The November 2013 (#121) issue of EXBERLINER is devoted in the main to the plight and status of Germany’s (and Berlin’s particularly) refugees from various conflicts. The several stories vary considerably, some more compelling than others. A positive aspect is what appears to be a largely neutral attempt to allow the stories to ‘speak’ for themselves or perhaps better said, the authors (some more, some less) come across as setting aside personal bias as much as possible and actually reporting as opposed to promoting a particular point of view. Of course, as laudable as this may be, it is actually an impossibility on account of innate cultural bias shaping the several ‘lens’ through which the accounts are filtered. However this phenomena or bias in some cases of the reporting in this issue appears to be lessened to a considerable degree (compared to ‘mainstream’), likely because of the cultural diversity of the EXBERLINER staff writers. Is there areas these articles can be improved on? Oh yes, maintains this dubiously gifted expert in the field of social psychology as relates to intelligence. Accordingly, I will give greater attention to constructive criticism of the main articles as opposed to picking on EXBERLINER’s political commentator (expert moron) Werner, whose column has degenerated from impressively ill-informed (last month’s issue) to merely ‘cute’ (this month’s issue.) Hang in there Werner, I’m certain you will inspire a world class satire before all is said and done!!
Luigi Serenelli’s article on the plight of Chechen refugees in Germany ‘No Shelter Here’ is well written, wherein the circumstance and plight of people’s lives in limbo is addressed coherently. There are two weaknesses in this article, primarily. The commendable, sustained efforts of the poet Ekkehard Maass to alleviate the Chechen refugees bureaucratic nightmares having to do with the rules-bound German agencies are damaged with ‘name dropping’ past association with Alan Ginsberg. One not need be a homophobe to be turned off by mention of this degenerate-braggart who had done more to create anti-gay backlash in the USA than any individual in history. Without a balanced view and understanding of Ginsberg, one cannot know how many moderates and conservatives who are otherwise tolerant, even supportive of the rights of gays, can be driven away from any cause integrating this man’s name. Not a prescient or helpful move on behalf of the issue at hand. Should human compassion be the sole province of liberals? If not, keep the ‘hot buttons’ out, to draw in wider support for the individuals trapped in the fallout of our present day world’s traumas. To aspire otherwise is to cheat social justice.
Moving on to point 2 of my criticisms per Luigi’s article, I will introduce the greater thrust or my pointing to an overall failure of this month’s magazine theme: a lack of macro-cosmic vision.
Luigi’s “Economic instability in the North Caucus region and the state of corruption, persecution and terror under Vladimir Putin’s Chechen strongman, President Razman Kadyrov, account for part of the [refugee] influx” falls short.
What is missing is the larger context of how it is Putin (and Russia prior to Putin) had been pushed into the corner of cracking down HARD on Chechnya. Message to Luigi: research what today’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA’s FBI) has classified as ‘Gladio B’ where ‘deep state’ elements of NATO have funded, trained and unleashed Islamic terror in Central Asia generally and the North Caucus particularly. The purpose of ‘Gladio B’ is wresting control away from the rule of law so that western energy companies can exploit Central Asia to further the interests of ‘empire‘ over what Zibignew Breszenski has aptly called ‘the grand chessboard.‘ Without this underlying criminal push by some of the most powerful sociopaths in the world, likely there would be no Chechen ‘refugee problem.’ I’ll make your homework easy for you Luigi; it is as simple as going to Corbett Report.
Luigi Serenelli’s article get three stars of a possible five.
Anna Kirikova’s “From Grozny to Alexanderplatz” chronicles the misadventures of a Chechen couple, Adam and Farisa. To her credit, Anna allows Adam to make a total chauvinist fool of himself, a man who puts down his woman as though it were the sacred, sworn duty of a man to seriously come across as an misogynist idiot.
“To tell you the truth” says Adam “I wanted to marry another woman from the village but she married another man and I had to take her” (Farisa.) Adam goes on to generally convince men are stupid as a gender specific species, making excuses for having about as poor a judgement and related dedication to his family in difficult circumstance as one could possibly imagine. Adam admits he harbored radical Islamists “They had come to the village and were asking for food. How could you not help?”
Easy answer. Don’t answer the door. If they break it down, meet them with an axe (if you don’t have a gun.) So Adam and Farisa are ‘interrogated’ by Putin’s strongman’s minions and flee Chechnya. Adam states he would rather ‘hang himself’ than be deported to where he might have to answer for his associations and attending stupidities. It occurs to this writer Adam could do his family a favor and do just that (hang himself.) If they do get asylum, maybe Farisa will wise up and dump this guy who openly insults her as though this were a perfectly normal behavior but in actuality is the behavior of a coward who needs a woman to look down at and kick. Or better yet, Adam gets deported and Farisa is allowed to stay, sending a message to cowardly men who ride the petticoats of women to safety (they fled to Germany on Farisa’s parents money.)
