Walk Like an Egyptian in Stuttgart

Abdallah Daif came from Cairo, Egypt, to live in Stuttgart, Germany, for some time. In his pensive account of his stay he writes about the Stuttgart pace of life; it's always: walk fast - and don't waste your time…

Abdallah Daif (photo: privat)
To Daif, people in Stuttgart seemed too much focused on speed and time

​​Life in a trade-oriented city like Stuttgart was an unusual experience for me. In this city everything is determined by the flow of money, the ups and downs of stock market quotes. The rhythm of everyday life there could not be more different from one determined by art and culture. Full of curiosity, I set out to discover the details of this new world.

Time determines all

In the morning you join the crowds of workers waiting at the curb for the light to turn green so they can cross the street. You get used to looking from your watch to the light. As a driver you know to display a clever nonchalance while putting a CD in the CD player that will lighten up your mood while waiting at a red light.

You also have to absorb the daily ritual of habitual indifference that sets in when it's time to return home after the day's work is done. Without paying any attention to your environment, distracted by small talk with a colleague about work, which might be abruptly interrupted when you part ways at the next corner, you sink down onto a bench at the subway station, ready to begin another wait.

And meanwhile you avoid even the slightest sense of regret at the sight of a woman who has just had the subway door slammed shut in her face.

A certain lack of contact, a lack of unity

The structure of this city reflects the fear and waiting, or the waiting and fearing, as two inextricable components that determine the life of an individual who wants to take part in the equation that holds this city together.

Waiting – legitimately – for the chance that will perhaps never come, fear of missing an opportunity that is just taking shape, fear of losing a relative sense of security, waiting for more security or an alternative kind of security. This combination of factors creates a certain lack of contact, a lack of unity that would insure some form of individual contact for everyone.

Individuality means uniqueness, a uniqueness in which everyone together makes up a unity that consists of separate islands. As if this would express the individual's independence from society and in turn society's independence from its constituent individuals.

The preservation of the smallest cultural denominator

Taking Max Planck's introduction to quantum theory into account, according to which an atom is only neutral when its total weight is greater than the sum of its individual parts, you can explain this life as a way to protect community. The cultural and social components of this society can be summed up as the preservation of the smallest cultural denominator, such as the preference for a certain kind of bread on Sundays, which can be traced back to an old Stuttgart tradition.

In this way it becomes possible to integrate cultural and social components from other cultures that take the place of those traditions a society has meanwhile lost. Just one example of this, as I see it, is the rise of a Turkish culture that is closely tied to German culture. This has gone so far that the Turkish Döner kebab has become one of the most familiar German foods.

The emergence of this German-Turkish culture raises several questions for me – primarily personal ones – about the nature of an open society that has the ability to integrate the other and allow it to play a role, such that others can live in this society and become part of the German culture. How far can this melting pot go, and in which direction?

Huntington, Hasan, Derrida

I looked for an answer to these questions when I was on the way to Hanover, where the Evangelical Church Day was to take place. The number of young people gathered for the event was enormous. However, the young people limited their activities to missionary work and supporting groups that are particularly in need. It is interesting to note in this context that the average age in German society is 45 – the number of young Germans is declining, and at the same time unemployment for youths is increasing. Under similar circumstances in the Middle East the spread of extremist religious currents arose.

If we can speak of the emergence of extremist religious currents in Europe, in particular in Germany, this brings to mind Huntington's theory that religion will gain strength in Europe, which also fits in with Ihab Hasan's theory of changing centers – which in turn can be traced back to the philosophy of Jacques Derrida.

With the fall of Soviet power in the countries of the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, other centers arise which are characterized by their own kind of extremism, for example the conservative right in the United States and Al Qaida in Afghanistan, and smaller religious and armed states emerged (in the Middle East) following the Second World War.

These questions call up more new questions and the only thing left for me to do is to test the substance of my ideas in following articles, essays and contributions.

Adballah Daif

Translated from German by Christina M. White

© 2005 Qantara.de

Abdallah Daif was a participant in a working group within the context of the "Working Groups of the Cultures" program. He is member of Egypt's cultural network 'Gudran'.

Qantara.de

Cultural Exchange
A Nigerian in Germany
Aisha Lami Lawal is a 26-year-old Muslim who works for a women's rights organisation back in her hometown of Lagos, Nigeria. In her account of her stay in Frankfurt, Aisha creates an unusual image of Germany from an African perspective

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