Einigkeit, und Recht und Freiheit....

It is 7:00 on Saturday morning, and Berlin is providing me with proof that it is the city that never sleeps - there is a group of very drunk, very loud young men singing the German National Anthem at the top of their lungs outside my window. Now I don't hate German per se, but any time people raise their voices while speaking it I get a little uncomfortable. Also, the melody of the National Hymn has not changed since the Second World War, so that is a bit disconcerting. Oh, it is all okay you see because they use different words now (a different stanza from the same epic poem). Somehow this does not make me feel more at ease.

I found all of this out a few years ago when I was asked to sing O Canada for the festivities celebrating the reunification of Germany at the German Consulate in Vancouver. They had engaged a German opera singer who was singing with the Vancouver Opera, but he had rehearsal, so they asked me. I was reticent, but it was a job so I accepted. They then inquired if I would be so kind to sing the German National Anthem as well , and I was a little more reticent, but I had already accepted and the reception was the next day. I agreed. And then I went to the library to try to find the music and discovered that they did indeed still use the same melody as the Nazis did.

Had I known this, I probably would have declined their invitation, but it was too late and so on the appointed day I sang - pretty sure that I was going to be struck down at any minute. I wasn't, and when I was finished singing, I noticed an Israeli professor from UBC staring at me quite intently. She asked me how I could live with myself singing that particular piece. I told her that I was a music student and needed the money, and that they had kindly asked me to sing. I asked her what she was doing at a party at the German Consulate. She choked on her bratwurst and I got a beer.

I have extensive training in singing words and music that I don't identify with, or which are patently against my personal beliefs and frankly offensive to me. Most classical vocal music is ostensibly about either about Jesus or being in love with a women, and I don't really "get" either. If you are a musician, you must always try to find the deeper universal meaning of the piece you are performing, in order to communicate it to as wide an audience as possible. If you are a human being living on planet earth, you will probably have to make some sort of moral compromise in the course of your days, or find a way to rationalize your actions in a way that allows you to live with yourself. In my case, I turned these words and this melody into a prayer of sorts.... I prayed that the German nation strive for unity and righteousness and freedom - as the words of the anthem state.

I can live with that. I would not have survived the alternative.

One of the happy results of my gig at the German Consulate was meeting my friend Arvedt, who organized the whole thing. We became fast friends, and last summer I visited him in Bonn.
Arvedt is always trying to show me a rosy picture of Germany - the food, the Rhine, the trains that run on time (don't get me started). I find that very touching because he loves his country and his heritage, as he should. And I get carried away in it too, because I want to. Because I want to see the best in Germany. I want to forget.

But there is always something that brings me back to a reality I would rather not see, something that reminds me that Germany is a friend with whom I must always keep some measure of distance.

One morning, in Bonn, Arvedt and I were eating breakfast in a small café in the main town square. It was a pretty spectacular morning, and the buildings were as quaint as could be. We had just come from a bike ride down the Rhine and I was getting mentally prepared to go back to Berlin for rehearsals. On that particular day, there was a soccer match between Bonn and Cologne, which meant much excitement, and the usual crowds of drunken youth which accompany such events. I did not pay them much heed, and continued to eat. They were more an annoyance than anything else, until one of them started shouting

"Wo sind die Juden?"

And all at once, my carefully constructed picture of Germany - of kaffee und kuchen and dirndls and Bach crumbled to pieces. For this was the rallying cry of the Crusaders who massacred Jews in the Rhine valley 1000 years ago....in the exact spot where I now sat. This was proof positive that lurking beneath the surface of this carefully constructed country of basic laws and grand coalitions there still lurked something sinister. I looked at Arvedt, and he tried to explain to me that they didn't really mean Jews in the precise meaning of the word, but actually supporters of the Cologne soccer team. I don't know if he told me this to make me feel better, or to rationalize what was happening in his mind, but whatever the reason, it did not work. I started shaking and we eventually had to leave.

At that moment, I felt very sorry for Arvedt. When I think about that morning I do not think about the fear that gripped me or the disgust or the incredulity - I think about the look on Arvedt's face. For here was a good friend and a person who had spent their whole life working to be a decent and honest person - someone who would, damn it, dispel those awful stereotypes about Germans. Here was a kind man, a person who had tried in every action to be decent and fair - to be an example, to make up for the past. And it seemed as though all of that work - that picture of what it meant to be German for him - was being shattered too.

He never let me see that for long, and he never admitted to it. He told me not to worry about it. He told me to forget what happened. Let's go to the church and place flowers on Schumann's grave, he said - let's go to the Haribo factory and buy all the candy we can carry! I went along with it, not knowing what else to do, not knowing what else to say. I went along with it as much for him as for me. I went along with it because I wanted to forget what happened.

Of course I cannot forget, nor should I. If remembering - or being aware - means that my outlook is a little less rosy, so be it. If it means that I question what Germany is and what it represents for me - good and bad, that is okay too.

I can live with that. I cannot survive the alternative.