Travel Log #15

August 31, 2009

I have three-and-a-half hours to spare in Schipol before I board my long-awaited flight to Tel Aviv. But I promised you Turks. You'll get them this time. I promise.

In the meantime, my European adventures are at a close. The most advanced German I have ended up with is most unuseful unless I find myself in some sex fantasy theatre shop, but I have no idea why I would spend my money on a schamhaar toupe. Look it up yourself. Don't ask. Kate Winslet apparently had a need.

In Luxembourg, I avoided French, as usual, and learned a tiny bit more of Italian. Also, it was just as wonderful as I remembered. I met more extremely nice people, from Portugal, to Italy, to Israel, to France, to Belgium. The fairy dust hung in the air. My visits with old friends and colleagues were spectacular and I wish I could stay forever just so that I can see them as often as I want.

As for my promise, my last days in Berlin have left me with continued speculation, even twelve days out. I suppose what I mean by "giving you Turks" is not necessarily "Turks" per say, but minorities--anywhere--and the notion of Diaspora.

In Germany, as I have mentioned, the largest minority (and growing) is that of the Muslim Turks. They began entering the country around thirty years ago as "guest workers"--people invited in to help boost the country's economy as cheap labor, and later, encouraged to stay, in the early 2000s, with the opening up of Germany's borders in order to make it appear and actually be, on paper, an "immigrant country", also known as "accepting of minorities". I view this as yet another aspect of vergangenheitsgewaltigung, the untranslateable word for German "reconciliation", "making better again", or "coming to terms with" Germany's history as a society and as individuals. Gewalt--it can never be better again. This is an eternal, ongoing process of the prevention of hatred and genocide that can only be overcome by the individual in his constant vigilance against a past that repeats itself constantly under different names.

Of course, Germany is composed of human beings. So, the immigrants come in and are ghettoed off into their own neighborhoods. It is both a self-imposed isolation as well as one passively sanctioned by the host society. As for the Turks, many third-generation Germans already, have a loose handle of the Turkish and German languages, and sometimes a very great command of both. Yet "assimilation" is not happening easily. Like Jewish identity, are they Muslim Turks in Germany, German Turks of the Islamic religion, German Turks, Turkish Germans, etcetera, etcetera, you get the point.

It is a question of home, of homeland, of Heimat. Wherever they go, they will not be entirely welcome, nor entirely dismissed as "Other". To make themselves feel more acculturated or assimilated, many "official organizations" spring up that claim to represent the Turks in Germany. But, like any other minority, there are various groups and factions. Who can claim to represent anyone at this rate? We have anit-assimilationists, raidcal zealots, assimilationists, secularists. The list goes on.

The big question asked is: "Why can't the Turkish minority in Germany assimilate smoothly in one generation or less like the Jews? For the more liberal Turks, a partnership has been formed with the "Jewish Community" of Germany (whatever that means--we've already been through Jews in Germany). Human rights groups batter the ball back and forth across the net with the German government and the populace.

Minorities band together, if we can, under many labels. The truest label is not given, though--it is hard to label vagabonds who feel themselves permanently settled but not quite at home. It is the "packed suitcase" mentality.

When I applied to LBSU I had a notion of "home" that lacked concrete definition, and a notion of being a "Diaspora Jew" that has now been upset at the least. Most likely, it has been overturned. "Diaspora"--those dispursed from a homeland--"diasporic"--those who (literally translated) are monsters in a strange land. Eventually, that strange land becomes home, perhaps even Heimat, to those monsters, but they remain different, Other, monsters to the majority. Masked beneath their assimilation, they speak the local language flawlessly, perhaps they speak no other language, perhaps they speak it more correctly than their assumed "mother tongue"; their dress is like the majority's; their skin, hair, mannerisms, all match those of the populace. Assimilation is good camouflage but minorities, though masked beneath assimilation, remain cloaked in their alterity. It is an assumed and, inevitably, an inherent difference. It is most often a difference imposed upon them. Nonetheless, there is a separation.

Before I left the United States, I wrote an essay that railed against the American Jewish Community for being particularly hypocritical. I said that we have forgotten the meaning of being Jewish, that their preaching of charity is too often merely empty rhetoric because what is preached is all too often not practiced. Of course this is an anthropomorphic phenomenon, but I like to hold my own to a higher standard, as I do myself. I finished by caustically reminding us that true assimilation is impossible (look what happened in Germany, after all) and that we must, above all, cling to our roots.

