Safe Spaces: BE.BOP 2016. BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS. CALL & RESPONSE

Berlin chronicles. Am in Berlin as one of the writers on a Daad Fellowship.. This is one of the most prestigious fellowships in the world. Berlin is a city of bikes. I live in Charlottenburg. You don't see black people in Charlottenburg. Today I was out shopping on my bike. I came out of Peek and Somethingburg all excited because I am off to dar es salaam tonight to see my in -love. Anyway am busy rushing about. My gorgeous apartment is a mess. Anyway, I am walking as carelessly as usual heading to unlock my bike when i see her - a black woman looking at me. She says, " I saw you the other day, cycling carelessly, on Saturday we buried 4 Ghanians. They kill you just like that you are nothing to them. Me-you cant see me on bicycle - they are supposed to remain 4 metres from you, but they don't. They kill you. I don't need a degree to say she meant Germans. But I am careless, and Berlin is a city designed for careless people. Except her - and I suspect they are many others like her. Anyway, I left her carelessly and rushed home, put my new clothes on top of my suitcase - and called a cab. I had finished my prescription medication the day before so I had called the cab company I like because they dont mind that i dont speak German and - since my stroke I have a few speech defects - ...and they don't mind. The cab was waiting. I got in, sat down carelessly and started to look for the address for where (I) was going on my phone. And the website of the clinic i was going to was one of those that maybe dont fit a phone so well. Any way it took a long to me to get the address. Clearly the taxi driver was not a patient guy. He asked me several times to hurry it, but  the meter is running, and i am paying him? So he gets out of the car and comes across to my side, and opens the door. I am clueless what is going on because he is beating me, my bag is on the ground , we scuffle but he is stronger, I am crying now. Loud. In front of my neighbors , it is fiveissh the lady at the shop who makes it a point never to say hello to me is relishing everything, nobody comes to my aid. I feel black, dirty. I feel as if this kind of thing is supposed to happen to somebody like me. Am in Zurich writing this, on my way to see my in love -- Binyavanga Wainaina, Kenyan Writer (Facebook Update, June 1)

BE.BOP 2016 kicked off on June 1st in Berlin. Unbeknownst to many of us, while we not only spoke about "safe spaces" and indeed, collectively created one, the above incident took place and points to something much larger, a truth that seems to be breathing down the backs of woke people of color the world over. There is a war going on. A multi-pronged war. There are real wars and invisible wars. But there is a pecking order to this, a hierarchy of sorts. You can see it when Blacks are murdered, beaten up whether here in Europe or in the U.S. You see it when rape stories are paraded through the newspapers with all its gory details - for although the victims are mostly always white women (we don't count) - it still points to the fact that in this world, they (we) are not valued. Either.  We see it on the war on reproductive rights that is happening all over the world from the land of the free to places such as Ireland.  We see it when the LGBT community - especially those of color-  are murdered. And the news only tell us that there is no justice to be had.  The news ensure that we get the message. We do not matter. When a Black politician is murdered in Sweden, what is the sound that the media makes? 

It is no coincidence that Wainaina is attacked around the time BE.BOP 2016 is to kick off. It is no coincidence that this racist incident occurred in Berlin. For although I love Berlin (it reminds me so much of New York - the great expanse of it, the sheer number of difference) it seems as if Berlin too, cannot escape the wrath of ignorance that seems to have been accelerated after the election of Obama ("I've never realized how many friends of mine were racists, until Obama became president", a white friend said to me upon my last visit to the States.)  And Europe cannot sit here and ridicule America, say "shame on you," as it would like to do when Europe's backyard is just as littered with the bodies of those escaping wars that Europe herself has initiated, only to close her borders creating a much-too well-orchestrated deathtrap and/or containment for the souls who are fleeing either the violence of poverty or wars. The poverty a result of Empire, raping and looting. The wars a result of flooding countries with weapons from companies who sell their stocks publicly along with carving up territory with the patriarchal arrogance embedded in lording over land.  It is funny how the word "radical" has been hijacked to mean "extremist", when in fact it merely means to take something from the root as in, what is the root of all of this? 

Before Jeannette Ehlers' beautiful and healing parade through the streets of Berlin I was presented with an anthology in which I am included along with Manuela Boatca, Erna Brodber, Artwell Cain, Teresa Diaz Nerio, Yoel Diaz Vazquez, Simmi Dully, Jeannette Ehlers, Fatima El Tayeb, Patricia Kaersenhout, Walter Mignolo, Quinsy Gario, Julia Roth, Robbie Shilliam and Rolando Vazquez. The anthology, in Spanish is testimony of the spirit of Pan-Africanism. Pulling together writers, academics, artists from all over the world - this book to me is BE.BOP 2016 distilled. It is the spirit of what BE.BOP captures, how it is is able to call out to us the world over, and gather us, and provide, if just for a little while, a safe space. 

Alanna Lockward Director of Art Labour Archives. Initiator and Curator of BE.BOP.

A safe space. I hear this a lot, have even uttered it in panel discussions, claiming that such a thing could be had when the sad reality is that none of us are safe. Whether it's from each other's ego, racism, patriarchy - I've often mused at how our relationship to Empire and colonialism is often much like that of being in abused relationships. It gets so off that the very organizations that claim to want to protect you are the first ones to sell you down that river.  Everyone wants to be a revolutionary with a lot of money.  Folks talk about liberation while chowing down on oppressed flesh. 

Safe spaces. BE.BOP 2016 did do this for me, if just for a few days- but it was so necessary. And it not only did this for me, but for countless others as well. And it is in this spirit I would like to thank Alanna Lockward and the BE.BOP crew. 

I will continue with my reflections and features of artists. Stay tuned.