The New York Times, July 29, 2006
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
JIYEH, Lebanon, July 28 — As Israel continues the bombing campaign that has turned parts of Lebanon into rubble, environmentalists are warning of widespread and lasting damage.
Spilled and burning oil, along with forest fires, toxic waste flows and growing garbage heaps have gone from nuisances to threats to people and wildlife, they say, marring a country traditionally known for its clean air and scenic greenery. Many of Lebanon’s once pristine beaches and much of its coastline have been coated with a thick sludge that threatens marine life.
As smoke billowed overhead on Friday, turning day into dusk, Ali Saeed, a resident, recounted how war has changed this small industrial town about 15 miles south of Beirut.
Most people have left, he said. It is virtually impossible to drive on the roads, and almost everyone hides behind sealed windows.
“There’s nowhere to run,” Mr. Saeed said, showing off the black speckles on his skin that have turned everything white here into gray. “It’s dripping fuel from the sky.”
A large oil spill and fire caused by Israeli bombing have sent an oil slick traveling up the coast of Lebanon to Syria, threatening to become the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history and engulfing this town in smoke.
“The escalating Israeli attacks on Lebanon did not only kill its civilians and destroy its infrastructure, but they are also annihilating its environment,” warned Green Line, a Lebanese environmental group, in a statement issued Thursday. “This is one of the worst environmental crises in Lebanese history.”
The most significant damage has come from airstrikes on an oil storage depot at the edge of Jiyeh on July 13 and 15. Oil spewed into the Mediterranean Sea and a fire erupted that has been burning ever since.
Four of the plant’s six oil storage containers have burned completely, spilling at least 10,000 tons of thick fuel oil into the sea initially, and possibly up to 15,000 more in the weeks since. A fifth tank burst into flames on Thursday, residents said, adding to a smoke cloud that has spewed soot and debris miles away. The fire is so hot that it has melted rail cars into blobs and turned the sand below into glass.
Engineers are concerned that a sixth tank still untouched by the fire could soon explode, making the situation even graver.
The prevailing winds and currents have swept the oil northward up the coast of Lebanon, and on Friday it reached the coast of Syria, Environment Ministry officials said.
“You can’t swim in the water anymore, it’s all black,” Mr. Saeed said. “This is like the Exxon Valdez spill in America,” he said, speaking of the environmental damage caused when a tanker ran aground and spilled about 40,000 tons of oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989.
Lebanon’s coast is an important nesting ground for the green sea turtle, an endangered species, as well as a spawning ground for some Mediterranean fish. Turtle eggs begin hatching in July, but with the oil slick coating most of the area, baby turtles will have a far smaller chance of making it to deeper waters and surviving, environmentalists say. The oil slick is also threatening bluefin tuna that migrate to the eastern Mediterranean this time of year.
The Environment Ministry sent crews to various parts of the country this week to assess the damage and begin the cleanup, a spokeswoman said. But the oil slick has quickly proven beyond the government’s limited capacity to deal with the problem.
The ministry estimates cleanup alone will cost upwards of $200 million, a major sum in a country with a gross domestic product of around $21 billion, but experts warn the bill could run even higher.
Jordan has offered to send experts to provide technical assistance, and Kuwait has pledged to send material and equipment to help clean up the spill.
Brush fires in many parts of the country have been an equally pressing concern as they rage unabated. Firefighters and forestry workers cannot move around for fear of being targets, and resources are being used to help refugees.
“In Israel there are planes taking care of forest fires, but in Lebanon these fires are not being extinguished or even noticed because our priorities have shifted from the environment to relief and humanitarian work,” said Mounir Abou Ghanem, director general of the Association for Forest Development and Conservation in Beirut.
Much of the budget for environmental protection and development has been sacrificed for relief work, he said. The oil spills, he said, will eventually be cleaned up and solid waste will be collected and disposed of when the war is over, but the forests are irreplaceable.
“In the end, who cares if a forest is on fire when there are people dying, others are being displaced and their houses or factories are on fire?” he said.
Water pollution has become an issue, too, said Karim el-Jisr, senior associate at Ecodit, a nongovernmental environmental association. Wastewater and freshwater canals are very close together and the many bombs that have hit roads and other infrastructure have damaged them. As a result, Mr. Jisr said, wastewater is contaminating the freshwater supply, especially in rural areas, causing further environmental degradation.
But experts warn that the real environmental impact of the war will not be clear until the fighting ends.
“This war will affect the soil and the air,” said Hala Ashour, the director of Green Line, the environmental group. “But it’s still too early to assess the actual damage because we have to analyze samples and that can’t be done before the war is over.”
...
Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Beirut for this article.
27 July 2006
Lebanon
This morning I woke up feeling all tight and sick in the stomach. Dreamt of Israel and Lebanon after watching the news updates yesterday night. The more I read, hear and see, the angrier I become. One is so powerless, caught in this political entanglements, listening to one party saying this and another saying that. Sometimes it's Israel that's bad and then again it's the Hezbollah, which more often than not becomes confused with Lebanon.
I must admit that I have been rather ignorant concerning the middle east over the last years and in no way expected any of this to happen. But now I find myself surprised by the ignorance of politicians as well. While somehow I can't believe that an educated person, elected and paid to understand and deal with these things, which a foreign secretary or minister certainly must be, I find them proving otherwise every day in the media. Which awakens suspicions they are maybe not so ignorant after all but acting out of political hypocrisy, which is called diplomacy then, of course. Surely they can't be as blind as believing that this war is actually about Lebanon in the long run. That finding a way out of this so-called 'crisis' (what a diplomatic understatement!) can be reached by ending the momentary bombing-raids between the Hezbollah and Israel. From my - insignificant, I know - point of view, Lebanon is merely housing a war that is not really it's own, at least if one separates between the Hezbollah and Lebanon in general.
