Political Berlin

 

Compared to last week's powerful visit to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and our tour through Jewish Berlin, this week seemed fairly insignificant.  However I think that we saw some  important political sights throughout the city, which sort of fit in with our political class discussions. One of the highlights of my week was attending Berlin's 22nd Annual Lesbian and Gay City Festival on Sunday.  I thought it was very enjoyable, and I think that the most ridiculous thing we saw there was a mohawked man walking on stilts, wearing a strange half-thong- but that pretty much topped the craziness.  I wish that I had an American Pride Parade to compare this experience with, but I have not yet attended one in the United States.  Our group enjoyed watching karaoke and a group of men and women dressed as cowboys, square dancing to country-pop music.  That was definitely not something that I was expecting to see, since here "country" back home is typically associated with very socially conservative political beliefs.  Something that I also found very interesting here was that there was a row of tents for some prominent German political parties- including the SPD, Bündis 99/Die Grünen (both middle left-wing parties), and none other than the CDU/CSU (Germany's mainstream conservative/middle right-wing party).  I think that this shows a major difference in American and German politics.  Although, as I said, I have not attended a Gay Pride Parade back in the USA, I am almost 100% positive that if I did I would not stumble upon a Republican Party tent there, because of both their historical position on gay rights, and because it is right in their party platform that they support only traditional marriage- between one man and one woman.  I am aware that there are more far-right, fringe parties in Germany that probably are extremely opposed to gay rights, but it makes me very happy to see that Germany's middle-right party does support gay rights.

 

Another highlight of my week was visiting the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall.  There was so much beautiful artwork on this portion of the Wall, and it makes me sad to think that this could get torn down for apartment buildings.  Much of the artwork appeared to be political in nature- some even having messages in German such as "many small people in many small places who do many small things can change the face of the world."  There also was a large German flag with the Star of David in the middle of it, which I thought was a strong gesture after learning about the Jewish history of the city and country.  However there also were some that appeared to simply be beautiful paintings, although they may have been political and I just didn't realize/understand the message.  Pictured in this blog are some of my favorite paintings on the wall, and I would be interested to see what changes and what is left alone when the wall is painted over for new graffiti artists.