Replies

I’m currently living in Berlin, in the Kreuzberg area (or Kreuzstanbul, as the local wags have dubbed it). Granted, Berlin isn’t all of Germany, not even close. Berlin is it’s own little planet, but the Poles I’ve seen around here are; a)homeless
b)stoned or drunk 99.9995 % of the time
c)petty criminals, with the occasional murder

I’m certainly not saying that ALL Poles are like this, but in my conversations with Polizei, they detest the Poles for the aforementioned reason. Of course, I hope that the Poles that do come here come here for work, and not to panhandle or rob the tourists and the locals.

On a side note, a little observation: many of the Turks (and I know LOTS of Turks, simply owing to where I live, and the Sufi Center I go to) are quite hardworking, putting in long hours at the job daily. Quite a few are small business owners (especially among the 1st generation of “guest workers”), and on balance, I view them as more of a positive in many regards. The Arabs, mostly in the Neukölln district, are also small business owners, though notoriously clannish, and deeply mistrustful of outsiders (ie, non Arabs). The Vietnamese, in the Lichtenberg district, are also business owners, and like the Turks, generally cosmopolitan in their outlook. The Africans, mostly from Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, and Senegal, are 50/50......half are very hardworking folks, with a smattering of the professional class, and sad to say, the other half are petty criminals, mostly involved in the drug trade.

As for today, I’m planning on keeping my head down-it’s May 1st, and frankly, Kreuzberg is typically ground zero for violent riots (on that score, you can blame the local German kids, most of whom are crypto-Communists, Anarchists, or members of Anti-Facist Action, a group I personally detest because in their violent tactics, they’re indistinguishable from the skinhead/facist/neo-Nazi punks they claim to detest). There’s a lot of cops on the street, including the riot police, and I really don’t think they’ll tolerate much nonsense, fortunately. And just looking out my window here, I can see the Turkish-run internet cafe across the street has their beefier personnel working today (some guys that look like Turkish bodybuilders), including one guy I know named Tahir. I’d personally pay big money to see some skinny little vegan Anarchist anti-capitalist weenie punk start something with him. :-)