The majority of people in Lebanon surely wants peace more than anything else but they are those who suffer now. Of course there's always a number of people made to believe what radicals want them to believe and I guess it's not too difficult to make a dissatisfied or uneducated person (or a person educated to a certain religious or political opinion) believe in an enemy that has been deliberately provoked to prove one. Make my enemy become your enemy and quickly there is an ally and supporter ... Not only radical islamists, no, radicals (and politicians) of all religions and political views all over the world use this tactic (though it's mainly the former kind pulling the strings here I guess). The arms (which I really meant as in 'hands' but now realize the other form of interpretation is maybe more accurate here) of Iran are numerous and manifold and fighting the Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Hamas in Palestine will not lessen the danger in the long term. To think of the consequences of all this is nearly choking me and I become so enraged reading the latest political statements from all western nations. The UN seem to be helpless as well. And all the time innocent people become victims of this terror. It's sick, sick, sick. It's sick to count in numbers only those dying right now. After all, everybody there is a victim now, loosing a life, an existence, not only in the physical sense. I could throw up whenever I read about how many more 'civilians' have been killed by military. It's people killing people and it's an abstract concept of God making people accept and tolerate this. What kind of a God would that be? Yet I know that wondering about religious motivation is even more senseless than wondering about political motivation, for there is no rationality in religion.
What strikes me as being extremely sad is the fact that the sufferings of the people there remain unreal to most people here. Watching the news, seeing places go up in smoke, it still doesn't really touch the masses. How could we become so uncompassionate, so indifferent? The mid east is too abstract for most of us who have no connections there. What do you think would happen if those pictures were showing Paris instead of Beirut? Would it be emotionally affecting us westerners then? Isn't it absolutely strange how every nation seems to take an interest mainly in it's own people? Sympathy seems to be difficult if there is no identification, which still seems to be a question of sharing a cultural background. It brings a line from a Sting song into my mind: 'we share the same biology, regardless of ideology' ... but who cares about it? Isn't it almost ironic, how things keep repeating themselves? And though there is a lot of proof that politics and military solutions do not show any effect, it's still the only way people see. And again I must admit to this disturbing feeling of being powerless, a mere bystander ...
There is this extremely touching blog from Beirut. Whoever wants to get an impression of what it is like to be there now, to hear it from an everyday point of view, close to your own way of seeing the world ... go have a look, follow the link below. I'm sure it won't leave you cold:"War diaries of a 30 year old woman ... with love from Beirut."
I must admit that I have been rather ignorant concerning the middle east over the last years and in no way expected any of this to happen. But now I find myself surprised by the ignorance of politicians as well. While somehow I can't believe that an educated person, elected and paid to understand and deal with these things, which a foreign secretary or minister certainly must be, I find them proving otherwise every day in the media. Which awakens suspicions they are maybe not so ignorant after all but acting out of political hypocrisy, which is called diplomacy then, of course. Surely they can't be as blind as believing that this war is actually about Lebanon in the long run. That finding a way out of this so-called 'crisis' (what a diplomatic understatement!) can be reached by ending the momentary bombing-raids between the Hezbollah and Israel. From my - insignificant, I know - point of view, Lebanon is merely housing a war that is not really it's own, at least if one separates between the Hezbollah and Lebanon in general.
The majority of people in Lebanon surely wants peace more than anything else but they are those who suffer now. Of course there's always a number of people made to believe what radicals want them to believe and I guess it's not too difficult to make a dissatisfied or uneducated person (or a person educated to a certain religious or political opinion) believe in an enemy that has been deliberately provoked to prove one. Make my enemy become your enemy and quickly there is an ally and supporter ... Not only radical islamists, no, radicals (and politicians) of all religions and political views all over the world use this tactic (though it's mainly the former kind pulling the strings here I guess). The arms (which I really meant as in 'hands' but now realize the other form of interpretation is maybe more accurate here) of Iran are numerous and manifold and fighting the Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Hamas in Palestine will not lessen the danger in the long term. To think of the consequences of all this is nearly choking me and I become so enraged reading the latest political statements from all western nations. The UN seem to be helpless as well. And all the time innocent people become victims of this terror. It's sick, sick, sick. It's sick to count in numbers only those dying right now. After all, everybody there is a victim now, loosing a life, an existence, not only in the physical sense. I could throw up whenever I read about how many more 'civilians' have been killed by military. It's people killing people and it's an abstract concept of God making people accept and tolerate this. What kind of a God would that be? Yet I know that wondering about religious motivation is even more senseless than wondering about political motivation, for there is no rationality in religion.
What strikes me as being extremely sad is the fact that the sufferings of the people there remain unreal to most people here. Watching the news, seeing places go up in smoke, it still doesn't really touch the masses. How could we become so uncompassionate, so indifferent? The mid east is too abstract for most of us who have no connections there. What do you think would happen if those pictures were showing Paris instead of Beirut? Would it be emotionally affecting us westerners then? Isn't it absolutely strange how every nation seems to take an interest mainly in it's own people? Sympathy seems to be difficult if there is no identification, which still seems to be a question of sharing a cultural background. It brings a line from a Sting song into my mind: 'we share the same biology, regardless of ideology' ... but who cares about it? Isn't it almost ironic, how things keep repeating themselves? And though there is a lot of proof that politics and military solutions do not show any effect, it's still the only way people see. And again I must admit to this disturbing feeling of being powerless, a mere bystander ...
There is this extremely touching blog from Beirut. Whoever wants to get an impression of what it is like to be there now, to hear it from an everyday point of view, close to your own way of seeing the world ... go have a look, follow the link below. I'm sure it won't leave you cold:
26 July 2006
Melting ... Part III
So it's still hot and sweaty wherever you go these days. Don't get me wrong, it's still fine with me. I just love all these people walking around half-naked and more or less barefoot. It seems so much more natural than wearing socks and boots and an arsenal of underwear. I don't share the opinion of some people around here (blogging and elsewhere) that some sights are a threat to the eyes these days ... I mean, why should big people be expected to suffer more than thin people? Sure they have the same right as anybody else to wear as little as possible in this weather. Quite the reverse, thinking of how much more they tend to suffer in this heat, they should be the first to be excused. I don't care anyway, give me big bellies, wobbly bellies, tattooed bellies, pregnant bellies, skinny bellies, beer bellies, every kind of belly, as long as it's a naked belly.
