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edithhaimbergernotebook · 7 months ago

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The First Minutes After the Opening Whistle: The International Whitsun Soccer Tournament in Berlin

"Europäisches Pfingstturnier in Tempelhof-Schöneberg" Poster for a soccer tournament on the Pentecost weekend, Berlin, May 18-19. Photograph by me. April 26, 2024. Public domain.

THE COUNTDOWN to the UEFA Euro Cup 2024 is ticking away in Berlin.

Berlin might not be the only German host city. But Austria's national team will train at one of our stadiums, and the Olympia Stadium has been booked for matches including the final on July 14.

At Brandenburg Gate, dozens of security guards are patrolling the green turf and white arch of a fan zone.

The Cup is only starting on June 14. But inch by inch, the Straße des 17. Juni thoroughfare is being fenced in and transformed.

On the other side of the Gate, tourists have been shunted to the margins of the Pariser Platz square. White containers and metal scaffolding have taken their place. (As the German government is transforming the central government district for the 75th anniversary of the Constitution next week, it is a nightmare to navigate the area.)

The 2024 Euro Cup has also inspired an earlier event in Berlin, amongst younger players.

ONE STREET OVER from the southwestern gardens of Priesterweg, few cars were rolling along the Vorarlberger Damm. It was 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 18. It was also the first day of the long Pentecost weekend, ending in a statutory holiday on Monday.

At the brick building that the 1 FC Schöneberg soccer club uses for its training, bicycles were attached to every fence and post in sight. Music came from the rear.

After passing through two sets of glass doors, the first signs of a soccer tournament finally appeared.

Teenagers and young adults thronged at the chainlink fence around a field. They wore bright jerseys in blue, white, red, orange... Team jerseys: names of clubs like FC Casino 05 written on the back, or the logo of the asylum rights group Pro Asyl. Or individual jerseys, with names like the French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane's.

It was hard to miss the many Berlin teams. But the tournament also hosted teams from Tempelhof-Schöneberg's partner towns, districts, municipalities, cities, authority areas, and communes in France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland, and the UK.

AT THE chainlink barriers of the sports grounds, banners hung. One was dedicated to a slogan against racism ("Kein Platz für Rassismus") and another one against homophobia ("Rote Karte für Homophobia").

It wasn't clear if these are always at the training ground, or part of the tournament. On Friday, a campaign to encourage professional LGBTQIA* footballers in Germany to come out of the closet had passed without any announcement after all. May 17 had been the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia. The banner was at least a sign that the cause of gay rights and equality in sports is not lost after all.

Outside the fence, local organizations had set up tables.

⚽️ ⚽️ ⚽️

A CLOTHES rack was pulled up beside one table. Soccer jersey samples were hanging from it, showcasing a company that sustainably produces sports kit.

A table of brochures from a coalition of organizations that are campaigning for fair working conditions in the sports apparel and equipment industries. Pictured: a soccer ball that has been taken apart to show the techniques that go into the hand-sewing. All rights reserved. Intellectual property rights remain with the organizations. Photo taken May 18, 2024.

FAIR TRADE was at the heart of the brochures and posters at another table, too.

Soccer balls, the woman at the table explained, are almost all manufactured in Pakistan. Handstitching the hexagons together requires special expertise, and this expertise is often provided by women.

To pay these women a living wage, consumers would need to agree to pay 3€ more per ball, offsetting the rise in production costs.

A regular, full-sized UEFA Euro Cup 2024 soccer ball from Adidas costs 29.95€ or more. The price for Euro 2024 balls sold by other sponsors is, surprisingly, even lower.

(According to an overview on the website of the Free University Berlin, up to 60 million soccer balls are manufactured during tournaments.)

German soccer teams at every level – from children's school sports classes up to the Bundesliga – could commit to using only fair trade certified apparel and accessories. In an €11 billion-per-year industry, it would make a difference.

Berlin's sports association, Landessportbund Berlin, is advertising a subsidy of up to 50% for sports clubs that do buy fair trade.

Q: Which German soccer club follows the most thorough sustainability plan? A: FC St. Pauli. It's a club from Hamburg. And it has just made German sports headlines: after an extraordinary season, it's climbed out of the 2nd national league and reached the Bundesliga.

(Source: a quiz activity for the athletes at the soccer tournament. A 2022 Berliner Zeitung online article also mentioned that the club produces its own jerseys.)

⚽️ ⚽️ ⚽️

THE BERLIN group Weltacker e.V. had set up a table to promote organic food for athletes. The young woman standing behind it offered seeds from the little jars of chickpeas and other grains, to take home.

A miniature poster for Weltacker Berlin e.V. It is organizing 2 June events in connection with the UEFA Euro Cup. Intellectual property rights remain with Weltacker. Photo taken May 19, 2024.

One or two more tables were set up nearer the stage.

***

AROUND 11:30 a.m. the first matches began on the fields.

