Borderland, Where I came from & where I'm at...

Freezing in Berlin

January 19, 2006 johanneswilm Leave a comment

Ok, so here it finally is: my posting on Berlin. I really wanted to write this after my first trip down there, but it simply did not happen. I was trying to convince myself that it was due to an overly large work load right now, but it might also just be cause I am a bit afraid to write about things that are too close to me. Anyways, as I already wrote in the last few posts, I went to Berlin twice this year already: the first time over New Years from Dec. 31st until January 5th, and the second time from last Thursday (the 12th or so) and then I took the bus to Copenhagen, Denmark on Sunday (15th) and slept there at my grandmothers before I took the plane back to Oslo Monday morning – in order to be back for an English pedagogy course with obligatory attendance at noon.

Three South Schleswigans - One has moved to Copenhagen, DK, the others to Berlin — Three South Schleswigans – One has moved to Copenhagen, DK, the others to Berlin

So what was up with Berlin? Well, there are two groups that I know down there: on one side there are all my Danish minority friends from high school, and on the other, there are those I know through my activism in the youth organization [‘solid] (youth of the new Linkspartei). Now I’ve written about the two groups before, when I visited them last summer. Basically my activist friends are from East Germany (although not neccesarily Berlin), while my high school friends are from West Germany (on top of being Danish-like). Now you would of course imagine that to be a difference mainly of wealth, and yes, that probably has something to say – but not quite the way one would think. Let us try to look a bit at my “ethnic friends.”
Continue reading Freezing in Berlin →

My strange neighbor

A new neighbor meets my food!

January 16, 2006 johanneswilm 1 Comment

As I came back from Berlin today (have been there again this weekend, but more about that in the next post), i had to stay at university all day to stay for various obligatory affairs. And when I finally came home tonight (about 15 min. ago), I had a new neighbor! I figured it out when I opened the outer door and saw that someone had put a water cooker and a candle inside a bowl of mine on the shelf inside the kitchen. “Oh, crap!” I thought, “I’m pretty sure I hadn’t cleaned the kitchen sufficiently when I realized hat I had way less time than calculated to run to the airport express train Thursday night.”

Continue reading A new neighbor meets my food! →

My strange neighbor

Living alone — for now

January 8, 2006 johanneswilm Leave a comment

I got a few requests as to update everyone on the state of relation to my neighbor. Well, she is gone. In fact she left some time early in December or so, and instead a guy moved in. She finally got her own room in this very same student house. The guy who moved in after here was from Oslo West. He let me know that right away. “I’ve always lived in this town — just somewhat further West”. Gee — as if I couldn’t smell that. He was 21 and had “just moved out from his parents” as they were moving from the family house he had grown up in to a smaller flat which he helped them to fix during December. That’s why he almost wasn’t here at all. Starting around New Years he was to move back to Oslo West to live with some of his childhood friends. So right now, I’m having the kitchen all to myself again.
An interesting fact about my neighboor for all of last fall is though that according to her sccesor, a bunch of things from the police arrived for her after she had moved. Now students living in these flats do not tend to receive a whole lot of parking tickets, but I guess with alllikelihood she probably was no master spy or terrorist or anything like that.

Now you could probably hear some of the disgust that I had for my very last neighbor — and of course that is connected with soem normative standards that exist in my mind:

– you have to move out before you turn 18
– you should not attend university or live in the same country that you grew up in

Now of course I realize that only a veyr small percentage of the world population lives according to these standards, and so it could probably make for an interesting study of how exactly I got those standards (family-related, I can tell you), and also who I would let parse without following them (anyone poor and/or oppressed) and who I would not (well, anyone with relatively rich parents). And again one should ask the question: to what degree is that just a reflection of an internatization of the neo-liberal spirit of the 1980s? How can I have normative standards for flexibilization, when at the same time I attack such demnds on the political level?

Social situations and settings

Instant groups and lasting connections at New Years

January 5, 2006 johanneswilm Leave a comment

I just got back to Norway today. And that was not entirely my plan in the beginning. I had really planned to be back here some time between Christmas and New Years, but a snow storm all across southern Scandinavia, and in particular in Sweden, made it suddenly more complicated to take the bus, and so I decided instead to spend New Years with some of my friends from high school in Berlin and then to fly back here today.

my sister Jensine skiing in Schuby - the village I called my home for about 15 years — my sister Jensine skiing in Schuby – the village I called my home for about 15 years

Now my high school friend are one of the lasting communities (I won’t go into the definition of community here) of mine but in any way I am always amazed of how they have managed to keep the close connections we all have had in school all throughout our time at university; I myself only see them every six months at the max.

friends from high school - a lasting community — friends from high school – a lasting community

But on my way down to Berlin, I met a group that I would say formed an “instant group.” Now I love to make these things to form, and usually they are over just as quickly as they came into existence. The thing is that in Germany the railway has made a rather cheap group ticket for up to 5 people available for approximately the last decade. It’s called Wochenendticket (Eng: Weekend ticket) and although it hads changed quite a bit from the way it was intially set up, it still gives you the right to travel as far as you want to, as long as you only use short-distance trains. Now you can always still make it from any corner of Germany to another, but it just takes a long time, and you have to switch often.