I like the way people just don't care about looks and ideals anymore. This heat has a really egalitarian effect. A lot of people are starting to become really aggressive though. You realize it in the shops and most of all in the traffic. It's hard to get home alive, no matter if you walk, drive or ride a bicycle. Everybody's quite enervated and the difficulties in concentrating are making it worse. There's a lot of carcrashes and accidents in the city. I'm glad I live alone, in a way, because I can imagine it's harder to remain calm with somebody around all the time, moaning and testy. It's so easy to get sucked into somebody else's mood if you can't just go away or leave. I'm happy I don't have to take my chances on how balanced I am really. I must admit I'm not the most patient if somebody's constantly negative, the way most people are recently. Also I don't exactly like the idea of another sweaty body in my bed ... it's hard enough to find any sleep all by myself in this heat (and don't anybody give me that 'who said you have to sleep' shit - everybody has to sleep sometime). It's been this hot for more than a month in a row now, which is most unusual for local standards. I know it's much worse in California and they're also having trouble in New York from what I read because electricity starts to break down with all the air-conditioning. See, that's one big difference to Germany. Nobody even has an air-condition here, except for some shops or offices. For us it means taking out the old-fashioned cooling fans or simply sweat. It's all very basic. Most people sweat, fan or not. On their way to work, in public transport, at work (happy are those working in the supermarkets, it's cold there!), and of course at home. Everybody's sweating everywhere, all the time.
There's a certain mood in the air and I see a lot of people quarrel and debate now, it reminds me of the tense atmosphere in the film 'Cat on a hot tin roof'. It's a bit like something out of a Henry Miller story as well. The atmosphere is loaded with fatigue and with tension, both at the same time. Very strange feeling. It's like the city is under pressure, steaming ...
I like the way people just don't care about looks and ideals anymore. This heat has a really egalitarian effect. A lot of people are starting to become really aggressive though. You realize it in the shops and most of all in the traffic. It's hard to get home alive, no matter if you walk, drive or ride a bicycle. Everybody's quite enervated and the difficulties in concentrating are making it worse. There's a lot of carcrashes and accidents in the city. I'm glad I live alone, in a way, because I can imagine it's harder to remain calm with somebody around all the time, moaning and testy. It's so easy to get sucked into somebody else's mood if you can't just go away or leave. I'm happy I don't have to take my chances on how balanced I am really. I must admit I'm not the most patient if somebody's constantly negative, the way most people are recently. Also I don't exactly like the idea of another sweaty body in my bed ... it's hard enough to find any sleep all by myself in this heat (and don't anybody give me that 'who said you have to sleep' shit - everybody has to sleep sometime). It's been this hot for more than a month in a row now, which is most unusual for local standards. I know it's much worse in California and they're also having trouble in New York from what I read because electricity starts to break down with all the air-conditioning. See, that's one big difference to Germany. Nobody even has an air-condition here, except for some shops or offices. For us it means taking out the old-fashioned cooling fans or simply sweat. It's all very basic. Most people sweat, fan or not. On their way to work, in public transport, at work (happy are those working in the supermarkets, it's cold there!), and of course at home. Everybody's sweating everywhere, all the time.
There's a certain mood in the air and I see a lot of people quarrel and debate now, it reminds me of the tense atmosphere in the film 'Cat on a hot tin roof'. It's a bit like something out of a Henry Miller story as well. The atmosphere is loaded with fatigue and with tension, both at the same time. Very strange feeling. It's like the city is under pressure, steaming ...
24 July 2006
How it all began ...
(Better late than never: an explanation):
Since I have somehow managed to write here after all, I think I should maybe add how it all began. Some of my friends might just wonder what this is all about ...
To be honest, this wasn't quite my own idea. I got coaxed into doing this by a friend who is a downright blogging-addict and complained I never wrote these days to keep my friends up-to-date about my life and thoughts the way I used to do.
I think the problem is – with my friends being spread in all directions – that if I feel like sharing my thoughts, I always have to pick one friend and then have to repeat myself to any other later. And I can't really repeat my ideas or thoughts, it has to be spontaneous. Writing a letter I know where to start but I never know where I'm going. It depends on my mood and who I'm addressing. I mean, the addressee is an essential part of any letter, isn't he?
Knowing I wasn't exactly familiar with this blog-thing, my friend first suggested I send E-Mails instead of letters, which I could then send as copies to any other friend. Now, isn't that a horrible idea? It's like sending out newsletters about my life to a bunch of people in a mailing list. Too impersonal. To me a letter is still something intimate, between two people and even if I decide to send it by e-mail, it's for this one and only person and neither is it reproducable nor is it's addressee interchangeable at will.
So this blog seems to be a compromise between my good old letters, e-mails and some kind of scrapbook. I will keep the old letters coming for those who do not care about the internet much and I might also send an E-mail every now and then, especially to my friends without a postal address.
And whenever I feel like writing down some of my thoughts, ideas or reflections, or want to share things that inspire me, touch me or worry me – well, I will post them here ... so anybody interested in what might be going on in my head or in my life and too impatient to wait for my letters can sneak in every now and then and do a little earwiggin'.
Since I have somehow managed to write here after all, I think I should maybe add how it all began. Some of my friends might just wonder what this is all about ...
To be honest, this wasn't quite my own idea. I got coaxed into doing this by a friend who is a downright blogging-addict and complained I never wrote these days to keep my friends up-to-date about my life and thoughts the way I used to do.
I think the problem is – with my friends being spread in all directions – that if I feel like sharing my thoughts, I always have to pick one friend and then have to repeat myself to any other later. And I can't really repeat my ideas or thoughts, it has to be spontaneous. Writing a letter I know where to start but I never know where I'm going. It depends on my mood and who I'm addressing. I mean, the addressee is an essential part of any letter, isn't he?
Knowing I wasn't exactly familiar with this blog-thing, my friend first suggested I send E-Mails instead of letters, which I could then send as copies to any other friend. Now, isn't that a horrible idea? It's like sending out newsletters about my life to a bunch of people in a mailing list. Too impersonal. To me a letter is still something intimate, between two people and even if I decide to send it by e-mail, it's for this one and only person and neither is it reproducable nor is it's addressee interchangeable at will.