It was easy to imagine that soccer balls would fly from one pitch into another, but until I left at 11:45 there seemed to be no major incident.

Heavy clouds with scrolled edges, grey and white, passed over the playing fields. But the thunderstorms that had been forecast didn't break.

The quarter finals, semi-finals, and final took place this morning.

#sports #tempelhof-schöneberg #sustainable fashion #european union #berlin

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 7 months ago

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Finding Peace Amid War at Berlin's Barenboim-Said Music Academy

AKADEMIEKONZERT (ACADEMY CONCERT) Wednesday, May 15, 2024 Pierre Boulez Saal

May 15th is Nakba Day.

It is a sad, heavy anniversary for Palestinians. It is a reminder of the refugees who fled and those who were killed during the Arab-Israeli War in the 1940s.

The refugees and their descendants partly remain in refugee camps like Jenin in the West Bank (opened 1953), Shatila in Lebanon (1949), and Yarmouk in Syria (1957).

Likely by coincidence, this year a music academy that unites pupils from Middle Eastern and North African countries, was offering a concert on May 15th in the middle of Berlin.

It was a peaceful way to spend the day, signalling support for pluralism and dialogue as avenues to resolve the conflict.

The Barenboim-Said Academy, named after the pianist and the philosopher, is tucked behind the State Opera Unter den Linden.

In the Academy building, an intimate concert hall named in honour of the French composer Pierre Boulez (boo-LEZ) hosts classical music, jazz, and other concerts.

(For this student concert, tickets were affordably priced at 10€.)

The concert began with a classic. Both literally – due to the musical period in which Mozart composed – and figuratively.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Sonata for two pianos in D major KV 448 (1781) I. Allegro con spirito II. Andante III. Molto allegro

After the Mozart came Igor Stravinsky.

If the audience's busy fidgeting during his music was any evidence, the Russian composer is still controversial over 100 years after he premiered the Rite of Spring.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Histoire du soldat Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (1918-19) I. Marche du soldat II. Le Violon du soldat III. Petit concert IV. Tango-Valse-Ragtime V. Danse du diable

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A much longer, alternative performance with narration, which is true to Stravinsky's elaborate concept, is also on YouTube here.

At the end, students played the flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn and bassoon, in a quintet that gave each their moment in the spotlight.

The oboist had been 'borrowed' from the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, another music academy in Berlin.

In contrast to Stravinsky, Paul Taffanel seemed like a conservative composer. The audience was at times nearly completely quiet, the mood relaxed.

Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) Woodwind Quintet in g minor (1876) I. Allegro con moto II. Andante III. Vivace

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I deeply believe that people of different languages, cultures, and politics can ultimately speak to each other through the arts." – Frank Gehry (Canadian-American designer of the Pierre Boulez Saal)

(Quotation taken from the concert ticket)

#Youtube

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 8 months ago

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Iranian Protestors in Berlin Speak Out for Rapper Toomaj Salehi

[Update: On June 22, 2024, the Guardian reported that "Iran's supreme court has overturned the death sentence" (Article)]

Toomaj Salehi is a 33-year-old rapper from Iran.

He was arrested in late 2022, just days after he posted a music video on YouTube. In it, he criticized the government and predicted that it would topple. For example, he rapped, "44 years of your government is the year of failure."

youtube

He was released on bail, but arrested again by December.

Last week (April 24) his lawyer found out that the rapper has been sentenced to death.

Death sentences aren't just a theoretical threat. In 2023, 853 people were executed in Iran; the majority were convicted of drug offenses, but some were protestors.

In Berlin, Germany, at least 2 demonstrations were registered with the police on Sunday, April 28, to support Toomaj.

Speakers and demonstrators' posters asked Iran's government to release him.

They reminded Berliners and visitors, in the crowded tourist centre around Brandenburg Gate, that there are also many other political prisoners in Iran.

Human Rights Watch, amongst other non-governmental organizations, has reported systematic rape and other ill-treatment of prisoners (and people who are more temporarily jailed) in Iran. Protestors also mentioned these cases.

Toomaj Salehi has said that he was beaten after his arrest last October.

Before his arrests, the rapper had spoken out about another cause that protestors emphasized in Berlin on Sunday: the treatment of women under strict morality laws. For example, these laws affect how women are allowed to dress and wear hairstyles in Iran.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, apparently did this 'the wrong way' according to the authorities in the capital city Tehran in 2022. She was beaten by police and died.

Since then, the "Woman, Life, Freedom" protest movement has sprung up.

Ending the long list of concerns that Iranian protestors had today, there was also doubt about policy toward Israel.

Actions by Iran's government like firing over 300 missiles and drones at the neighbouring country were described as an unjustified gamble that risked the lives of Iran's entire civilian population.

A separate protest's speaker expressed concern for the wellbeing of the hostages still being held by the Palestinian group Hamas.

One or two Israeli flags appeared in the crowd. Another protestor appeared to be wearing a red keffiyeh scarf, but there were no visible tensions or clashes over the symbols.

