Berlin has been a place of refuge for centuries, especially for artists and intellectuals. The old Islamic cemetery on Columbiadamm, for example, bears witness to this long history, or the local barn district (Scheunenviertel) where the BABYLON, the site of our festival opening today, stands – it was created almost four hundred years ago by Jewish immigrants who once stopped here at the gates of Berlin on their way from Eastern Europe to America and stayed until the darkest chapter of German history destroyed them. Today, together with all our languages and hopes, we stand on the ruins of these multilingual tragedies of our city and try to add new, happier chapters. After the dark twentieth century, Berlin is now on its way again to a friendlier future. More than 120 languages are spoken in this city again today – and still more are being spoken.<\/p>\n
So too for the people of the Middle East, for whom free and reunited Berlin has once again become a refuge in the last 30 years: To a meeting place and a place of hope, where new things can arise, unusual things are possible. The new Berliners come together from all languages and cultures of the Middle East and create something new together across all cultural, linguistic or political borders, forming a lively and novel urban culture that has long since radiated beyond what Berlin is today. The Berlin model of Middle Eastern cultures, artists and thinkers, adventurers and authors living together is also the basis for our festival – if the Berliners of the Middle East can eat, celebrate, make music and poetry with each other and with their friends from all over the world every day, why should this spirit not also be the basis for a new idea of the Middle East, which after all is culturally united by so much more than it is divided by?<\/p>\n
Almost three years ago, Hila Amit and Mati Shemoelof came to the office of our Berlin Literarische Aktion<\/em> and presented to us for the first time their idea of a Middle East Union that could gain its spiritual openness from the togetherness of the Berlin scene. We were amazed and enthusiastic and have already organized with them last year a highly interesting PARATAXE symposium on this topic with very different voices and approaches at the LCB, the results of which can be viewed – as a preface to our festival, so to speak – on the Internet at stadtsprachen.de<\/em>.<\/p>\n And now our immediate MIDDLE EAST UNION Festival kicks off with the words of our two curators, Hila Amit, the Berlin-based award-winning writer, curator and Hebrew teacher whose work is published primarily in Israel, Germany and the U.S., and Mati Shemoelof, the Arab-Jewish poet, author and journalist from Berlin, who has now published 10 books in Israel and Germany. It is thanks to both of their persistence and good networking that we can expect a highly exciting program with prominent and competent guests, which they will introduce to us themselves in a moment. The third curator became Alaa Obeid, an activist who is passionate about environmental justice and human rights and is acquainted with many Middle East experts.<\/p>\n What you will look for in vain in our program are the usual legions of German Middle East experts, who are usually extraordinarily quick and explicit in their opinions on such topics. This is not necessarily a bad thing in itself and is of course related to the fact that the history and current situation of the Middle East is also existentially linked to our German history. But for our festival we have decided to let the real experts, i.e. the voices of the Middle East, have their say for once – Berliners, but not German speakers: Arab Jews from Neuk\u00f6lln, Jewish Arabs from Prenzlauer Berg, Israelis and Iranians from Sch\u00f6neberg, Egyptians and Lebanese people from Friedrichshain – etc. and their international friends! With the end of my speech, the floor will belong exclusively to them – and we German Berliners, as well as the international audience that I wish for this festival, will be happy to listen to them. What almost all of them have in common (besides the bridge language English) is that they live as so-called Mixed Identities and are at home everywhere in the world. For this reason, we have largely refrained from defining national identities in our festival information: How, for example, should that look exactly for an Arab Jew who grew up in Beirut and Tel Aviv, studied in Copenhagen, and currently works in Berlin and Buenos Aires? Or the Arab-Australian scientist born in Cairo who lives and works as a secular Muslim in Berlin? So, the MIDDLE EAST UNION actually already exists – for example in the Mixed Identities of our festival guests!<\/p>\n The venues of our festival – the BABYLON here in Mitte, the Literary Colloquium Berlin at Wannsee for the next two days, and also the Novilla on Sunday in Niedersch\u00f6neweide – they are all, by the way, closely connected to Berlin’s Jewish history, which has been a great, influential and diverse one before the Nazi era.<\/p>\n While the program and content of this festival of readings, concerts, panels and discourses on literature and culture, politics and religion are entirely due to the ideas and work of our curators, Hila Amit, Mati Shemoelof and Alaa Obeid, we at Berliner Literarische Aktion would like to express our heartfelt thanks for the opportunity to support and realize this visionary – and, as we find, typically Berlin – project in organizational terms. On behalf of the curators, we would like to express our sincere thanks to the Hauptstadtkulturfonds, which financially supports and makes possible this project, to our media partners and the venues BABYLON, LCB and NOVILLA for their wonderful, friendly support, as well as to ANU – Jews and Arabs writing in Berlin and Moving poets Berlin for their great cooperation!<\/p>\n The vision of a peaceful and cooperative MIDDLE EAST UNION is a great joy for us. These four days in Berlin can become a departure towards it. In the Middle East the most unbelievable and amazing compromises and alliances come about again and again – and also in these days – so why not also among us, the artists and literati of Berlin?<\/p>\n