So this blog seems to be a compromise between my good old letters, e-mails and some kind of scrapbook. I will keep the old letters coming for those who do not care about the internet much and I might also send an E-mail every now and then, especially to my friends without a postal address.
And whenever I feel like writing down some of my thoughts, ideas or reflections, or want to share things that inspire me, touch me or worry me – well, I will post them here ... so anybody interested in what might be going on in my head or in my life and too impatient to wait for my letters can sneak in every now and then and do a little earwiggin'.
23 July 2006
A short history of Kurland (Latvia)
Trying to get over some boring household-tasks that I've been lacking the energy to finish lately, I started to clean out a cupboard when I found all these old family albums, dating back to eighteenhundredsomething. Every birth, marriage and death of a family member is registered there, ending with the birth of my grandmother in 1914. The first entry is the marriage of my great-great-grandmother. She was a "von Kurland" and skimming over the pages I remembered my grandmother telling me her family were Baltic Germans from a place called Kurland (I think it's Courland in english), which now is a province of Latvia, up at the Baltic Sea. Judging from what I've been told as a kid, they must have been pretty distinguished people, being squires or barons or something like that, my great-great-grandmother was a "Freifrau von Kurland", - whatever that meant. After the formerly "german province" Kurland became independent from Russia and part of a sovereign Latvia, the family had been expropriated. "From squire to servant" as my grandmother always put it. They lost the "von" as part of their name and were made to work as domestic servants on an estate that was no longer their own. Like many others in their situation my grandmother's family emigrated and finally settled here, in the Ruhr area, a very rich industrial area back then, pulling up people from everywhere, looking for work. That's the bit of family history I am able to recollect without any computer help.
My grandparents were living with us and I remember how I loved to listen to their stories. I was pleading and begging for as long as it took to make them tell me about what I called "the past". "Go on, Grandma, please, please, tell me about the past. Just one more story, I promise ..." I was obsessed with the past and our history and I loved it more than any fairy tale or story book. My mum had all those antique family photos on the wall, what she called her "ancestral gallery", all great-aunts and great-great aunts, uncles and great-grandfathers and I asked my grandma about who every single one was and what his or her story was. My favourite story (surely not hers) was of how they fled from the east, with the little posessions they had left all stuffed into one big trunk. They walked for weeks, mostly by foot, with the trunk on a cart. I still have this trunk and all that fits in today is the bed linen and some towels. Unbelievable somehow.
Not too keen on finishing my cleaning anyway and wanting to do some research on my complicated family history (that consists of couronian, east prussian and american roots, which again lead back to Ireland and Austria) for quite some time already, I decided I might as well do it now.
So I took the old books and albums to the computer to google for Courland and I got quite absorbed. Whenever I end up in Wikipedia, I'm lost. Leaping from one subject to another and back again, I almost don't remember what it was that I initially tried to find. Instead you have a whole bunch of answers that you didn't even know the questions to.
So here is what I learned about Kurland (or Courland):
First of all, Kurland is a province of Latvia now, not Lithuania as I have mistakenly believed all these years. The original couronians were called the "Vikings of the Baltic Sea", they consisted of Kurshi (Kursiu in Lithuania) tribes, said to be excellent sailors, warriors and pirates. Now, if that doesn't sound exciting – I'm just pretty sure my ancestors didn't ascend from this tribe, for the Kurshi/Kursiu actually were no "German Balts" (Ethnic Germans who came to the Baltic region as traders and missionaries in the 12th century) but seem to have belonged to the various Latvian Balts, the native people there at the time. Together Latvians and Germans formed the protestant state of Kurland until all Baltic areas became provinces of Russia. Yet Kurland remained dominated, and self-governed, by the local German-speaking aristocracy, based on former knights and several newcomers from Continental Germany. The division in Latvians and Germans was not a question of nation, but of a certain class with the division being the education. The only available education higher than primary was German. So any educated person was "a German", while the Latvians were the uneducated. If a Latvian wanted to enter the "Germans", he had to break all relations with his fellow Latvians and only speak German, even at home. Although hated for this by other Latvians, he knew that was the only way to reach a higher social status. I guess it's no wonder the Latvians hated the German Balts! Anyway, this began to change at the end of the 19th century, when the first educated Latvians started to emerge. Funnily enough these first educated Latvians were sponsored by their German landlords who expected them to turn into proper "Germans". Looks like the Latvians had other plans, though ...
Wikipedia puts it this way: "Although Germans were a minority in Latvia, they were the ruling class until the end of the 19th century. The German gentry, clergy, and urban high society constituted this ruling class, which subjugated the native inhabitants - Latvians, Livs, and others - for more than 600 years. German economic influence lasted even longer, until 1919, when the large manors were liquidated and it's owners expropriated".
After reading all this, I'm no longer surprised about what happened to the Germans - and my family. Reminds me of what happened between the Anglo-Irish landowners and the native Irish. The Germans entered the baltic coast just around the same time as the Normans came to Ireland. And in both cases it lead to a war for independence at around the same time, 1920. Happily enough for Latvia, it was the oppressors who had to emigrate and today they speak their native language. In Ireland it's the other way around. In the case of my family this comes close to a travesty of justice: two families emigrating from their countries, but for totally opposite reasons - or rather from totally opposite backgrounds. The symptoms were the same, just the causes were quite contrary.
I have always thought of my family as being victims, now I see that what happened in Kurland back then was the result of hundreds of years of cultural and political oppression. As individuals they may have been innocent but they stood for a hated class. And to be honest, if they were some kind of aristocracy, I doubt they were so innocent after all. Another illusion gone down the drain.
Still, I'd really love to learn more about Kurland's (Latvia's) culture and maybe go there one day, see the landscape and architecture, see if it moves anything inside me the way Ireland did. Some kind of ancestral recognition, some strange and unexpected kind of homecoming maybe. It must be quite beautiful there from what I see on pictures. So many plans, so many dreams. Well, maybe one day.