Message to Anna .. maybe Farisa’s “sad, cast-down eyes” has less to do with her plight as a refugee and more to do with the moron she has saddled herself with…
Anna Kirikova gets four of five possible stars, four stars for letting Adam freely come across as a chauvinist coward, one star deducted for coming up short on Adam as a total loser you’d want to question the wisdom of granting asylum to in any case-
FROM RUSSIA WITH [GAY] LOVE is Luke Atcheson’s contribution to EXBERLINER Issue 121. The article is short, shallow and gives precisely zero real insight on how it is gays (male gays particularly) can often be the cause of their own persecution. In Berlin, there is a nearly wide-open ‘blow-job-butt-fuck’ scene in the public spaces, and if this were cracked down on, I’d approve heartily. Why? Because I am from another culture altogether to western culture, I don’t feel compelled to project the ‘manly’ vibe of the western culture’s so-called ‘straight’ males. Somehow this totally confuses the ‘gay-dar’ (read gay radar) of the many queer rabbits frolicking in Berlin’s green spaces that have hit on me in public too many times to count. Luke apparently cannot possibly consider offensive behaviors bring down persecutions on gays. So while Luke throws stones at Putin, while we’re at it, let’s point out the narcissistic gay mayor of Berlin has a reputation with Berlin’s small artists for having shut off money except to the big-time gay artists that are his ‘connections’ (related, how’s that airport ‘work of art’ coming along?) Klaus Wowereit’s ‘I am gay and it is a good thing’ misses the mark.
Good people, gay or straight, do ‘the right thing’ which has nothing to do with shameless lack of accountability for Berlin’s failed airport, selling out the small artists, selling Berlin to the highest bidder and in the course of this, pushing out long established communities with skyrocketing rents, and the wide open blow-job scene allowed to go on in Berlin’s public spaces, behaviors which cause attitudes that can (and sooner or later likely will) lead to laws that ‘persecute’ gays (and is phenomena all gays, including lesbians, will suffer for.)
And doing the ‘right thing’ has nothing to do with a gay German foreign minister (Westerwelle) that has backed exporting tanks to Indonesia and Saudi Arabia where gays suffer dramatically. Perhaps it is easier throwing stones at people behind persecuting gays abroad… but let’s not dare look at any truth close to home!!
Luke’s assigned homework: Read ‘Queer Chicken Dinner’ on how narcissism coupled to homosexuality leads to as dishonest a lifestyle as any lifestyle out there. Gays do not have a lock on some right to go un-persecuted when it comes to flaunting responsible norms of behavior (so don’t hide behind the being gay thing, it doesn’t work except in cloistered communities, i.e. where people live withdrawn from reality.)
Luke gets a FAIL (zero stars)
John Riceberg’s “At sea on O-paltz” tells the travail of a Nigerian refugee whose only route out of a Libya in turmoil was Tripoli to Italy (and eventually to Germany.) The article is shallow and short, a two star deduction. Per the overall magazine theme in EXBERLINER Issue 121, there is a lack of holding western democracies accountable for creating the refugee problems they are now faced with. Some might point to Germany’s ‘reluctance’ to become involved in Libya but this excuse can never wash, the Germans remain firmly wedded to NATO aggressiveness and put on no real pressure to dial it back. This article scores three of a possible five stars (and just wait until I rip into Riceberg’s other offering, a second article that misses the point so far as to come across as BS to the core.)
“A song for Syria” by Kathryn Werntz is the first of two chronicles of male bards who ‘sing’ the refugee tragedy away. We’ll compare these male bards a bit later to a woman who worked herself to pneumonia and ended in hospital from helping refugees hands on. Sort of like it is the women more likely to pick up a dog’s shit, where a European male will leave it on the street if he thinks no one is watching.
So Kathryn writes about Milo who is here on a student visa and is very angry about the plight of his country and the circumstance of Syria’s refugees. But Milo cannot seem to find his people to help out hands on, only time to sing away Syria’s woes and fret over whether he will have to, sooner or later, face becoming a refugee himself or fly home to serve in the military he got a student visa to evade in the first place. Huh.
The weakness in this article is to miss the macro-cosmic vision of the fact Germany accepting 5,000 Syrian refugees in no practical way addresses the circumstance of over one million externally displaced Syrians (5,000 is somewhere in the range of less than .005% of the externally displaced and does not touch the internally displaced) by endeavor of powers Germany is aligned with. Part of the solution or part of the problem? Honest journalism would not hesitate to point out it is the intelligence services of the NATO aligned western democracies has created the greater refugee problem and the German ‘acceptance’ of 5,000 displaced Syrians is nothing more than window dressing on a world class crime in which Germany is complicit. Again this is consistent with EXBERLINER Issue 121 either missing the point or skipping the underlying cause of the problem.
Kathryn allows Milo to come across as a man without honest conviction & real loser he is, earning four of five stars.
“The real asylum scandal” by John Riceberg (I promised this well deserved rip) is a study in journalistic cowardice. The premise of the article is placing some refugees in proximity to neo-Nazis is a phony argument for insensitivity when compared to political inertia to provide competent help. FAIL. Rather why not examine the authentic Nazi legacy behind the so-called ‘political inertia.’