================================

#Youtube

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 9 months ago

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Russia's 2024 Presidential Election Day in Germany

Unter den Linden on the eve of Russian-Berliners' election day. The Navalny memorial is at the left, the Ukraine war memorial at centre, and in the background the quadriga of Brandenburg Gate is silhouetted against the setting sun. Photo by me. All rights reserved.

Russia's presidential elections this weekend were full of no surprises. Vladimir Putin was designated President for another 6-year term, after years of whittling away any rivals for the role.

Freedom in the World Report - 2015: Retroactively for 2014, Russia was ranked 'Not Free' with 23 points. - 2023: Russia is still ranked 'Not Free,' with 13 points. The Freedom in the World Report is released annually by the Freedom House organization, which is based in the United States. The Russian member of parliament Sergei Markov disputed its findings around 15 years ago.

On the ground in Berlin, there were however a few surprises. Ballots were opened there on Sunday.

At around 9:45 a.m., voters had formed a line over 200 metres long, along a building belonging to the largely state-owned Russian airline Aeroflot, where it flanks the Glinkastraße.

The line then turned a corner and went on to a rear entrance of the Russian embassy. A few onlookers filmed the scene with their smartphones and a police van was posted at the Mauerstraße, but no journalists appeared to be there.

Collapsible sign for the Russian elections in Berlin, set up in front of the Aeroflot building at Unter den Linden, just past the white and red fence where security checks were occurring. March 17, 2024. Photo by me. Public domain.

At the corner of Glinkastraße and Unter den Linden there was a gap in the security fence. There a tall security guard was scrutinizing documents, like the red passports of Russian citizens, held by people in the line. Then the voters were let through past the Aeroflot building to the formal landscaped yard.

Three lanes of traffic divide the embassy from the linden trees of the iconic Berlin street Unter den Linden.

Under the still leafless trees, both the Ukrainian war memorial as well as the bouquets, candles, signs and portraits in honour of Russia's dissident Alexei Navalny were quiet.

But the white-blue-white flag of Russia's anti-Ukraine-war movement had been draped around a tree trunk.

In the traffic lanes on the other side of the memorials, men were putting finishing touches on a sound stage.

Groups like the Russian Antiwar Committee and the #freenavalny campaign had organized a live event after 12 p.m.

Хватит войны лжи репрессий Путина

— 'Enough with Putin's war of lies and repression' (Google Translate). Banner for 12 p.m. event opposite the Russian Embassy in Berlin

***

At 11:56 a.m., the line of people waiting to vote had stretched further along the Behrenstraße behind Russia's embassy and turned a corner into the Wilhelmstraße. Police officers kept the intersections clear, but taking these into account the line was 800 m long.

On Unter den Linden, the protestors' programme had begun.

In the gravel area, protestors, passersby, and many journalists were photographing a paper mâché bathtub in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. Red paint, symbolizing the bloodshed of Vladimir Putin's presidency, dripped over the bathtub's sides. Inside it, the figure of Putin scrubbed his toe with a brush.

Flyers, Unter den Linden. March 17, 2024. Photo by me. Public domain unless the group that produced the flyers has intellectual property rights.

In front of the bathtub, a group had set up an open air voting experience that they titled "Taste the Russian 'democracy.'"

The ballots, voting booths, and the glass-sided ballot boxes that had a paper shredder fitted at the top, were all detailed parodies. The ballot boxes were even decorated with a formal eagle emblem.

Passersby laughed as they read and filled out the ballots, which were handed out at white tables.

Parody of a Russian ballot box with shredded mock ballots, Unter den Linden, March 17, 2024. Photo by me. Public domain.

Then they watched as a mock election helper reduced their so-called votes to paper strips through the ballot boxes.

The #freenavalny campaign had also set up tables with posters and other papers.

Protestors and visitors at the scene carried protest signs or the white-blue-white antiwar flag.

One sign said, "Even if you have an election today, you still face a tribunal." Another sign suggested that Vladimir Putin should be in the Hague.

Putin is a killer Not a president He will not stop

— Protest sign, Unter den Linden, March 17, 2024

Defiantly, protestors set up an unofficial street sign with the name "Alexej-Nawalny-Straße."

As well as a petition that has gathered thousands of signatures, Russian protest groups in Berlin also organized a protest on March 6 asking local Berlin authorities to rename the Behrenstraße in honour of Navalny.

The scene on Unter den Linden was loud.

Speakers in Russian and German, from groups like the Free Russia Foundation, had begun to address the crowd from the stage in the northern lanes.

The Berlin city politician Ario Mirzaie, of the Green Party, also spoke. He began by telling the crowd that his parents, too, had come from a "dictatorship": Iran.

The crowd chanted slogans like, "Putin ist nicht legitim!" (Putin is not legitimate) in both languages.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who had been imprisoned for years and is now in exile in the UK, would appear later.

The Germany-based group Demokrati-Ja had also set up a wall of banners to draw attention to 'Putin's hostages' ("Putins Geiseln").