Yet Germany has swallowed me and spat me back out again. In the process of digestion, it dawned on me that I did not have it quite right in regard to American Jews. I said that they act as such precisely because they--we--are allowed to in America. My flaw was in assuming that the people I come from knowingly practice their hypocrisy--again, precisely because we are allowed to. This is the blessing and the curse, and the unfortunate nature of Jews and probably many other minorities in the United States: we are allowed to assimilate, acculturate, so well that we forget the fact that assimilation and/or acculturation has occurred. It has occurred so thoroughly that mainstream American accepts us, becomes us, allows us to become it. My criticism has changed now. Do not take this fact for granted: We are all too often American Jews.

I will explain. In Germany, I realized that because of the United States' natural order of acceptance of most (not all, because doctrine only goes so far), that I can be an American Jew and fully accepted. This is why I must not be one. I am, and proudly, a Jewish American. If it is a matter of Heimat, I was born in mine. Ethnically, I have another and I am en route, but I cast my votes primarily in the interest of the former.

I am anti-Diaspora, another notion introduced to me in Germany. I bring my home with me and it is not attached necessarily to a physical place, but a spiritual one. I long for nowhere as home, except for America, because it is only there where "in the beginning all the world was...". And I take it with me--American is everywhere, and I don't just mean commercially. The Dream is everywhere. American is made of everyone and in so, I can find it everywhere and take the brunt of the diatribe against me for knowing only one language, although that is soon to change. I can go home and be home anywhere because that is the nature of America and "all come to look for" whether for good or for bad, whether for dreams of creation or destruction. I am aware that since America is composed of populations representing everyone from everywhere, it carries within it both the best and worst of all worlds. In turn, it creates a new one everyday.

It is potential, realized and growing. The world is big and full of people. We all have the same potential, the same virtues and flaws. But the more I travel, the more I realize that there is only one place (at least in my experience) that carries out that potential kinetically so well. And so I am proud to be a Jewish American--an American, because that carries more weight than most things.

It will be a year until I see her again. It is boarding time.

23:15
This plane flies forward, accelerating time. This kind of travel underlines the arbitrary nature of the clock. We continue to move against the grain. The moon is bright and waxing. It reminds me of my last flight involving Israel. It was flying west, back home, and the moon was low and orange-pink against the sky of Tel Aviv. I whispered goodbye. I was seventeen. The rest of that flight has completely flown from my memory.

In the Luxembourg airport, I had to pay over $200 for my excess baggage or throw it out. Guess which one I chose? I'm not that cheap. United States baggage policies are so much better than Europe's. Only 20kg period. And 15 Euros for every ADDITIONAL kilo. I was twenty over. The man was nice. He told them it was only 10. Still an FML moment. I'm throwing my life out over the course of this year, or shipping everything by snail mail.

On the City Hopper flight from Luxembourg to Amsterdam, I had the pleasure of sitting next to this very large, smelly guy from Denver who was either reading his paper, sticking his elbow into me, or complaining to the flight attendants. I had to go through passport control again to switch gates in Schipol. A three-and-a-half hour layover ensued.

During the layover, I got the last bit of writing done. In the middle, I decided to eat the food I packed and in my normal clod fashion, ended up with water all over me, the notebook, and the seats around me. After I dried that up, I resumed writing. I have also finally started reading The Adventures of Amir Hamza. (Thank you, my wonderful friend--you know who you are--you know me and my tastes far too well.) For those of you who don't know of this tale, it is the Indo-Persian Islamic epic of the Medieval Period. Adventure, magic, mythology at its greatest. It excellent, particularly for learning of what it is that people dream and how.

The flight to Tel Aviv is rather pleasant. My iPod layers over the screaming babies. KLM by far has the best airplane food I have ever encountered. Good seatmates, too--this time from Norway. However, the flight is completely full, so they took Therem away at the gate and put her in cabin baggage. She will hopefully be returned unharmed at the gate in Tel Aviv. My Weimar vase will hopefully be unharmed, too. It is very padded, but you can never tell with how airport luggage people throws things around. And let us hope my luggage actually makes it.

Right now, a million stories are buzzing through my head but none of them are solid. They are gestating and will come out when they are ready. At the same time, I am thinking of what I am missing: the first day off classes at Clark University. I have left my life behind and am going forward into the absolute unknown. I know that I am crazy. My views are not deluded.

The plane continues forward--through turbulence.