My grandparents were living with us and I remember how I loved to listen to their stories. I was pleading and begging for as long as it took to make them tell me about what I called "the past". "Go on, Grandma, please, please, tell me about the past. Just one more story, I promise ..." I was obsessed with the past and our history and I loved it more than any fairy tale or story book. My mum had all those antique family photos on the wall, what she called her "ancestral gallery", all great-aunts and great-great aunts, uncles and great-grandfathers and I asked my grandma about who every single one was and what his or her story was. My favourite story (surely not hers) was of how they fled from the east, with the little posessions they had left all stuffed into one big trunk. They walked for weeks, mostly by foot, with the trunk on a cart. I still have this trunk and all that fits in today is the bed linen and some towels. Unbelievable somehow.
Not too keen on finishing my cleaning anyway and wanting to do some research on my complicated family history (that consists of couronian, east prussian and american roots, which again lead back to Ireland and Austria) for quite some time already, I decided I might as well do it now.
So I took the old books and albums to the computer to google for Courland and I got quite absorbed. Whenever I end up in Wikipedia, I'm lost. Leaping from one subject to another and back again, I almost don't remember what it was that I initially tried to find. Instead you have a whole bunch of answers that you didn't even know the questions to.
So here is what I learned about Kurland (or Courland):
First of all, Kurland is a province of Latvia now, not Lithuania as I have mistakenly believed all these years. The original couronians were called the "Vikings of the Baltic Sea", they consisted of Kurshi (Kursiu in Lithuania) tribes, said to be excellent sailors, warriors and pirates. Now, if that doesn't sound exciting – I'm just pretty sure my ancestors didn't ascend from this tribe, for the Kurshi/Kursiu actually were no "German Balts" (Ethnic Germans who came to the Baltic region as traders and missionaries in the 12th century) but seem to have belonged to the various Latvian Balts, the native people there at the time. Together Latvians and Germans formed the protestant state of Kurland until all Baltic areas became provinces of Russia. Yet Kurland remained dominated, and self-governed, by the local German-speaking aristocracy, based on former knights and several newcomers from Continental Germany. The division in Latvians and Germans was not a question of nation, but of a certain class with the division being the education. The only available education higher than primary was German. So any educated person was "a German", while the Latvians were the uneducated. If a Latvian wanted to enter the "Germans", he had to break all relations with his fellow Latvians and only speak German, even at home. Although hated for this by other Latvians, he knew that was the only way to reach a higher social status. I guess it's no wonder the Latvians hated the German Balts! Anyway, this began to change at the end of the 19th century, when the first educated Latvians started to emerge. Funnily enough these first educated Latvians were sponsored by their German landlords who expected them to turn into proper "Germans". Looks like the Latvians had other plans, though ...
Wikipedia puts it this way: "Although Germans were a minority in Latvia, they were the ruling class until the end of the 19th century. The German gentry, clergy, and urban high society constituted this ruling class, which subjugated the native inhabitants - Latvians, Livs, and others - for more than 600 years. German economic influence lasted even longer, until 1919, when the large manors were liquidated and it's owners expropriated".
After reading all this, I'm no longer surprised about what happened to the Germans - and my family. Reminds me of what happened between the Anglo-Irish landowners and the native Irish. The Germans entered the baltic coast just around the same time as the Normans came to Ireland. And in both cases it lead to a war for independence at around the same time, 1920. Happily enough for Latvia, it was the oppressors who had to emigrate and today they speak their native language. In Ireland it's the other way around. In the case of my family this comes close to a travesty of justice: two families emigrating from their countries, but for totally opposite reasons - or rather from totally opposite backgrounds. The symptoms were the same, just the causes were quite contrary.
I have always thought of my family as being victims, now I see that what happened in Kurland back then was the result of hundreds of years of cultural and political oppression. As individuals they may have been innocent but they stood for a hated class. And to be honest, if they were some kind of aristocracy, I doubt they were so innocent after all. Another illusion gone down the drain.
Still, I'd really love to learn more about Kurland's (Latvia's) culture and maybe go there one day, see the landscape and architecture, see if it moves anything inside me the way Ireland did. Some kind of ancestral recognition, some strange and unexpected kind of homecoming maybe. It must be quite beautiful there from what I see on pictures. So many plans, so many dreams. Well, maybe one day.
21 July 2006
Melting ... Part II
After some halfhearted consideration - taking me quite some time - I have surprisingly come to the conclusion that I do indeed like this heat. More or less, rather more. Sure there might be more pleasant things than having sweat running down your back all the time, but there's just something about it ... it really has it's moments.
This summer is so uncompromising, so massive, and somehow I like this bluntness. Too often we have these undecided iffy seasons. Winters that are mere autumns. Springs that are winters really. And summers that are neither cold nor warm. In Germany we have a common saying "summer took place on a thursday this year", for normally you can count the sunny days single-handed. This summer is different. This summer is just what it is meant to be. Hot. Dry. Slow.
I admit that it's quite hard if you're in a job that means hard labour. Or being in the sun constantly. I will understand any roof tiler contradicting me. Also I'm aware there are people suffering from bad health in this weather. Sure these are excused for complaining.
Everybody else out there: stop whining! Make the best of it and try to enjoy the heat, however, wherever.
Don't you remember how you enjoyed those summers back in your childhood days? In your teens? Remember all the "first times" that took place in summers like this. First camp-fire. First time away on your own. First romance. First night-swimming. First hangover maybe. Pure excitement. Your world was never the same when you went back to school after those summers. Now think of all the happy kids right now, who'll experience just that. This is one of those summers they will remember, twenty years from now, as being so innocent, so hot, so exciting. Pure nostalgia. Doesn't that make you happy? Doesn't it make you smile?
This summer is so uncompromising, so massive, and somehow I like this bluntness. Too often we have these undecided iffy seasons. Winters that are mere autumns. Springs that are winters really. And summers that are neither cold nor warm. In Germany we have a common saying "summer took place on a thursday this year", for normally you can count the sunny days single-handed. This summer is different. This summer is just what it is meant to be. Hot. Dry. Slow.
I admit that it's quite hard if you're in a job that means hard labour. Or being in the sun constantly. I will understand any roof tiler contradicting me. Also I'm aware there are people suffering from bad health in this weather. Sure these are excused for complaining.
Everybody else out there: stop whining! Make the best of it and try to enjoy the heat, however, wherever.
