Facebook or Thagrid is learning German
I go shopping. He is doing the dishes. They are tidying up.
Compound verbs and the accentuation of the German prefix. Thagrid is having a giggle over placing prefixes at the end of sentences. It's an easy one. Her German grammar rap underlines the stuffing of a weekly supply of cigarettes. Her nephew is conjugating sein ("to be") and haben ("to have") up and down, forwards and backwards. He is learning with the help of his tablet and an online language course.
"How come your German is so bad?" Bereket asks everyone who has been to Germany for more than six months and is still unable to form sentences following the principle of subject, predicate and object. "Why your blah so bad?" the addressee is criticized.
When Diwali met a young woman in Berlin it was love at first sight. Soon they became lovers and Bereket lost his cool: "Who? Diwali? That is impossible! How can he I-love-you without blah?"
This is what he learned over the past year and a half: Hardly any relationship will work without language. Bereket's knowledge leads us to the philosopher Wittgenstein. To avoid complicating things by using to much blah, here is a quote by the Austrian author Peter Rosei, reflecting on Wittgenstein's thought in his own words - while "awfully simplifying" it:
"Make an effort to get to know your tools as they are your only devices to confront the world - with regard to your mental activity your tool is language. Be aware, that your tool may not go too far, as there runs the border of the world; all else is happening."1
"What kind of crap is that? Good luck for what? All I can see is that this must be a very stupid person. What was he thinking when in Europe? That only refugees are running around here?"2
Lopsided sentences - inaccurate in orthography and grammar; chunks of words, expressing fragmentary thinking. Unfortunately the post under Ez Aldin's photo on the Museum Europäischer Kulturen's facebook page is not a good example for German spelling, that is the difference between "das" (the article) and "dass" (the conjunction) - but in fact Kacke (i.e. crap): a smelly pile of comments underneath Ez Aldin's photo. Ez Aldin, the pharmacist from Homs in Syria, who was amazed by the diversity of people of different origin in Germany. In Syria he says there were only Arabs.
Facebook has never been famous for being a compendium of contemporary poetry - it is in fact a book of faces, with blurry facial features though and a borrowed expression.
When the wolves howl, farted words will be signed by Teutons hard as iron. With lowered visors they attack bare faces. The aggressor's profile pictures are a motley crew of trading stickers: cute pictures of animals from the cuddly corner, seascapes with gabbling swans and other funny water birds. And then there is the heroic department: pictures of combats, soldier's romanticism, and commander's habitus. One crept under Cesar's toga, clinging to him and dreaming of veni-vidi-vici.
They name the "school of life" as their reference. Obviously, that is a path leading offside rather than to higher awareness.
As the black square suggests, the author of "What kind of crap is that?" is "not in the mood for a picture." Her profile picture is neither extreme nor pointing to the arty avant-garde of early 20th century. It has more of a dim negative. It might as well be an icon for mental power failure.
In comic strips, a little black square almost always symbolizes the night. Everybody understands that. The next picture may be the cone of light of a flashlight or a speech bubble with "zzzz" in it. The first will give away that there is a burglar; the second tells us that the hero is asleep.
It would have been wonderful if the writer of that comment had simply turned off the light to go to sleep. Ideally with a huge layer of relaxing facial mask on her tired skin. That way, she would have been able to show her face again the next day.
However, it is a nightmare to envision her, dancing around Stonehenge at full moon together with like-minded people, paying homage to the Teutons.
What is wrong with her? Is she a fan of black magic? Maybe a mystic? Turning towards the good or the bad? Is she holding a Black Mass while praying to Satan or does she like massages and perfumed candles?
Her facebook photo album combines the apocalypse and her last family vacation, a zebra, the zoo, a cat. More end of the world than Noah's Ark. There is a picture of her children sitting in dim light in barren land, looking for light on the horizon. One is reminded of the deserted Eastern countryside, the memory of baiting asylum seekers in the Saxon village of Clausnitz - but no: the writer lives in Kreuzberg.
"To deal violently with a guest is considered as a sacrilege; who comes to them [the Germans] for any reason, will be protected from injustice and treated like an inviolable; all houses will be open for him and he may take part in their lives."
That is a quote by Gaius Julius Caesar.
Veni, vidi, vici
I am, you are, he / she / it is - welcome!
Thagrid is learning German