Berlin has all the answers

The Brandenburg Gate wasn't accessible to east and west Beliners during the Cold War, but now it's bustling with activity.  

Grit.

If I could describe Berlin in one word, this would be it. It has grit. It is grimey and cool. Its residents are diverse in ethnicity and lifestyle with diversity celebrated - after all embracing the differences is what seems to unite them as Berliners.

We saw a homeless person selling magazines on the subway interacting with the people on the train - instead of people pretending like he wasn’t there and avoiding eye contact at all costs. The area where we stayed in Neukölln is home to a lot of middle eastern cultures, as well as students, artists, hipsters and punks. For a city that was once the headquarters for one of the most divisive and brutal regimes in history, it has separated from its past, and you get the feeling by all the alternative haircuts and colours that it embraces people as they are. I have never seen a city where its residents seem so collectively comfortable in their own skin before.

A colourful enterance in Kreuzberg

Throughout the city there are stark reminders of what can result from divisions and hatred. Near the Brandenburg Gate, is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which sugar coats nothing in its name. Big and foreboding concrete blocks look like a cemetery next to the scenic Tiergarten park giving a gravestone to 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Pieces of the Berlin Wall which divided the city into east and west after World War Two until 1989 also remain as a reminder of what happens when people are literary separated. My mother visited Berlin in the 1970s and had a very different experience than what I had. She had to pass through Checkpoint Charlie to be granted access to the east and describes the atmosphere and the landscape as grey, dull and dangerous. She heard accounts of families divided and people trying to be reunited by travelling from east to west which would often end in tragedy. Today, it is hard to tell what section of the city you are in. It is just Berlin.

The Berlin Wall gave rise to the city’s thriving graffiti culture. Many west Berliners aired their thoughts about social injustices on the wall, unfortunately east Berliners weren’t able to get close enough because of a dangerous strip known as ‘no-man’s-land’. This practice has carried on and graffti is absolutely everywhere and part of Berlin’s identity and grit. The quality ranges from amazing stencils and murals to the more common rough and raw tags. We saw a lot of “Fuck Donald Trump” tags, as well as, the classic ejaculating penis.

So much grit!

Visiting this vibrant and gritty city fills me with hope. Berlin’s identity - one of acceptance, where it feels like anything goes, and anything is possible - is so different than the Berlin my mother visited, or the Berlin of the 1930s and 1940s. In a time where it feels like we are are on the brink of World War Three, can we look to Berlin for some guidance? Divisiveness and hatred is not the answer.