If Riceberg had what the Latinos call ‘cojones’ (are you listening Konrad Werner?) he’d have written about what anyone dedicated to searching the Der Spiegel English archives could piece together; the fact of the CSU harboring a very alive and robust Nazi legacy that could care less about the plight of ordinary Syrians or anyone else other than WHITE Germans.
Fat German industrialists smoking cigars in boardrooms while praising Hitler persecuting homosexuals, un-repatriated art looted by the Nazis decorating German government owned guest houses and other buildings with little or no attempt to find the rightful owners, prosecution of a few lowly Nazi concentration camp guards 70 years after the fact (meanwhile war criminals had not only been allowed to live out their days in peace, un-prosecuted, they were allowed quietly back into the Bundes-Republik government, a phenomena Merkel had ordered investigated years ago and since, a very resounding silence.) Oh, and the copyright of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ enriching the CSU run Bavarian government “The Bavarian government plans to publish a new English translation with commentary in 2015, shortly before the expiration of copyright in 2016.” [Wikipedia] Shouldn’t this book rather be consigned to the ash bin?
And let’s not forget the recent case and trial of the neo-Nazi murders of immigrants seems to have altogether forgotten the links to the murder of a German policewoman (with evidence pointing to a German policeman & member of the Klu Klux Klan providing inside information to the gang, making her ambush and murder possible, all apparently swept under the rug.)
What do you suppose any of this (tip of the entrenched German Nazi legacy iceberg) could have to do with the CSU’s Hans-Peter Friedrich (German Interior Minister) pitching xenophobic election statements about Romanians coming to Germany in droves to feed off the social welfare state? And this is the guy Germany would trust to interview Snowden? You’ve got to be kidding, Friedrich’s life is dedicated to performing political fellatio on the USA (attempt to deport me Friedrich, I could use the publicity concerning your sitting on your hands, knowing all the while, CIA, JSOC and MOSSAD have hunted me across Germany. Then you’d have an unwanted asylum request!)
Zero stars for the flagrant omissions and cowardice of John Riceberg’s journalism.
“At Home In The Heim” by Anna & Anna (text & photos) is a short photo essay of refugee life. Does not qualify for criticism and rating.
“Refugee rap” by Mihret Yohannes is another ode to male narcissism when compared to the upcoming article on Mimi.
‘Nuri’ comes across as harboring delusions of grandeur insofar as belief in the impact his budding career as a ‘social impact’ rap artist will have on the plight of refugees: “From the very first track to the very last, this album will aim a huge blow at the face of German politics” or so Nuri maintains. Well, probably not. The fact is, and you need to know this Nuri, the majority of German politics only wish you and your cause would go away. And the ‘majority’ of German people support the majority of German politics, that’s how democracy works. Let me put it this way; It’s a bit like a German father who is respected in the community but has a closet habit of hiring hookers. When he brings a venereal disease home, he’ll claim it must have come from a public toilet seat at a refugee camp. These people are not honest, they do not care about you and they will never take real responsibility for their role in the events that have caused the refugee influx, rather will see you as the core problem or disease as opposed to the symptom. You can rap your little heart out, the people who matter aren’t listening, a small and inconvenient truth. Actually a very real and sadistic truth that fat German industrialists smoking cigars in corporate boardrooms celebrate on account of the German military-industrial profits that creating the refugees generates. Now, if you’d like to earn some legitimate self-respect, you’d do what Mimi had done, give up your music career and work hands on, to relieve the factual misery of your fellow refugees because the Germans will never step up and take real responsibility for the problems they create.
Mihret gets four of five stars for allowing Nuri to expose himself as a man without honest convictions
“School spirit” by Claudia Claros earns the five stars of a possible five, for EXBERLINER Issue 121.
Mimi sacrificed everything to help out the refugees when she did not have to. She quit her band: “You know, I just couldn’t go around singing when we don’t even have a clean toilet here.”
Mimi, a Black woman having up close and personal first hand experience with the very real, endemic and society-wide German racism, worked herself to point of hospitalized for these unfortunates, whether putting herself in harm’s way while protesting, cooking, cleaning, organizing, attending meetings, dealing with politics, all under intense pressure. And therein is the real heroine of Germany’s self-generated (NATO affiliated) refugee crisis. Will the ‘boys’ take Mimi’s example to heart and become useful as real human beings? Experience witnesses ‘likely not.’ C’est la vie.
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Overall, the greatest weakness of Issue 121 is the magazine articles lack of depth due to too many stories requiring what are complex events be chronicled in short and shallow journalism. This may or may not be responsible for appearance of hiding behind local issues in such a way as to avoid the tough issues and macro-cosmic vision required to arrive at any real truths related to the subject matter (theme.) In any case, reality is (using a metaphor) if you fail a required subject, you do not graduate university. EXBERLINER Issue121 fails.
Note to political commentator (expert moron) Werner: I’ll likely be on your case again soon, do not despair! Perhaps by then your most recent column will have faded from my impression as recalling a Scots folk song: “Did you ever see a laddie go this way and that way…”
Post Modern Teutonic Vision (a.k.a. Werner blogged me!)
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Expert commentary brought to you by Ronald
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