I'm Joshua, I'm going to Berlin

Germany!My apologies to everyone, not least of all Steve for these posts coming so late! I took Steve’s pre-departure class, as it were, last semester and was under the impression that this class was much less dependent on posting dates than that one. Sadly I was mistaken, and now I am trying to catch up on everyone’s posts and hopefully people can catch up on mine. Last semester we met twice a week for the final 7 weeks of the semester in order for us to talk amongst each other about our mutual travel fears, anxieties, and of course, joyful discoveries. This semester, I thought, was entirely independent and solely relied on our own experiences abroad. Certainly I expected to read others’ blogs and have mine read as well, but I didn’t think there would be an introduction post nor specific due dates, as I am not even abroad yet!! But enough with my late excuses. I’ll stop short of asking my mom to sign a note for me or something to that extent.

I’m going to Berlin and I’d like to explain the reasons behind this nerve-racking decision. Last summer, while the presidential campaigns were well into full-swing and with an ominously (or rather, poorly) balanced national and international economy looming, I decided it would be best for me to leave the country and perhaps consider another place to call my home. I had traveled to Berlin after high school and really enjoyed the atmosphere or perhaps I mean the aura. It’s the feeling I had for the place that made me want to return, and not nearly something as describable as an “atmosphere.” It just seemed beautiful.
That said, I’m working in Gallatin on a concentration in deviant identities and identity politics and as Steve put so succinctly last semester, “there’s no better place than Berlin to study deviance.” But, I think there’s more to the story than the crazy street-walkers, the “electroheads,” the death-metal Goths, and a reputation as the queer capital of Europe. There are ways, still, that Germany has failed to be so welcoming in their national imagination. Specifically, Turkish immigrants suffer daily through practiced social codes and reinforced policies that are meant to undermine the legitimacy of their communities, of their status as immigrants, of their bi-culture and newly formed racial identity within the nation, one with a needn’t-be-explained world memory of genocide.

I worked tirelessly last semester to undermine this memory, to have it questioned, to have Germany understood as something more substantial and respectable, something more meaningful than simply post-Holocaust. I think my work in dealing with this issues on a personal and interpersonal level paid off, however, towards the end of last semester and following through Winter break, a presence of neonazis (or Neonazis or Neo-Nazis or neo-nazis or….) in Berlin made themselves known. Demanding an end to immigration, a ridding of non-Aryans, public money to be used for nationalist citizens only, they rioted. Quelled and quelled again, their political party is now considered a threat to the nation and there are attempts to make their party illegal, especially after the stabbing of the police chief on his own front porch. I’m glad I’ll be there for this but I hope that my deviant identities (American, foreigner using German resources, Jewish heritage, queer) don’t place me at a risk, but I try to remind myself that I’ll only be young once and after having witnessed President Obama’s inauguration just a week ago, maybe it’ll be good for me as a writer and as an aspiring academic to continue to keep exposing myself to history.