Don't you remember how you enjoyed those summers back in your childhood days? In your teens? Remember all the "first times" that took place in summers like this. First camp-fire. First time away on your own. First romance. First night-swimming. First hangover maybe. Pure excitement. Your world was never the same when you went back to school after those summers. Now think of all the happy kids right now, who'll experience just that. This is one of those summers they will remember, twenty years from now, as being so innocent, so hot, so exciting. Pure nostalgia. Doesn't that make you happy? Doesn't it make you smile?
20 July 2006
Melting ... (thinking of Beirut)
It's really hot today. So hot, I think my brain must be starting to melt. I find myself standing up to do something but as soon as I move I wonder what it was I wanted to do ... thinking takes a long time at the moment. I've just read that it's hotter here in this part of Germany now than it is in Brazil. Almost 40° C. Then again, isn't it winter in Brazil now..?
Outside everything is calm and tranquil, the streets are empty, deserted. Talking of streets ... the asphalt is beginning to melt, too. They had to decrease the speed limit on some of our main motorways to 80 km/h because the asphalt sticks to the tires.
Everybody seems to be in some kind of coma vigil. Here but not really here. Awake but not really present. Communicating is a bit strange as well right now. Life in slow motion. Somebody opens the mouth to say something but more often than not you'll just wait ... and nothing else happens. You look again and the other's mouth is shut again and you're not sure if anything has actually been said or not ... but somehow you feel unable to ask. I'm not even sure whether I like this heat or not. Thinking about it seems too complicated as well. I guess the children on school holidays are rather happy with the situation. The open-air baths must be crowded. It must be nice to be in the water ... in my bathroom there is no cold water anymore. So you can't really take a shower to refresh yourself. You turn on the cold water tap and think you have made a mistake. The water is warm. Then you try the other tap. And the water is boiling. The only place below 27° C is inside the fridge. I don't really care anymore. I just turn off both taps and try to remember whatever it was I was doing before I went into the bathroom.
When I went to work this morning the air seemed to be crisp and cool (for current standards). And suddenly, just before I reached the studio I had some kind of brainwave. Thinking came almost as a shock. My head was so full of thoughts and ideas, everything came up at once. Clarity. I had it all there, the greatest verbalizations. The clearest insights for weeks. I knew exactly how to put into words what has been lingering in my mind for so long. Just I couldn't exactly stop and ask somebody for pen and paper, sit down on the sidewalk and forget about work while writing down those new revelations. So with a shrug of my shoulder I went inside and took care of some photos. And while the temperature inside the studio started to rise, my mind started to shrink. When I was finished, everything was gone. Those brilliant ideas had disappeared into the yawning abyss of my summer amnesia. Though I must admit, I even lacked the energy to be disappointed for more than a moment.
I overhear a conversation between an old and a young woman beside me. Complaining. About the heat, of course. How unpleasant it is to sweat without even doing anything. How highly unnerving. The poor trees and flowers. What an effort it takes to water the garden these days. They sound desperate.
And suddenly I think how decadent we all are - including myself - how sick this is. To really look at this heat as a major problem. It's all we are occupied with right now. While there are thousands of people caught in Lebanon, trying to save their lifes. While hundreds died in Asia in the recent Tsunamis. This heat is making us so indifferent, so apathetic, it's startling in a way. We just don't care, do we? As long as we are not concerned, we put our minds on stand-by and let things happen. Saving our strengths for the few important things we think we have to do. Watering the garden ...
Sure I don't have a solution as well. But I can't really get it out of my head. Imagine to be there. In Beirut. Imagine how it will be hot as well, people caught in the bombings, in a town that only a couple of weeks ago was alive with people, enjoying themselves in the sun. Now praying to get out alive, out of the country, many of them leaving everything behind. How much do they care about the temperature? Every nation has it's own news about the "crisis" in Lebanon, counting their own citizens, counting how many are still left in Lebanon. What about those who are at home there? Who's counting them? Where do they go? This is all so confusing. This is a sick world in so many ways. I wish somebody had the answers. And I wish we all had more compassion left for those in need, even if we do not have the answers. What makes politicians tick? How do they manage to be so cold, make decisions that lead so many into disaster and misery, causing so much grief and suffering. Are they still human? Are we?
This heat still kind of paralyzes me. And I guess it's time to go. Strolling through the internet seems to be just the amount of effort one is able to make. And maybe I find some answers somewhere.
Outside everything is calm and tranquil, the streets are empty, deserted. Talking of streets ... the asphalt is beginning to melt, too. They had to decrease the speed limit on some of our main motorways to 80 km/h because the asphalt sticks to the tires.
Everybody seems to be in some kind of coma vigil. Here but not really here. Awake but not really present. Communicating is a bit strange as well right now. Life in slow motion. Somebody opens the mouth to say something but more often than not you'll just wait ... and nothing else happens. You look again and the other's mouth is shut again and you're not sure if anything has actually been said or not ... but somehow you feel unable to ask. I'm not even sure whether I like this heat or not. Thinking about it seems too complicated as well. I guess the children on school holidays are rather happy with the situation. The open-air baths must be crowded. It must be nice to be in the water ... in my bathroom there is no cold water anymore. So you can't really take a shower to refresh yourself. You turn on the cold water tap and think you have made a mistake. The water is warm. Then you try the other tap. And the water is boiling. The only place below 27° C is inside the fridge. I don't really care anymore. I just turn off both taps and try to remember whatever it was I was doing before I went into the bathroom.
When I went to work this morning the air seemed to be crisp and cool (for current standards). And suddenly, just before I reached the studio I had some kind of brainwave. Thinking came almost as a shock. My head was so full of thoughts and ideas, everything came up at once. Clarity. I had it all there, the greatest verbalizations. The clearest insights for weeks. I knew exactly how to put into words what has been lingering in my mind for so long. Just I couldn't exactly stop and ask somebody for pen and paper, sit down on the sidewalk and forget about work while writing down those new revelations. So with a shrug of my shoulder I went inside and took care of some photos. And while the temperature inside the studio started to rise, my mind started to shrink. When I was finished, everything was gone. Those brilliant ideas had disappeared into the yawning abyss of my summer amnesia. Though I must admit, I even lacked the energy to be disappointed for more than a moment.
