I am taking advanced German course twice a week now. We are about 20 people from all over the world, and one tough and fair female teacher. These courses, with their length (about three months), intensity (two to four times a week, four hours at a time) and randomness of gathering people can be a micro-cosmos of the outside world. I am just trying to say that these classes have the potential to explode. They can sit together in one peaceful room people who otherwise would prefer to chew on each other.
Our teacher has her methods trying to break the ice. She is putting 18 chairs in the middle of the room, plays the music, stops it and the two left standing must talk. It is a little bit awkward but I don’t mind it–it gives me ideas to play with my daughter.
The other day the teacher have decided that we should practice our knowledge in how to say verbs in the past tense. She held out cards baring our names on them and let the students choose one card. The name you picked would be your partner in the practice. On the fourth card, the Syrian woman picked the card with my name on it.
We practiced very fast. First I held the answers for the correct verb, and then she did. There was a moment of silence while all the others were still practicing. Even though I knew the answer I asked her, in Arabic, where was she coming from. She looked straight and away from my eyes and wondered how come I knew Arabic. She carried the heavy burden of confusion and suspicion. I made a strange face, the face I keep for the times that I can’t explain where I know Arabic from.
I asked her where she was coming from. What city I meant. She asked why I want to know. Just interested, I said. She told me that she was from Latakia, the beautiful city off the northwest beach, but she said that in a tone that made it clear to me that it was the end of our conversation. We looked once more at each other and from her eyes I could feel how two devil’s horns were starting to grow out of my forehead. I am not paranoid, neither am I suffering from prejudices. She didn’t care about me, where I was coming from or whether I exist or not. When we finished the drill, she returned to her place and had a vivid conversation with the Italian and the Thai students.
It used to be different. It used to be that we were believing that all of this bullshit was a result of stupid governments and politics, that on the personal level we will always get along, treat each other as just another human being. We used to think that on the personal level we could be normal.
Israel, God knows, is doing more of its share to make its citizens very unpopular, but the incident in the class was entirely different. It showed me how strong and dangerous propaganda can be, how it delivers so many messages in order to hide the truth. It is incredibly depressing to feel hated.
