Bildungsstreik

Thursday, 18 June 2009 – 11:30am

Back in Berlin. My two weeks in Colorado were very nice, a spree of visiting with people I like, spending a lot of money replacing my things, and hiking. The biggest surprise to me was how little effort I had to make to reintegrate into American society—whether this is due to spending much of my time in Damascus with ex-pats, the shortness of my time abroad, or the brain’s uncanny ability to adjust to new surroundings, I am not sure. I appreciated the ease of communicating in English—people understood me, and I understood them, amazing!. On the other hand, I struggle with a feeling of laziness. The US is easy, which isn’t personally satisfying.

It has been a month to the day since I last studied Arabic, and I’m starting to feel the agony of Not Doing Anything With My Life. Also, the horror of Oh No, I Have Forgotten All Of My Arabic. I have never travelled for over a month before, and I think the time off is taking a toll. I like seeing places and people, but I’m also weary of leaving places and people behind. I also hate feeling like I am not contributing to, well, anything. I really need a job. Or, at least, to get back to University. But mostly, a job. God, I want a job.

But Berlin does offer exciting forms of social demonstration! The students are on an education strike (Bildungsstreik) in protest of, well, a variety of things, some of which I judge legitimate (discrimination against foreign students, for example: if a German student cannot pay health insurance he is kicked out of school until he can, but if a foreign student cannot pay health insurance he is kicked out of the country. Granted, any system that kicks out students for not being able to pay health insurance seems strange, but, hey, the system does come down stranger on the foreigners) and some of which I mock for seeming, well, excessive (no exam time limits! Free education for all! Less difficult homework!) The Germans already only pay 1000 Euro on average for a year of college education, so I find the demand for “free” a little ostentatious.

Yesterday, after two days of seminars and months of planning, thousands of German high school and university students took the streets and marched on Berlin. In the best manner of German protests the entire event had been planned ahead of time, and police stood on the sides of the roads blocking off traffic. Flat-bed trucks rolled along in the middle of huge crowds blasting music while the students carried signs and yelled. The march ended up at Humboldt Universitaet where students proceeded to “occupy” the buildings and courtyards. We ended up eating lunch in the University cafeteria (which felt bizarre while protesting the University), then I took a nap in the squatted floor of a different University building that has been turned into an open space for strike students to eat bread and play foosball.

The strike is supposed to only last a week, but it officially ends when the strike planners call it off, which itself presumably depends on the University Administration’s willingness to meet the students’ demands. Considering the University President was hanging out in the courtyard looking entirely unconcerned by the slew of students running around his institution demanding free education and reform, I wonder what sort of change will actually happen. Until then: photos!