I overhear a conversation between an old and a young woman beside me. Complaining. About the heat, of course. How unpleasant it is to sweat without even doing anything. How highly unnerving. The poor trees and flowers. What an effort it takes to water the garden these days. They sound desperate.
And suddenly I think how decadent we all are - including myself - how sick this is. To really look at this heat as a major problem. It's all we are occupied with right now. While there are thousands of people caught in Lebanon, trying to save their lifes. While hundreds died in Asia in the recent Tsunamis. This heat is making us so indifferent, so apathetic, it's startling in a way. We just don't care, do we? As long as we are not concerned, we put our minds on stand-by and let things happen. Saving our strengths for the few important things we think we have to do. Watering the garden ...
Sure I don't have a solution as well. But I can't really get it out of my head. Imagine to be there. In Beirut. Imagine how it will be hot as well, people caught in the bombings, in a town that only a couple of weeks ago was alive with people, enjoying themselves in the sun. Now praying to get out alive, out of the country, many of them leaving everything behind. How much do they care about the temperature? Every nation has it's own news about the "crisis" in Lebanon, counting their own citizens, counting how many are still left in Lebanon. What about those who are at home there? Who's counting them? Where do they go? This is all so confusing. This is a sick world in so many ways. I wish somebody had the answers. And I wish we all had more compassion left for those in need, even if we do not have the answers. What makes politicians tick? How do they manage to be so cold, make decisions that lead so many into disaster and misery, causing so much grief and suffering. Are they still human? Are we?
This heat still kind of paralyzes me. And I guess it's time to go. Strolling through the internet seems to be just the amount of effort one is able to make. And maybe I find some answers somewhere.
12 July 2006
lamppost liaison ...
... talking of serotonin and the sun and what they can do to people ... haven't I been going on about this only recently? Maybe I better try to keep a cool head myself and focus my concentration more on my way ...
Walking home tonight, I was contemplating an exhibition in the Folkwang Museum when something got in between me and the exhibition poster that I had started to read while walking towards the museum. Casting an irritated glance on this surely disruptive element I found myself eye to eye with the (presumably) sexiest cyclist alive, smiling mischievously at my indignant face. I guess I should have stopped short then and tried to make the best of this rare opportunity, but no - somewhat dumbfounded I walked on, unable to detach my eyes from his eyes ... and walked straight into a lamppost.
Now, how embarassing is that?
I almost broke my toes and badly bruised my knee and all I could think was 'how lucky it wasn't my nose' ... not because of the pain, but imagine just how much more stupid it would have looked if I had banged my head against that lantern ...!
I didn't wait to see his face turn from smiling to gloating. I tried to hobble away as gracefully as possible, trying to get out of sight fast. Afterwards I thought that he could have at least shown some concern for my wellbeing. I mean, wouldn't it have been the chance to see me home ... then again, who wants to see home a loony ... there you go, life's just not fair.
Walking home tonight, I was contemplating an exhibition in the Folkwang Museum when something got in between me and the exhibition poster that I had started to read while walking towards the museum. Casting an irritated glance on this surely disruptive element I found myself eye to eye with the (presumably) sexiest cyclist alive, smiling mischievously at my indignant face. I guess I should have stopped short then and tried to make the best of this rare opportunity, but no - somewhat dumbfounded I walked on, unable to detach my eyes from his eyes ... and walked straight into a lamppost.
Now, how embarassing is that?
I almost broke my toes and badly bruised my knee and all I could think was 'how lucky it wasn't my nose' ... not because of the pain, but imagine just how much more stupid it would have looked if I had banged my head against that lantern ...!
I didn't wait to see his face turn from smiling to gloating. I tried to hobble away as gracefully as possible, trying to get out of sight fast. Afterwards I thought that he could have at least shown some concern for my wellbeing. I mean, wouldn't it have been the chance to see me home ... then again, who wants to see home a loony ... there you go, life's just not fair.
11 July 2006
Germany and the Germans ...
What a strange time, this last month during the football world cup 2006! What on earth happened to good old steady Germany? This country seems to be going crazy, leaving me to believe that some extraterrestrials have taken over, body-swapping with the usually reserved and controlled, sober-minded Germans ...
Being half German and raised in Germany myself, I know only too good the problems we have with national identity or patriotism even. Just four weeks ago patriotism seemed to be a relic of the past, something solely existent in history books, like the black plague or the German Kaiser (and I'm not talking about Franz Beckenbauer here ...)
Patriotism – the word left a foul taste in our mouths, like rotten food. While we had no problem understanding foreign patriotism and almost envy the Irish for their St. Parick's Day, it would never have occured to my generation that it might be at all possible for an average German to actually experience that same emotion - except if being some misguided extreme right wing faschist. I don't think that we were aware of even the slightest possibility of a German patriotism in a more positive context than that, not blindly and uncritically whitewashing some imaginary "fatherland" but feeling some kind of cultural identity and national self-confidence.
For me life as an "innocent German" ended with elementary school. Until I was ten years old I found nothing wrong with being German. But as soon as I went to secondary school I was quickly made aware that I was expected to feel ashamed and guilty for the rest of my life. An old and penitent teacher with a clear conscience projected all the Nazi's deeds on every single one of us kids. They made us watch even the most cruel documentaries, again and again, telling us we may never, never, NEVER EVER forget these things (which was most unlikely after all that). And finally we were told that the whole world condemned us for what happened in the past (and rightly so). We were more or less born guilty. And I won't say these teachers were wrong. I know there is still a whole lot of people in the world agreeing. Just maybe the methods weren't all so healthy, considering we were only kids, after all.
The sensible German of my time, born in the sixties and early seventies, raised and educated in the eighties, felt awkward und uneasy, travelling abroad. Always expecting to be unwelcome, to be the enemy, feeling the constant urge to apologize. Being German seemed to be more or less equivalent to being a nazi.
Honestly - I often wondered whether there might just be the slightest causal connection between a whole lot of youths in the eighties almost globally labelled nazis ... and some actually becoming nazis in the end.
