe without spirit – it’s what you’ve always wanted. This is my reply: I have my Europe, you have yours. I have my world, you have yours. You don’t want to know any of this, because you’ve always craved power over knowledge. You know, in the end, in the place where we meet again, power counts the least, no matter what it might have swept away in the meantime. And you may say: See, what have all those words done to help you? Don’t you see you’re defeated? And I tell you: There’s one thing that words have helped me to do – I’m still here. 

2024

Under the title “Poetic Positions” in the program of “DIE KUNST, VIELE ZU BLEIBEN”, the writers and playwrights Sivan Ben Yishai, Manja Präkels and Anne Rabe also took a stand on current events alongside Deniz Utlu. The fund is now making their contributions available to read in its online magazine. Photographer Sebastian Bolesch accompanied the Fund's series of events and captured impressions from the surroundings of the individual stations in pictures.

© Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Hamburg, 2024