* Vladimir Kara-Murza, politician. Arrested in 2022 on charges of making treasonous statements about the invasion of Ukraine. *Aleksandra Skochilenko, artist. Imprisoned in 2023 on charges of 'disseminating false information' — protest material against the invasion of Ukraine. *Lilia Chanysheva, politician and associate of Alexei Navalny. Imprisoned in 2023 on charges of extremism. Olga Smirnova, architect and activist. Saurifa Sautijeva, museum staff and protestor. Viktor Shur, artist arrested in 2014 for insulting a police officer and later accused of working with Ukrainian intelligence services. Sarema Musayeva, mother of two activists. Irina Navalnaya, resident of Mariupol accused of terrorism. (Note: This reporter anglicized the German transliterations of some names above. There may be mistakes.)

On the streets south of the Russian embassy, the lines of voters were becoming longer and longer.

Since all the presidential candidates on the ballot were allies of Vladimir Putin, the Russian opposition had encouraged voters across Russia to show passive resistance by appearing at the polls at noon.

In Berlin, hundreds of voters did so.

Before 1 p.m., the line peaked at around 1.3 km, counting the intersections. The Glinkastraße up to Behrenstraße, the Behrenstraße up to the Wilhelmstraße, and the Wilhelmstraße up to the Voßstraße. The line reached up the Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße to the Hannah-Arendt-Straße, across the street from the Holocaust memorial.

On the Wilhelmstraße, in front of the restaurant Yakoolza, a young woman who was standing in line estimated she'd been waiting 45 minutes. At the corner of Wilhelmstraße/Voßstraße, another woman said 1 hour.

At the Hannah-Arendt-Straße, two men, who appeared to be Germans, stood at a street sign. They told the Berlin police officers who were guiding the voter line that they were not eligible to vote. But one of them held a handmade cardboard poster with the words "Stop Putin."

Another man who had been standing in line with the Ukrainian flag on a long pole, left shortly after this reporter had arrived.

A voter whom this reporter did not see was the widow of Alexei Navalny, Yulia.

She cast a ballot, then approached the press on her way out of the embassy to explain her write-in vote, for her late husband.

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 10 months ago

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Tibetan Uprising Day 2024 and a Half-Forgotten Human Rights Disaster

"Tibetans inside Tibet: We are with you!"

— sign at Berlin protest on March 10, 2024

The red, yellow and blue colours of Tibet's flag flew across the Pariser Platz square behind Brandenburg Gate on Sunday as some 80 protesters gathered for Tibetan Uprising Day.

Reeducation camps for Uyghur Muslims in China, more rarely developments in Hong Kong, and controversies around the Dalai Lama who is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, may dominate international news headlines.

But the plight of inhabitants in the Tibetan region that the protestors portrayed in signs, speeches, and information panels yesterday is no longer common knowledge.

A youngish man in jeans and a puffer jacket, who was walking across the square on Sunday, asked the police officer beside him who had mentioned Tibet, "Was ist das?" ('What is it?') The police officer, at least, knew the answer.

Miniature History In 1950 the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded the remote region bordering Nepal. Ever since then, the autonomy or even the independence of Tibet has been hotly disputed, as well as the measures through which the ruling Chinese Communist Party governs the country. Tibetan Uprising Day marks the anniversary of a revolt in 1959.

Image: "Tibetexpedition, Kloster in Samada." (Tibet Expedition, Convent [or Monastery] in Samada.) Photo taken by Ernst Krause in 1938. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archives.

'Many of us standing here today,' a speaker wearing traditional embroidered clothing told the crowd in Berlin, 'have never been in Tibet.'

Instead the protesters on Sunday were often exiles, many second-generation.

Their relatives in Tibet face systematic repression.

"Menschenrechte für Tibet" "Freiheit für Tibet"

— 'Human rights for Tibet' and 'Freedom for Tibet.' Signs at the Berlin protest on March 10, 2024.

The Berlin speakers accused the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of cultural genocide. Children as young as 5 years old are sent to residential boarding schools where they are educated as Chinese, while Tibetan language and culture are forbidden.

Monasteries and convents that were destroyed in the mid-20th century and only partly rebuilt in the 1980s remain vulnerable.

The Chinese government has been building massive hydroelectric dams in Tibet. Permission from Tibetans is not asked, a reporter from Tibet.tv said at the protest in Berlin. Instead, entire villages and monasteries, dating back even to the times where Europe was in the Middle Ages, are destroyed.

Local Tibetans who protest mega-dam projects are arrested and, at times, beaten.

A-Nya Sengdra, a nomad in Qinghai province, is in the middle of a 7-year prison sentence on charges like 'provoking trouble.' In a 2020 press release from the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, experts say that he had been active for example against "illegal hunting and poaching of endangered animals."

As his prison sentence continues, friends are worried for his health.