At the same time I wondered what a sick condition this was and how it could come to this, when even my parents have been born way after the war. How come that I was expected to be the "evil German" by people who have also been born long after that war?
It occured to me that maybe my generation of Germans lacked any kind of cultural identity or cultural awareness because we have never really been taught one. We never talked about German history in school, except to hear of the cruelty and terror of the Nazis. German history was reduced to WW II for most of my generation. So what was there left to be proud of? To identify with? I guess we just mirrored that guilty conscience we have been inoculated with for so long. We had forgotten there may have been times before and after the Nazis that might make you feel proud to be German. To share a cultural background. We reduced ourselves to the cliché the world had in mind when thinking of anything German. Effectiveness. Punctuality. Order. BOREDOM!!!
Nobody was more shocked than a German when a German got caught relaxed! Thinking of ways to have fun even. Unbelievable. We'd feel like we had done something really bold ... almost a reason to be proud of, almost anarchy. Imagine that: A laid-back German in party-mood ... haha.
And now this ... a whole nation agog with expectation and excitement, having fun. Publicly partying and waving a banner that until not too long ago was carefully hidden if you didn't want to get into discredit.
Where does this come from, so all of a sudden? All these happy people on the streets - have they been rented for promotion purposes, to be broadcasted all over the world and support local tourism? Laid off TV-actors happy to earn a quick penny in a jobwise adverse season (with a whole country watching nothing but football, football and even more football)?
Well, I wonder ... again.
It feels really strange. Looking at your fellow countrymen thinking "who are these people" ..? But I admit it. It felt good. Just why did it take so long? Maybe it took a generation of people not brain-washed with guilt. People young enough to give a damn about what they are expected to feel or behave like or what others may think. Open minded and grown up in a variety of cultures, a new German melting-pot of nations and people. Lets just hope that we won't wake up to find it was only a bad case of mass-hallucination. Whatever caused this short and sudden outburst - an overdose of sun, endorphins, serotonin or football. Or the unusual co-occurence of all all four - give us more, anytime!
"If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant...then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become a paradise."
(Aldous Huxley in "Wanted, a New Pleasure").
Well, for a very limited time it seemed like Football was the answer ...
Being half German and raised in Germany myself, I know only too good the problems we have with national identity or patriotism even. Just four weeks ago patriotism seemed to be a relic of the past, something solely existent in history books, like the black plague or the German Kaiser (and I'm not talking about Franz Beckenbauer here ...)
Patriotism – the word left a foul taste in our mouths, like rotten food. While we had no problem understanding foreign patriotism and almost envy the Irish for their St. Parick's Day, it would never have occured to my generation that it might be at all possible for an average German to actually experience that same emotion - except if being some misguided extreme right wing faschist. I don't think that we were aware of even the slightest possibility of a German patriotism in a more positive context than that, not blindly and uncritically whitewashing some imaginary "fatherland" but feeling some kind of cultural identity and national self-confidence.
For me life as an "innocent German" ended with elementary school. Until I was ten years old I found nothing wrong with being German. But as soon as I went to secondary school I was quickly made aware that I was expected to feel ashamed and guilty for the rest of my life. An old and penitent teacher with a clear conscience projected all the Nazi's deeds on every single one of us kids. They made us watch even the most cruel documentaries, again and again, telling us we may never, never, NEVER EVER forget these things (which was most unlikely after all that). And finally we were told that the whole world condemned us for what happened in the past (and rightly so). We were more or less born guilty. And I won't say these teachers were wrong. I know there is still a whole lot of people in the world agreeing. Just maybe the methods weren't all so healthy, considering we were only kids, after all.
The sensible German of my time, born in the sixties and early seventies, raised and educated in the eighties, felt awkward und uneasy, travelling abroad. Always expecting to be unwelcome, to be the enemy, feeling the constant urge to apologize. Being German seemed to be more or less equivalent to being a nazi.
Honestly - I often wondered whether there might just be the slightest causal connection between a whole lot of youths in the eighties almost globally labelled nazis ... and some actually becoming nazis in the end.
At the same time I wondered what a sick condition this was and how it could come to this, when even my parents have been born way after the war. How come that I was expected to be the "evil German" by people who have also been born long after that war?
It occured to me that maybe my generation of Germans lacked any kind of cultural identity or cultural awareness because we have never really been taught one. We never talked about German history in school, except to hear of the cruelty and terror of the Nazis. German history was reduced to WW II for most of my generation. So what was there left to be proud of? To identify with? I guess we just mirrored that guilty conscience we have been inoculated with for so long. We had forgotten there may have been times before and after the Nazis that might make you feel proud to be German. To share a cultural background. We reduced ourselves to the cliché the world had in mind when thinking of anything German. Effectiveness. Punctuality. Order. BOREDOM!!!
Nobody was more shocked than a German when a German got caught relaxed! Thinking of ways to have fun even. Unbelievable. We'd feel like we had done something really bold ... almost a reason to be proud of, almost anarchy. Imagine that: A laid-back German in party-mood ... haha.
And now this ... a whole nation agog with expectation and excitement, having fun. Publicly partying and waving a banner that until not too long ago was carefully hidden if you didn't want to get into discredit.
Where does this come from, so all of a sudden? All these happy people on the streets - have they been rented for promotion purposes, to be broadcasted all over the world and support local tourism? Laid off TV-actors happy to earn a quick penny in a jobwise adverse season (with a whole country watching nothing but football, football and even more football)?
Well, I wonder ... again.
It feels really strange. Looking at your fellow countrymen thinking "who are these people" ..? But I admit it. It felt good. Just why did it take so long? Maybe it took a generation of people not brain-washed with guilt. People young enough to give a damn about what they are expected to feel or behave like or what others may think. Open minded and grown up in a variety of cultures, a new German melting-pot of nations and people. Lets just hope that we won't wake up to find it was only a bad case of mass-hallucination. Whatever caused this short and sudden outburst - an overdose of sun, endorphins, serotonin or football. Or the unusual co-occurence of all all four - give us more, anytime!
"If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant...then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become a paradise."
(Aldous Huxley in "Wanted, a New Pleasure").
Well, for a very limited time it seemed like Football was the answer ...
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