2023-09-30 14:59:52
I’m still in a daze from last night. There we were on stage at the “German Television Prize” and received a prize for our documentary about Afghanistan and Germany’s failure in this war.
We sat for almost five hours before our category was announced, so I had plenty of time to reflect on what we experienced in May 2022, last year. I sat there, thinking about Amir, the Afghan sound engineer who has been asking for a year if I can help him get to Germany. Amir, who speaks fluent English, who is a worldly man, with a beautiful beard, eyelashes as long as a butterfly’s wings. When Amir talked to me in Afghanistan, about his country, about the songs and the grapes, about the hopes and longings, then I felt sad. And I took him in my arms, his beard tickled the back of my neck.
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I think of him while my colleagues from ZDF are sitting in front of me, they have been nominated for a film about the World Cup in Qatar, we look at each other nervously. We grant each other the prize, but actually everyone wants to win it for themselves. The heat in these Cologne studios is always on the verge of unbearable, my hands are sticky from rubbing so much, I’m starting to get hungry. Whether I can get up for a moment and get drinks for myself and my colleagues who are here with me today. For Theresa, from Kabul airlift, for the cameraman Michael, with whom the Taliban fighters at the street posts always fell in love, who blew him kisses, and Michael caught them in the Kabul spring and threw them back.
So in this audience of TV people I’m thinking of the Kabul Spring and therefore also of the Afghan springs, which were very dangerous for 20 years. When the snow on the mountains melted, the Taliban came into the city and they set off fireworks, without any lights, just out of suffering. The explosions tore people and destinies apart. Fifty-year-old AK47s fired wetly, that’s how this machine gun sounds, wet and direct, into the night sky.
I heard that too, I think, during the awards ceremony. I narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when I was in Kabul for the first time in 2017. A bomb attack not far from our secret hotel where we had to sleep so that the Taliban wouldn’t kidnap us. A second attack, a few hours later, in the same place. 17 journalists died that day.
If we win, I will mention Amir
So I’m sitting there in this audience and I’m having these thoughts, thinking about this country that can’t calm down. Also think that Afghanistan is forgotten. Think Iran is forgotten, Armenia will be forgotten, Ukraine will also fade into the background. Prizes for films, for articles, for photos are awarded, put on shelves, fees become higher, recognition increases. And these wars, the conflicts continue. Our film, the text I wrote for Focus back then, a millisecond in the reality of my Afghan friends.
I think about Amir again, I tap my feet nervously on the floor, the event doesn’t want to end. I didn’t respond to his last WhatsApp. He wrote again two weeks ago asking if I could help him, he had to go to Germany. He gets sick here in this country that is no longer his home. Amir is in his early twenties and grew up in an Afghanistan that was dangerous, but free for people like him. He could be, now he has to hide.
I think, if we win, I’ll mention Amir, prepare a speech in my head. Wants to warn against the most powerful weapon of war, forgetting and ignoring. I don’t want to sound heavy, I want to sound delicate, I want to warn but don’t want to show off, I don’t want to be an activist, I want to be a human being.
I think of Friedrich Merz and get angry
Suddenly we’re sitting on the nominees’ couch, very close to the stage, the winner is about to be announced, I think of Friedrich Merz and get angry. With his uncouth hatred, Friedrich Merz means Amir, means my friend. Who comes to Germany to survive, not to have his teeth done.
With this sentence, Friedrich Merz mocks the fear of all people on the run; he mocks me, every person who knows reality. Friedrich Merz doesn’t know her. Friedrich Merz only knows himself.
Then we are announced that we have won. Stumbling onto the stage, drunk with pride, 2000 eyes looking at us, hot, my face is shining, Sky du Mont is presenting the prizes, there’s the microphone stand, the suit is pinching my bottom from all the sitting. I stand in front of the microphone, my heart beating wildly against the inside of my shirt.
I’m not saying anything about what I’ve planned.
I no longer think about Amir as I stand drunk at the bar with the award, being praised for our work.
But I hope he’s still alive.
#Amir #Germany #survive