Outside Tibet, in his Indian exile of Dharamshala, the Dalai Lama has also spoken enigmatically about his successor as spiritual leader. He is 88 years old. The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama has a spiritual dimension for Tibetan Buddhists, but the Chinese Communist Party — a secular body —wants the next Dalai Lama to be approved by them first.

But, also explaining why Tibet is seldom in news headlines, it is difficult to obtain information from within the region. Writing for the Human Rights Watch website in 2022, an expert spoke of

draconian controls on the flow of information between Tibet and the outside world *

The Heyday of International Awareness of Tibet In the 1980s and 90s and early 2000s, Tibet was a cause célèbre. Actress Sharon Stone and actor Richard Gere, who are Tibetan Buddhist, spoke out in favour of its independence. The Tibet-inspired American fantasy film The Golden Child (1986) earned $149.4 million at the box office. In 1997, two films followed: Kundun, directed by Martin Scorsese, and Seven Years in Tibet . When this reporter arrived in Germany in 2006, a string of Tibetan prayer flags crossed above a neighbourhood street. Tourists were drawn to Tibet — this has not changed: it is estimated that 15 million of them visited in 2015. But Tibet was not just famous in cultural spheres. In 1989, the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Tenuous links exist between Tibetans in countries like Germany and Tibetans in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. But the CCP's surveillance extends beyond international borders. Telephone calls may be monitored, participation in protests by Tibetans in exile become a problem for relatives.

Young women at the Tibetan protest in Berlin, Germany, speak out against the Chinese Communist Party's gathering of DNA as part of a surveillance programme. Photograph taken by me (Edith Haimberger), on Sunday, March 10, 2024. All rights reserved.

Surveillance within Tibet is so severe that human rights organizations and activists reported in 2022 that the CCP are gathering DNA on a large scale — of hundreds of thousands of people, including schoolchildren — to track dissidents.

The Tibet Initiative Deutschland and the Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, two non-governmental groups, co-organized the Berlin protest on March 10.

The Gesellschaft noted on their social media that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to China in April.

In Tibetan communities in the country and abroad there are conflicting opinions on how to resist the Chinese Communist Party. Peacefully, through classic forms of protest? Through self-immolation?

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

— Quoted during the March 10 protest. From Martin Luther King, Jr.: Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963) [Wikiquote]

A speaker from the Tibet Initiative Deutschland described his group's campaign to persuade municipalities across Germany to raise the flag of Tibet over their town halls for Tibetan Uprising Day in solidarity. Over 400, he said, had agreed.

Efforts at the federal level by the German chancellor, foreign minister, and others on behalf of minorities' civil and political rights, however, are apparently often undermined by German corporations.

A representative of the Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker told the crowd in front of the German Foreign Ministry yesterday:

Corporations doing business within China — the German foreign ministry reports in its China-Strategie publication that there are 5,000 of these — lobby for silence, fearing financial losses.

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 10 months ago

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Cement and Sugar: Architecton & Architecture at the Berlin International Film Festival

At a lively press conference in Berlin on the morning of Monday, February 19, 2024, the makers of the documentary film Architecton faced questions from international media. Architecton is in competition for this year's Golden Bear award for best film.

Image: The Berlin International Film Festival's red carpet, at the Berlinale Palast, on February 17, 2024. Photograph by me. License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)

Architecton Itself

Viktor Kossakovsky's film explores the international popularity, but also the pitfalls, of concrete and its component cement as building materials.

These pitfalls were vividly evident when earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria one year ago, reducing buildings to rubble.

In contrast, according to publicity materials, the film takes the viewer to ancient sites like Baalbek that used techniques, for example of stonework, that are irreproducible in modern architecture.

These ancient buildings have lasted millennia, their craftsmanship sublime.

Image: Libanon, Baalbek: Tempel; Detailansicht Kapitell. Photographed by Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942) in the 1930s. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

What did ancient architects and construction workers know that we don't?

Evgueni Galperine composed the music for the film. The Leipzig & Berlin-based producer of documentary films Heino Deckert is the producer. Italian architect and designer Michele de Lucci is the main protagonist. All three were available for questions in the Berlinale Palast.

It is not only Deckert who has ties to Germany. Michele de Lucci may be well known for co-designing the Tolomeo lamp in the late 1980s for the Italian firm Artemide. But he has also done projects in Germany, like his interior designs for the Deutsche Bahn in the late 1990s.

In the end, Kossakovsky held forth the most in the group. Wearing a discreetly sized Berlinale pin, in the colours of Ukraine's flag, on a grey suit, he took the moderator's hints to keep his answers short smilingly.

He talked enthusiastically about living in Berlin a few years ago.

The Grounds of the Former Tempelhof Airport

Kossakovsky praised Berlin's former airfield Tempelhofer Feld as a refuge during his stay, which coincided with Covid lockdowns.

