Building new walls in Berlin

The Quadriga atop Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

It was there when another well-known wall was built in 1961, and when the same was torn down in 1989. It has seen two centuries of some of the best and worst world leaders stand on its border, decrying this and that. Once part of a longer wall itself, it is modeled after a main part of the Propylaea, the gateway to the Athenian Acropolis, and topped with the Quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses driven by Nike, the Winged Goddess of Victory. It has been a major metaphor in the world’s collective consciousness since it was built in the late 18th century as part of the Prussian celebration of itself. It is the Brandenburg gate and it was the scene of one of hundreds of massive protests against the Israeli Raid on the Gaza-Bound Flotilla in June of 2010.

If you haven’t been, Berlin is a remarkable, and vast, city. Big as it is, in the ten years that has elapsed since I was last there, the immense facelift the city has undergone has made it even more attractive while keeping it amazingly maneuverable, something difficult for Americans to believe. Exiting the ultra-modern Berlin Hauptbahnhof, crossing the River Spree on the banks of which lazed several hundred locals taking in the warm sun with beer and wine, I came to the nearby renovated Reichstag and managed to ascend to the large cylindrical viewing terrace, from where I eventually heard the collective voices of hundreds chanting screeds in unison to the cries of an indecipherable (although Ich spreche kein Deutsch) man shouting into a bullhorn coming from the just beyond the trees near Tiergarten Central Park. Curious, I left the tourists behind me at the refurbished Parliament building and approached the Brandenburg Gate, one of the old borders between East and West Berlin. Passing through the gate itself, marveling at its design, the crowd’s chanting crescendoed, erupting into cheers when I entered the packed Pariser Platz. I couldn’t help but feel awed by the sheer history of it all, though what I saw next will likely not be history for some time.

Hundreds protest Isaeli attack on Gaza-bound Flotilla

Not understanding what they were saying, nor having any clear idea what was actually being protested, and despite not having checked the news for days, it was quickly clear that a great number of Palestinians, Turks, Syrians (identifiable by their flags) and others were extremely unhappy about something probably involving Israel, or so their signs read. A large formation of riot-geared police resembling robocops were frowning at the perimeter, while their superiors stood in front of the local Starbucks, smoking and drinking coffee near other Middle Eastern families who did the same, looking on like curious animals. Loading my camera with a fresh roll of film I began snapping photos and realized that I was quite unprepared to cover any protest with what equipment I was carrying: a medium format Fuji GSWIII rangefinder which produces eight 6x9cm images per roll of 120mm film.

Despite being woefully under-equipped I felt at ease and quite a bit more accepted within the surging Muslim crowd dressed in hijabs and kuffiyehs, more at home with the protesters, given free reign to shoot as I pleased by them as opposed to the stoic and disapproving police video-taping people from the edge of the cobblestone-lined square.

Syrian woman stands before German Polizei in Pariser Platz

Asking a Syrian woman boasting her birth country’s flag, I quickly got the details:

“These hundreds of people are gathered here in Pariser Platz beneath Brandenburg Gate today (Friday, June 4th 2010) to protest the Israeli raid on six ships comprising the the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla, carrying more than 600 hundred passengers. They killed nineteen people and injured hundreds. This is unacceptable. They must be stopped!”

The attack, which occurred approximately 65 kilometers of the Gaza coast in international waters, has been condemned worldwide and has brought well-deserved attention to what some call at minimum an illegal blockade, yet one that the Likud government spokesman Mark Regev maintains “was totally within its rights under international law to intercept the ship and to take it to the port of Ashdod”. Much more than just another “incident” within controversial areas many are unwilling to wade into, the use of what the majority of the protesters deem to be unnecessarily deadly force against boatloads of international journalists and writers as well as the death of nine Turkish activists, has gotten the attention of Turkey, Israel’s biggest trading partner and up to now, most trustworthy regional ally.

None of the police ruminating outside of Starbucks were willing to comment. Though many of the protesters were willing to decry Israel’s claims to homeland security after the unilateral action by its military. Just as many seemed apolitical, there merely to support their friends, family and fellow countrymen.

Just as soon as I had seen a fraction of the new Berlin (without the hundreds of cranes towering above the skyline of a decade ago), where the multi-ethnic citizens use of freedom of speech seemed equal to or greater than anything in my own personal experience, I realized that more than just the usual protest, something massive was being stirred, an immense stand was being taken, with a greater number of countries involved than ever before, one from which we won’t emerge unaffected nor unscathed. Despite having had an overnight bus to catch to Copenhagen, an article to write and negatives to develop, this felt realer than more of the same supposed unbiased reportage to which I was accustomed in the U.S. and Japan. Perhaps it can be written off as liberal leaning western Europe, perhaps not. I still had to look deep to see that there was no clear understanding emerging from the ashes of the wreckage, no simple cut and dried answer, no unaffected people, no clear right and wrong. The problem of the disenfranchised shouting from the periphery is growing louder as more and more people are become involved in everyday protests, some violently, even fatally so. I have to ask myself that even as we deem some walls fit to tear down, why are others so easily built up, often by ourselves?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 at 05:20. It is filed under Europe and tagged with All Content © Manny Santiago, Berlin, Brandenburg Gate, Europe, Germany, Round the World Trip, The Trip™, Will Walk For Sex. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.