East Berlin

I just came back from a long-weekend in Germany. Little boy and I went to Berlin to visit older boy, who is in Berlin for an internship this fall. We didn’t visit any of the conventional tourist attractions, except the Reichstag building, the parliament, from where Germany (and Greece) are being ruled. Most of the time we spent in East Berlin, the former Soviet sector.

We went to a suburb east of the city center to watch a football (soccer of course) game with FC Union in 2. Bundesliga. The game wasn’t too good, but it was really cool to be on the packed stand with 20.000 crazy people. The red shirts of FC Union bear a witness of the working-class background of the club. The supporters called their team Eisern Union (Iron Union). We were surrounded by factory workers who enjoyed their free weekend, and unemployed craftsmen who lost their jobs to the Polish and Lithuanians who do their work for a lower price. Citizens of the European Union.

Near the tram station in Warschauer Strasse (Warsaw Street), we passed a homeless young man sitting on the side walk with his sleeping bag and a filthy dog. In front of him, he had three cups labeled “food”, “weed” and “BMW”. In the “food” cup there were some coins, the other two were almost empty. I dropped 2 Euro in the “weed” cup and 3 Euro in his “BMW” cup. Homeless people have dreams for the future too. And in the meantime some weed may be good for the comport, in the brutal capitalist world.

At night we went to concerts in small obscure clubs in old East German industry buildings, to enjoy Berlin’s underground music scene. The beer was good, and people were nice and friendly. Some bands were good, some not so good. The lead guitar player in one of the garage-rock bands was a 48 yo professor at Humboldt University. He performed under a stage-name/pseudonym to avoid mixing business and pleasure. I immediately felt a connection with him; a guy with a PhD and some obscure and secret cultural interests on the side.

It was good to get away for a while. Nobody yelling at me. Nobody asking me difficult questions. Nobody interrogating me about scary thoughts in the darkest corners of my soul. It was a true feeling of freedom, for a while >:)

(Some pictures taken in Berlin, RAW Gelande, former train repair station and now subcultural center (top), football game with FC Union (2nd), East Berlin's famous Ampfelmann (3rd), and garage rock concert (bottom). The Humboldt professor is the guitar player to the right. Fortunately, the picture is to unfocused to see his face.)

Spies and heroes

When I was a kid during the Cold War, I read a lot of spy-thrillers; Our Man in Havana (Graeme Greene), From Russia with Love (Ian Flemming), The Fourth Protocol (Frederick Forsyth ), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John LeCarre), and many more. In the Cold-War thrillers, the Russians were the bad guys and the Americans (and Brits) were the heroes.

Now everything seems to be turned upside down. What I have in mind is the Snowden case.

To me Snodwen is a hero. He is a whistleblower who stands up against powerful organizations violating American and international law. He told the world that NSA violates rights of privacy, monitoring millions of accounts on Google and Facebook.

Whistleblowers never win. They’re always shot down, unless they stay undercover, like Deep Throat. But, history often gives them the credit they deserve.

The NSA claims they have prevented several terror attacks. That’s great. We can probably accept surveillance of selected groups and individuals to prevent terror.

But why does the NSA spy on European embassies and government offices? We don’t like that. I’ve always been a fan of Obama, but in this case he has disappointed me, if he knew what was going on.

I hope the NSA has noticed that Napoleon is no longer Emperor of France, and Hitler is not Chancellor of Germany. 

Today most EU countries are social democracies. Is this the motivation for the surveillance?

In America the only word that appears more scaring than terrorism is socialism. It means collective farms and gulags, Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot.

Social democracy is not the same as communism.

In practice, a social democracy is a capitalist system with a socialist touch. The social democracy has invented horrifying things like free health care and free education. Except from that, there’s not much to fear.

We’re friends of America and will always be. Part of a friendship is to tell your friend when he has done something unacceptable. 

(The cartoon was borrowed from joyreactor.com)

Heaven and Hell

Heaven is a place where
the French are the chefs,
the Italians are the lovers,
the Swiss are the bankers,
the Germans are the engineers,
the English are the police.

Hell is a place where
the English are the chefs,
the Swiss are the lovers,
the Italians are the bankers,
the French are the engineers,
the Germans are the police.

Some funny European stereotypes. I don't know who invented this joke. It wasn't me. I learnt it from a Californian.

If you're a Satanist, you may want to swap Heaven and Hell. That's fine with me >:)

(I took the picture above when we visited Paris three years ago. The big walk-in map of Europe was in the park by the Eiffel Tower. The lines for the lift were endless, so we walked the stairs up the tower. I don't like climbing high, so little boy and I stopped at the first level. Older boy climbed up to the second level. That's the highest you can get by the stairs.)