meine vergangenheit hat mich gerade eingeholt

Freitag, November 10, 2000
what mr. silverman experienced
The New Face of Germany. That’s what I called the friends I met in Berlin during the week I spent there in November of 2000. The U-Bahn we were riding past Frankfurter Tor broke down (a rare occurrence, I know) and I had to ask for help translating the instructions coming over the loudspeaker. Martin and Nico first looked at me like a foolish tourist, and made a sarcastic joke about the train operator needing to take a nap. Then they asked me where I was from. San Francisco, I said. Then they asked me to come have a beer.
These new friends were unique among all the people I met during that 16-month journey around the world. For one, we became almost instant compatriots, sharing food, jokes and ideas without hesitation. It was obvious our cultures came from a common place. The pair was so contrary to my preconception of German youth that I found the very notion of their existence fascinating.
Martin looked German. Twenty-one years old with strong European features. His blond hair completed the image, or, rather, it would have completed the image if he hadn’t shaved his head completely bald. This was his rebellion, to walk around without hair and with no hesitations about his homosexuality. Nico and I accompanied Martin once on a first date, just to make sure the other guy was ok and what he had described himself to be over the Internet. Martin was very curious about gay culture in San Francisco, and I told him what I could. He didn’t hold it against me that I happened to like women.
Nico was an even more incongruous German. Also 21 years old, his features were pure Asian. Thin, flat eyes and jet-black hair made him look like an exchange student at the university where he studied in Berlin. The East German couple that adopted him as an infant knew only that he came from the local orphanage. Nico knew the work of Immanuel Kant almost as well as he knew Martin Scorsese, and he became one of the best friends I ever made overseas. Together we toured Belgium and Holland.
The fact that young people like Nico and Martin live full and engaging lives in Germany says a great deal about the kind of nation it has become. An open-minded society that embraces the kinds of freedoms I value so much. My brief visit to Berlin in 2000 left me with a deep curiosity about what the rest of the Germany could be like. I’ve since met German Jews from Stuttgart traveling in Israel and had a chance to give English lessons in San Francisco to a pair of graphic designers from Munich. It’s enough to keep me very curious about how the liberalism of Berlin relates to the whole.
Atlantik Brucke’s program is a unique opportunity to critically explore this curiosity in the context of the Germany’s leading people and institution. As two economic giants with cultures that are more alike than different, the relationship between Germany and the United States can be a vehicle for promoting real democracy and freedom worldwide. The fact that relations are at their lowest point in half a century robs the world of this vehicle. I believe that as a journalist with a real desire to understand Germany from the inside, I could help my countrymen understand that working together is so much preferable to the alternative.
martin 3:50 AM | 0 comments |




danke martin für diese erinnerung
ich hatte schon wieder fast meine leidenschaft
für kant und scorsese vergessen