As this ticket has gained popularity especially amongst the youth, certain tiny train stations have become interconnection points for popular travel routes – one of them being the tiny village of “Bad Kleinen” (otherwise only known for a shooting episode between the police and a member of the Rote Armee Fraktion about 15 years ago) on the route between Berlin and the states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. According to the train schedule, one should be able to switch traisn immediately, but if there are any delays on the train going there, you have to wait two entire hours there! Amongst my friends that are studying in Berlin this has become a known issue and a running joke amongst them is that “Oh no, X is not here yet, she/he is waiting for an alternative train in Bad Kleinen.”

Now this time it was my turn to experience that to happen. I started travelling from Schleswig at 12:33 and expected to be in Berlin at 18:44 – after changing trains four times.

And that is how I celebrated New Years the first time that day with my new found “instant community”…
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Social situations and settings

High school reunion

December 30, 2005 johanneswilm Leave a comment

On December 26th, I attended this high school reunion. It’s not quite the same experience that others have – cause we from the Danish minority’s high school have it every year. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun. I personally have attended it every single year for the past five years, and every year, we’re a bunch that have been monitoring for dacaying factors to start set in. Didn’t happen. Not this year either – although there was one girl who tried to convince me that she had wrinkles – when she laughs.

Other than that, there was a notciable lack of “Super Danes” – that is people that have turned so Danish – either already in school or later on – and that try to hide away the fact that they have any knowledge of Germany and German. I really have a hard time taking those people.

On the other hand there are also those that think they somehow are fundamentally german. Like one guy who knows me well and thought I had switched to Norwegian citizenship already asked: “so do you then have to give up your German one?” J: “I’d think so. So I’m wondering: do you get anything out of ayour German citizenship?” He: “Nooooo…. well, except your identity.” And then we both laughed. See, I don’t agree with that perspective either – but I find it much easier to hang around people with those kinds of views than the Super Danes.

For more pictures (that I took), look here.

Where I came from & where I'm at...

Ethnicised christmas

December 29, 2005 johanneswilm 2 Comments

Well, it sure has been a while seen I’ve been writing here. The thing is that I have spend quite a lot of time reviewing my book (“On the Margins” – see here) and getting it ready for global distribution. And before that I prepared for way too many examinations…

For christmas I went down south – first by bus to my grandmother in Copenhagen, Denmark where my mother and the youngest brother had been for a few days already, and then another few days later on to the German/Danish border land.

Lately, I have had a discussion with one of my co-students in Oslo on the matter of nationalism/racism. If I get him right, he claims something to the extent of that there is somehow a problem with immigrants not having the same “culture” inside themselfs that Norwegians have and that it somehow leads to a problem of increased lisening to macho-music and the rol back of women’s rights. To me all that sounds like a bunch of hidden racism, and our discussions got quite heated. Most of all though, I was surprised by his reaction – of me identifying with other immigrant groups, although… well, basically although I’m white and from another West European country (or several).

Well, I thought of this, and I rediscovered much of my starting point down here in Schleswig/Slesvig (the border land). On December 20, the Danish newspaper for Schleswig-Holstein ran a one-page story on how my family celebrates christmas (below in English):

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Activism, Analysis, etc.

Who should get the Nobel peace prize? The IAEA, El Baradei, both or none?

December 6, 2005 johanneswilm Leave a comment

The fall semester is about to be over, and so along come all these causes that one needs to go on the streets for again. Two of the main actions our peace group from the university is involved in is protesting the spread of nuclear technology for civilian use by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Of course, it’s leader El Baradei is mostly known for trying to control the nuclear plans of countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea. And surely, that makes him a worthy recepient of the Nobel Peace prize. However, it is not only the IAEA that has a second agenda in its back hand, but also El Baradei ended a presentation on the future of nuclear power in Paris this spring with the words: “It is my hope that, during this conference, we can consider how each of these factors can be addressed, to ensure that nuclear energy remains a viable source of safe, secure and environmentally benign energy.”

Now one should certainly be critical of nuclear proliferation of any kind, but does that mean that one can’t receive the Nobelpeace prize? I have decided for myself that I can support El Baradei personally, for the work connected to trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, but I strongly disagree with the IAEA and its work on the spread of atomic energy – and the pure existence of nuclear power plants also makes it a lot easier to built those nuclear weapons.
(read also this letter in Aftenposten that I signed)
Another issue we’re involved in is the Norwegian Oil Corporation (DNO), as they are now the first foreign oil company to actually drill in the region. Our first action on the matter was small, but we got some media attention anyways. I think it is important especially for the foreign media to see that also Norwegians protest this stuff. besides, it is one fo the few cases where we’re actualyl resposnible for protesting against the “Norwegian capital” when they’re trying to exploit foreign people and regions – and that is probably the most important point in making sure one is on the right side in the international class struggle, if you wanna get all Marxist about it…

Activism, Analysis, etc.

