Category: Berlin Chronicles

Berlin dazu verdammt: immerfort zu werden und niemals zu sein
“Berlin is a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being” (1910) – Karl Scheffler

Salvaging Sacred Time: Approaching Islamic Ritual through Byung-Chul Han

Book: Faith Travels by Streetcar (Ed. Dr. Stefan Maneval.)
Chapter: “Salvaging Sacred Time: Approaching Islamic Ritual through Byung-Chul Han” (Amro Ali)

Chapter abstract:
In “Salvaging Sacred Time” the Egyptian-Australian sociologist Amro Ali discusses the importance of religious rituals for the perception of time. He draws on the work of German-Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han who identifies a “decay of time” following the Enlightenment. Ali contradicts this thesis insofar as he shows that Islamic rituals, such as the five daily prayers obligatory for devout Muslims and the pilgrimage to Mecca, still have a structuring, life-stabilizing effect, and furthermore create a sense of community and life-giving orientation.

Book Abstract
How do faith, norms, and objects of daily use relate to each other? Does faith necessarily imply a limitation of freedom? How do members of religious and non-religious communities give visibility to their beliefs, and how are they perceived from the outside?

Both religious and secular normative practices which structure and regulate public and private life often involve objects of daily use. Focusing on the rules, convictions, and conventions of the monotheistic religions – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity – as well as on secular beliefs, Faith Travels by Streetcar combines photos of such objects and texts written by scholars of various disciplines: sociology, philosophy, Arabic, Islamic and Jewish studies, as well as Protestant Theology.

The objects included in Faith Travels by Streetcar relate to norms and rules surrounding food consumption, clothing and fashion, as well as education and play. While on the one hand showing that rules and norms which limit the freedom of the individual exist in all societies, the items displayed in this volume also highlight how these norms and rules are constantly contested and subjected to negotiation, dispute, and change. The permeability and fluidity between faith, norms, and deliberate limitations of one’s freedom for the sake of the common good or a belief is mirrored in the art installation by Tim Greaves, created for an exhibition curated by the editor, Dr. Stefan Maneval.

The book is in English and German.

Podcast: On the Need to Shape the Arab Exile Body (with Amro Ali)

This is a conversation with Amro Ali, author of the essay “On the Need to Shape the Arab Exile Body in Berlin.” He is also co-president of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities, research fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin, and lecturer in sociology at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

What we talked about:

  • Moving from the centers to the peripheries
  • Why Berlin? And not London, Paris, New York or Istanbul
  • Berlin as an incomplete city and Germany’s past
  • Germany and the Arabs
  • The Koblenz trial, accountability in Germany (but not in the Arab world)
  • January 25 and the legacy of the Arab Spring for the exile body
  • Home as the place where all attempts to escape cease
  • Valuing public spaces
  • Survivor’s guilt and impostor’s syndrome
  • Challenges faced by Arabs and other non-white people in Berlin
  • Meeting other Arabs for the first time in Europe
  • The need for a connection between Berlin and other capitals, such as Beirut or Tunis
  • Politics of language and the use of Arabic in the diaspora

Recommended Books:

  • City of Exiles: Berlin from the outside in by Stuart Braun
  • Representations of the Intellectual by Edward W. Said
  • Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin by Seyla Benhabib

Resources Mentioned:

The New Arab International Capital

I was interviewed, along with Leila Chamma, Ramy al-Asheq, and Liwaa Yazji, for a feature piece in exBerliner magazine on Berlin as the “new Arab intellectual capital”. The print issue is out now in Germany (1 February 2021), you can download the PDF version of the print article or read the online version (or in German) which is now available (19 April 2021).

In the Eyes of the Beholder: The World, the Other and the Self from Arab and German Perspectives (Berlin)

The event on knowledge production took place at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities on 18 January 2020. I argued that if we do not address the scourge of passport restrictions and visa regimes, then the pace and orientation of holistic, transnational, and interdisciplinary knowledge production in the Arab world will continue to be skewed.

AGYA blurb: “With its contribution, AGYA invites the visitors to a critical examination of established concepts and patterns of perception of the world, the other and the self from German and Arab perspectives. AGYA is proud to present a program ranging from a panel discussion on ‘Scientific Worlds: Critical Reflections on Knowledge Production’, over a book launch of ‘Insatiable Appetite. Food as Cultural Signifier in the Middle East and Beyond’ edited by AGYA alumni and enriched by a tasting of different Hummus recipes, to a poetry slam and a photo exhibition on ‘Images of the Self and the Other in the Levant’”

Berlin als Zentrum des arabischen Exils (A feature report on German TV)

A feature report on the Arab Berlin exile essay was aired on the Kulturzeit program on the German 3sat channel. Click here to watch the video.

“Berlin wird immer mehr zu einem Ort, an dem sich Künstler und Intellektuelle aus den arabischen Ländern zusammenfinden, um das Erbe ihrer Revolution zu retten.”

TV report on the Arab Berlin exile essay

A feature TV report Berlin als Zentrum des arabischen Exils (in German) on the Arab Berlin exile essay was aired on the Kulturzeit program on the German 3sat channel (17 September 2019). The video can be watched below.

“Berlin wird immer mehr zu einem Ort, an dem sich Künstler und Intellektuelle aus den arabischen Ländern zusammenfinden, um das Erbe ihrer Revolution zu retten.”