"It was amazing to see that in the middle of Europe, in the middle of Berlin, there is empty space. And knowing the history of this place, Berliners stood up and said: No, don't put any buildings, don't put any skyscrapers, don't put any shopping malls, don't put any fitness centres. Keep it alive. [...] It's a unique place — unique for everyone"

Pressure to build more housing is intense in Berlin's overheated real estate market. The city government is making motions to reopen the question of building apartment buildings on parts of the field.

"I know that behind every politician there are developers, construction people, and they probably will convince us. But please stay strong."

-Viktor Kossakovsky, Berlin film festival press conference on February 19, 2024

Potsdamer Platz

He also criticized the architecture at Potsdamer Platz.

Residential buildings from the pre-war years in Berlin generally reach 7 levels including the ground floor at most. The Brandenburg Gate and the buildings surrounding it are even lower.

So Potsdamer Platz's skyscrapers, built in feverish haste after Germany was reunified in 1989, are described by some Berliners as a misguided attempt to inject slivers of New York City into the landscape.

Kossakovsky described the square as empty "three hundred days a year" — except during the Berlinale in February and the Christmas market in November to December.

Concrete as the Modern Go-To

Next, Kossakovsky addressed the Holocaust Memorial in the city centre of Berlin. Stelae (blocks) built of concrete on an undulating ground, construction was finished in 2004. Not yet 20 years later, a large part of it is now crumbling, surrounded by metal security fencing that is an eyesore.

To the film director, in antithesis to the expected role of a memorial to last a long time, the Holocaust memorial exemplifies the short lifespan of modern concrete.

The ancient Romans made concrete in durable materials and techniques that were finally understood in 2017 and 2023 respectively. But the current lifespan of concrete is more like 80 years, he argues.

Fact Check? A construction draughtsman whom this author asked for comment took a different perspective. 40 years may be the standard estimate of durability for concrete (and incidentally also brick) buildings in German planning. But buildings will not inevitably crumble at that point. The draughtsman made the analogy that these estimates are like setting a best-before date for salt. If salt is adulterated with other substances that spoil quickly, a best-before date will make sense. But it's not fair to assume that salt will be adulterated. If modern concrete is properly poured and maintained, it could last for a thousand years.

At the same time, Viktor Kossakovsky sees Berlin's architectural landscape as a paradigm for the future of architecture around the world.

Berlin's hastily built residential buildings of the 1950s and 60s, which he characterized as sometimes "ugly," nevertheless reflected a serious purpose: the urgent need to shelter the city's population after the last weeks of World War II left the landscape shattered.

As real estate development is not keeping pace with the projected growth of the world's population, it is likely that around the world we will see much more ad hoc planning. A mixture of "beautiful" and "ugly" areas, like the mixture in Berlin, will become common.

'Harm Architecture'

But, looking beyond Berlin entirely to the world at large, not all shoddy constructions are the result of desperation.

In the last question of the press conference, a reporter asked why the documentary film had failed to name classism and colonialism as the root causes of architecture that harms or even kills residents.

Kossakovsky insisted that the root cause of 'harm architecture' is broader: the human urge to kill. Cannibalism may have finally disappeared this century, a step forward for humanity: but the slaughter of animals, fish, and fellow humans persists.

Message of the Film

The film director may have spoken dismissively of cement and concrete as the foundation of an "insane pandemic of boring architecture."

But the problems go beyond aesthetics and even longevity or quality. The environmental footprint of these building materials is colossal.

Jonathan Watts wrote for the Guardian five years ago that "All the plastic produced over the past 60 years amounts to 8bn tonnes. The cement industry pumps out more than that every two years."

He added, "Concrete is a thirsty behemoth, sucking up almost a 10th of the world’s industrial water use."

Each year, more than 4 billion tonnes of cement are produced, accounting for around 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions.

-Johanna Lehne and Felix Preston in the Executive Summary, "Making Concrete Change: Innovation in Low-carbon Cement and Concrete." Chatham House, 2018. Link (pdf)

Concrete cannot be the answer, as a building material, to housing the world's population of billions.

To end with the words of Viktor Kassakovsky:

"We have to face reality: sugar, cement — they are two drugs of our century."

===

Three Berlinale screenings of Architecton have sold out, but as of midnight on February 20, tickets were still available for 9:15 a.m. on February 21. The film is 98 minutes long.

The first 7 ratings are in on IMDb, for a score of 7.0.

Press conference in full: Berlinale Live 2024: Press Conference "Architecton"

Due diligence/disclaimer: I have not watched the film itself before writing this post.

The post has been amended on March 11, 2024, to reflect that the fencing around Berlin's Holocaust memorial is not a construction fence.

#berlinale 2024

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 1 year ago

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Five Years after Jamal Khashoggi Was Murdered, a Protest in Berlin

On October 2, 2018, the Washington Post columnist (and former Saudi Arabian newspaper editor) Jamal Khashoggi walked into Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to get paperwork to marry his fiancée. There, he was gruesomely murdered.

Saudi Arabia's government reported in 2020 that 8 people had been convicted of the murder. But observers have serious doubts about the fairness of these trials, and believe that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder.