Sometimes you have to be insane to see the beauty of this world!

November 23, 2005 johanneswilm Leave a comment

So Germany finally got a Chancelorete!
But that is not all. Not everything seems to be the same in good old (west-)Germany these days: both Social Democrats and Conservatives are now led by East Germans. Although this fact has triggered some to announce that the whole German unification to be one huge trick with the real plan being a west ward expansion of the GDR, the East Germans in charge in those two parties re unfortunately of the hardcore anti-communist kind.

seeing the world from the perspective of a cynic

But how much longer will this whole charade go on? Not many more years, at least if we are to believe Schröder’s wife, Mrs. Köpf-Schröder; for Schröder’s military good-bye reception she chose the song “Mackie Messer” (in addition to “Summertime” by George Gershwin and Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”.). The “Mackie-Messer”-song is part of the “Three Penny Opera” and displays the social decay of the late Weimar Republic (that is the Germany that was before the Third Reich – led by the social democrats with the communists voted mainly by unemployed).
Continue reading Sometimes you have to be insane to see the beauty of this world! →

Items that do not fit in other categories

time for cynicism

November 23, 2005 johanneswilm Leave a comment

Hey, dear readers of my random thoughts and analysis!
This is the time of the year when you can get cynical – Christmas is not quite here yet, and if you were to achieve anything special this yea the time for that probably was sring, when everything looked brighter and lighter each day. Instead, at least here in Oslo, Norway, we have the equivanet of the amound of rain that we have during the rest of the year, and it’s cloudy most of the time – although still not resembling anywhere close to the level of bad weather that one can experience in Schuby. I said fall is nice and the colors are bright and warm? Well, yes, they are, but when you’re close to run out of money (like me), things look a whole lot different. Every drop of energy that I am loosing due to exposure of my skin to the weather turns into another post on the budget in the form of food.
Of course I have tried to move things around in the energy/food/money-equation by trying to convert some of the consumation of food into intake of pure heat – or “energy” as it’s also called. And why? Well heat is simple, and heat doesn’t cost anything for a person living in a student house. Unfortunately did it only take me a day to figure out that cranking up the heat to the maximum (in my room, the kitchen and the bathroom) as well as leaving an open oven blow air that supposedly is close to 200 centigrade right into my living space only makes me dizzy and the huger doesn’t quite disappear…
And it’s not only me. One of my friends met me yesterday at the food court at the university: “I have to confess, I’m not the considerate and reflected perosn you think I am,” he started, “I really am rather neurotic.” As he explained, he had stopped paying his electricity bill since January, and either that included his internet bill or he ddn’t pay that either. “They first turned the internet speed down, but then they turned the entire electricity of, “he was about to give me an overview og his situation, “yesterday I was sitting there which a jacket and a scarf warming myself with a candle.”
He now spends most of his time at the univeristy in order to get as warm as possible during the day. And although the bill has been paid, it will take quite a long time before they will turn electricity back on. “And they’ll take 2000 kr. for it!”, my friend is outraged, although 2000kr (roughly 125 USD) is the “slow and cheap version”, which will turn his energy back on much slower than the “expensive and fast version” for 3000kr.

Items that do not fit in other categories

High flying crap

November 17, 2005 johanneswilm 1 Comment

Ah, seems like I have become a hate object for some!

Here is what one guy send to Universitas through his mobile:

Forsøkte å lese kronikken til wilm. 1/3 sa hvorfor han skrev den 1/3 presenterte kandidater 1/3 ??? Noe om frihet, markedsfundamentalisme og inndeling etter politisk ståsted. Hvis han søker å engasjere bør han skrive norsk og ikke retardert. Maken til intetsigende svevende fjas! Får han stipend? Anonym

which renders to something like:

Tried reading Wilm’s “kronikk” (a sort of long extended letter to the editor). 1/3 he wrote why he chose to srite, 13 he presented the candidates, 1/3 ??? Something about freedom, market fundamentalism and divisions according to political standpoint. If he’strying to activate people, he should write Norwegian and not retarded. Pure contentless flying crap! Does he get a stipend?

Well, the writer is probably right that it looks a bit like what any politician would write in wording, etc.- but to my defense I’d say that I actually came up with arguments why one should vote for those candidates I endorsed based on their political plattforms.

But anyways, I support any effort to dethrone figures of seeming authority, and so I can only say: more power to you!

Juh! (Sydslesvigian scream pronouned “yooh” which means “and the world continues turning… go on, give us more mono-national hell, we’ve had so much we’ll survive some more as well!”)

Johannes Wilm