Other, independent attempts to prosecute the true perpetrators have failed internationally.

Turkey

“Im April unterbrach ein Istanbuler Gericht einen Prozess, der wegen des Mordes an dem Journalisten Jamal Khashoggi im Jahr 2018 in Abwesenheit gegen 26 saudische Staatsangehörige geführt worden war. Das Gericht entschied, das Verfahren an Saudi-Arabien zu übergeben. In der Folge verbesserten sich die bilateralen Beziehungen zwischen den beiden Ländern.” - Amnesty International report on Turkey, 2022

('In April, an Istanbul court broke off a process that had been conducted in absentia against 26 Saudi citizens due to the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The court decided to turn the case over to Saudi Arabia. In the wake of that, bilateral relations between the two countries improved.')

Germany

Reporters without Borders (RSF) asked Germany's public prosecutor general to investigate the murder of Khashoggi as well as the persecution of 34 Saudi journalists as a crime against humanity.

In 2021. So far, the prosecution has not begun.

United States

In September 2022, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman because the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. As such, he is considered the head of state, and the Biden administration ruled in November that he cannot face a lawsuit over Khashoggi's death.

In the meantime, Saudi journalists and dissidents, even family members of dissidents, have been spied on or subjected to cyberattacks.

"Wir setzen uns weiter dafür ein, dass dieses ungeheuerliche Verbrechen lückenlos aufgeklärt wird. Zudem fordern wir die Freilassung der mindestens 24 weiteren in Saudi-Arabien willkürlich inhaftierten Journalist*innen." - Reporter ohne Grenzen (Facebook), October 2, 2023

So a group of around 10 people gathered opposite the Saudi embassy in central Berlin in the early afternoon today.

Reporter ohne Grenzen (Reporters without Borders) led the protest, calling for justice for Jamal Khashoggi.

They had written on Facebook, in German, 'We will engage ourselves further to ensure that this horrendous crime is thoroughly investigated. In addition we demand the release of the 24 or more further journalists who have been arbitrarily imprisoned in Saudi Arabia.'

Reporter ohne Grenzen also demanded freedom for Raif Badawi.

-- Badawi is a former blogger who served a long prison sentence and was lashed for 'insulting Islam.' He is now separated from his wife and children due to a travel ban that prevents him from joining them in Canada. --

Aside from a police van and photographers, and people walking in and out of the fenced embassy grounds in street clothes, it was quiet.

Human Rights Watch's latest newsletter roundly condemns the impunity that Saudi Arabia's government has enjoyed - not just in killing Khashoggi and putting down the press in general, but also in slaughtering Ethiopian migrants at its borders as well as Yemeni civilians.

Amnesty International Germany marked the 5th anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi's death by writing on Facebook, calling for an independent, impartial criminal investigation.

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 1 year ago

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Donations for Survivors of Morocco Earthquake, waiting for transport in Berlin, Germany

Groups organizing donations: Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus and Marokkanisches Riad Berlin Verein

(Friday, September 15th, seems to have been the last day donations were gathered before transport to Morocco, after intense work by volunteers.)

Earthquake: 2023 Marrakesh-Safi Earthquake, 6.8 on the Richter scale [US Geological Survey], September 8, 2023

2,946 people have died, according to figures from September 15th. [Wikipedia]

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 1 year ago

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A Day of Two Anniversaries: 75th Berlin Airlift/60th “Ich bin ein Berliner” Speech

On a sunny June evening, the John-F.-Kennedy-Platz in front of Berlin’s Schöneberg City Hall set the scene for a celebration of two significant anniversaries in Germany’s post-war history.

The flags of France, the UK and the US were flying in honour of the three Allied powers who occupied Berlin after World War II. Tents with benches underneath were fringed in matching white, red and blue bunting.

And underneath the flags of the Special Olympics World Games Berlin 2023 and of Ukraine, a stage was set up with musical instruments, an antique carved wooden podium, and a VIP area in front that seated about 180 special guests.

The massive steps of the City Hall were at first deserted except for a blue, white and red flower arrangement underneath two tarnished memorial plaques. Above it, the balcony.

Photograph: Scene in front of the Schöneberg City Hall, June 24, 2023. Photo: Edith Haimberger. Public domain.

After 5 p.m., guests trickled into the VIP area to be served water and Bouvet sparkling wine. Locals had gathered in greater numbers, standing and sitting in the square. A small wedding party drifted by from the registry office at the far side of the City Hall. And the US Air Forces in Europe Jazz-Band from Ramstein began playing jazz and swing music.

🎶 The Stars and Stripes Forever 🎶

🎶 A Tisket A Tasket 🎶

🎶 Straighten Up and Fly Right 🎶

🎶 Sing, Sing, Sing 🎶

In the VIP section, former and current city officials, as well as members of Germany’s Bundestag, took their seats.

Berlin’s current mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) was joined by predecessors Franziska Giffey (SPD; she is also Wegner’s governing coalition partner), Michael Müller (SPD), and Eberhard Diepgen (CDU).

Diplomats from Austria, France, Ukraine, the UK, and the US joined them.

Jörn Oltmann, district mayor of Berlin-Tempelhof-Schöneberg, greeted everyone in his opening speech. He paid tribute to the 87 people who died in the Berlin Airlift that began 75 years ago, delivering supplies to the half of the city that had just been cut off by the Soviet government’s land blockade.

The Berliners in the audience applauded warmly when Oltmann mentioned Gail Halvorsen. In the Airlift, Halvorsen was the US Air Force colonel who pioneered the ‘Rosinenbomber’ drops of chocolate, gum, and other candy for Berlin’s children.

It’s also the 60th anniversary of the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech that John F. Kennedy held at the City Hall.

Oltmann said of the President, “You are still a Berliner in the hearts of the people of our city.”

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address (1961)

Mayor Kai Wegner took the stage next. [Two or three people booed. So perhaps he was being ironical when he said “Vielen Dank für die freundliche Begrüßung” (’Thank you very much for the friendly welcome.’).]

Wegner himself is too young to have been an eyewitness. Yet his father joined the almost 500,000 people who gathered before the City Hall to hear President John F. Kennedy on June 26, 1963. It was a troubled time, but Kennedy’s words inspired.

“Mein Vater verließ diesen Platz voller Hoffnung.” (’My father left this [City Hall] square full of hope.’)

Wegner’s conclusion: “feiern wir jeden Tag die Freiheit in unserer Stadt” (’Let us celebrate the freedom in our city every day.’)

Photograph: U.S. Ambassador Amy Gutmann speaking at the Schöneberg City Hall, June 24, 2023. (CC BY-SA 4.0)

US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann signed the guest book of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. She received a small sculpture from district mayor Jörn Oltmann, as the US Air Forces in Europe Jazz-Band from Ramstein played another song.

In her speech, Ambassador Gutmann recalled the nerve-wracking, high stakes of the Cold War era with its bristling arsenals of nuclear weapons.

Like the other politicians on the stage, she seemed to be putting herself in the shoes of Kennedy and imagining what it was like to navigate the era as a statesman. Certainly Kennedy gracefully managed to conduct himself as a “global citizen,” in her phrase.

Thanking Berliners for “opening their homes and their hearts to victims of war.” she was likely referring to over 200,000 Ukrainian refugees passing through the city since early 2022.

Referring again to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, she said that today: “’Wir sind Ukrainer.’” (’We are Ukrainians.’)

Caroline Kennedy, the sister of John F. Kennedy who is serving as US Ambassador to Australia, spoke in a pre-recorded video message. She translated the “Ich bin ein Berliner” message for the present day to “Slava Ukraini.”

Finally Timothy Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics and nephew of Caroline Kennedy, took the stage.

Lightening the mood and radiating charm to which the crowd responded enthusiastically, he reminisced about his experiences at the time when his uncle Kennedy visited West Berlin.

His mother Eunice had organized a “Camp Shriver” back in the United States, inviting children with intellectual disabilities. Three-year-old Timothy was playing amongst them; his only responsibility was ‘to have fun.’

But Shriver noted that while the Berlin Wall divided sibling from sibling, children from parent, etc., families were separated for more than one reason in the 1960s.

Children with intellectual disabilities might be secluded from the family home, and from their communities, behind the walls of institutions.

The Kennedy family’s own experiences with institutionalization inspired Eunice to organize the Special Olympics.

In the meantime, the Berlin Wall has fallen. “The world can change.” But people with disabilities still face barriers when they participate in schools and in the workplace.

Photograph: Scene in front of the Schöneberg City Hall, June 24, 2023. Trees belonging to the Rudolph-Wilde-Park. Photo: Edith Haimberger. Public domain.

***

Recollections of then-mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt (d. 1992), after President Kennedy’s speech

“In der Geschichte Berlins war solch ehrlicher Jubel noch keinem Gast zuteil geworden.”

“Den Augenblick vor der Kundgebung, da er lachend in meinem Amtszimmer die berühmten vier Worte -- ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ -- einübte, werde ich nie vergessen.”

“Den Dokumentarfilm über seinen Berlin-Besuch hat er sich wiederholt vorführen lassen; so erzählte es mir seine Witwe am Abend nach der Beerdigung.”

(Willy Brandt. Erinnerungen. Berlin: Ullstein, 2014)

(’In the history of Berlin, such honest rejoicing had not been shown to any other guest.’ ... ‘The moment before the speech, in which he laughingly rehearsed the famous four words ‘I am a Berliner!’ in my mayor’s office, I will never forget.’ ... ‘He asked several times to be shown the documentary film about his Berlin visit; that is what I was told by his widow on the evening after the burial.’)

Photograph of John F. Kennedy at the Schöneberg City Hall on June 26, 1963, by Cecil Stoughton. Credit: White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

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