interview – eMag Uni Augsburg

Enchilada during the Corona Crisis – An Interview with an employee

Coronavirus has hit us all very hard. It started with a couple of cases in China and, suddenly, the whole world was on lockdown. Among other things, restaurants had to close their doors overnight. I wanted to know what has changed for the staff of restaurants and bars, so, I went downtown to talk to an employee of the Enchilada. Her name is Lisa and she has been working as a waitress there for one and a half years now. Due to the loosening of regulations for social distancing, we were able to have a face-to-face interview in the restaurant.

For those of you who don´t know the Enchilada, here’s a quick briefing: The Enchilada is a Mexican restaurant and bar in Augsburg’s city centre. It’s a member of the Enchilada Franchise Group, just like the Ratskeller, Dean & Davids, Aposto, and many more.

What did a usual day of work look like before Corona? How many people were here? How many employees?

That depends on the day. On business days, there were only up to three waiters, one or two bartenders, and three people in the kitchen. The weekends were a whole different situation: we have seven different areas in the restaurant itself and ideally, there is a waiter for every area. On top of that, there were five or six bartenders. Even in the kitchen, we added an extra dishwasher. So, is a lot happening here on weekends.

Ok, thank you for that insight. Let´s talk about the present. A lot has changed, obviously. Which precautionary measures did you take, especially in the beginning?

Everything happened so fast. I was working on Saturday and by Tuesday we had to shut down completely. None of us could attend to work for four weeks. Our boss managed all the orders via Boxbote together with just one cook. After a while, he decided to join Lieferando, and customers could book their meals over the phone and fetch them later. From that moment forward we had one additional waiter in here – two on the weekends – and three people in the kitchen. We’ve also changed our business hours: normally, they would be from 6 pm until 1 am, but now we work in two shifts. One from 11 am until 2 pm and another one from 5 pm until 10 pm.

How was the mood among the employees, especially when you weren´t going to work? Did you know how it would all turn out?

Right at the beginning when we couldn´t do anything – not even leave the house – we met on Zoom. As nobody knew how the whole situation would develop, we were a bit worried. I can´t speak for my colleagues but I was really concerned after a while, especially after the situation got a little bit out of hand and the media reports went crazy. But now I work on a regular basis – although it´s not as frequent as it used to be – and I am grateful for that. Because we met on Zoom, nobody was really intimidated by the whole situation.

So, your boss didn´t have to fire anyone? They´re all still here?

Yes, he didn´t have to. We made it through fully staffed.

That´s very good. Well, Lisa, I heard that the Enchilada gives away vouchers for customers who fetch their food all by themselves. Is that correct?

Exactly.

Are there any other offers?

We’ve created some packages for Lieferando. Those are whole menus the costumers can order. On Boxbote we put up three different cocktail packages. On top of that, we started a prize game and put a ticket in every bag. Right at the beginning, we had some complimentary gifts, but they were gone pretty fast.

Regarding the cocktails: I can´t quite figure out how it works. Aren´t cocktails supposed to be iced? Doesn´t that ice melt until it reaches the customer?

That works well. Lieferando’s and Boxbote’s radius for delivery isn´t that big. Especially for longer distances, Lieferando goes by car. And we only finish creating the cocktails when the food is ready, and the delivery man is in the restaurant.

There were no complaints about melted Margaritas?

Not that I would know of. As I said, we finish them last and from there on everything should happen very fast.

Ok, we´re about to come towards the end of this interview. Slowly but steadily restaurants get to open again. What precautions are going to be made? Will there be a bouncer? Do you know anything about that?

I know a little bit. For a long time, our boss just wanted to wait because there were new restrictions every second day. But now we know more. We had a bouncer on the weekends even before Corona. On top of that, we have to check IDs because – from what it looks like – only two households are allowed to meet. But as the number of people at one table is limited to four, we need to check if they´re really just from two different households. As I said, there will be a bouncer on weekends. If there are people sitting at the tables outside, they don´t need to wear masks. But as soon as they get up, go to the toilet or even just go inside the restaurant, they have to put them on. Plus, there always has to be enough distance between costumers at different tables. All employees must slip on their masks just like in any other business right now.

Does the mask bother you?

It’s not the end of the world, but it is exhausting. The employees in the kitchen have a hard time understanding the point of it all. And I think even our costumers will have trouble picking up what we said. But, like I said, it isn’t tragic. As long as I can work, I am happy.

Ok. So, now to my last question: What did you learn for the future? Do you may keep any of your innovations for the long term?

We will definitely stay on Lieferando for a while. Plus, we will have different business hours. We used to open at 6 pm. Now we will be accessible for you at 11 am so people who work in the area can have their lunch break here. Until 8 pm we will grant access to the outdoor area. Afterward, we will stay in the restaurant for two more hours to take care of the orders from Lieferando and Boxbote.

Lovely. We’ve now reached the end of our interview. Thank you very much, Lisa. I wish you all the best.

Thank you.

I talked to Lisa off record for a while after the interview and she told me that she really looks forward to meeting some costumers again at the restaurant and interact with them. The outdoor area of the restaurant is very inviting and – although it is in the city centre – very quiet. So, you should definitely check it out.

The interview took place at the end of May, so some of the information may be outdated by the time you’re reading this article.

author: Celine Bohner

Questions to the Augsburg Magazine eMAG

What exactly is the course called and how does it fit into the study program? What English skills are being covered? And how do you learn the required writing skills?

The course has a rather unspectacular name: it goes by Integrated Language Skills (LPO 2012) / Integrated Language Skills 2 (LPO 2008) (eMag). eMAG is part of a module that consists of three courses, the other two being Effective Writing and Übersetzung Englisch-Deutsch (1). eMAG fits in here as an opportunity for students to put the skills they have learned in those other courses to practical use in an authentic, english-speaking environment. The eMAG course itself is there to improve students’ writing skills outside of the usual term paper style. We try to convey a more informal writing style in general.

eMAG has a very project-based way of practising writing skills. Would you say this is more promising for participants than a traditional class?

I’m going to go with the diplomatic route here and say that a good mix between a theoretical approach and a practical one is very useful. You can’t learn a language simply by reading about it. You have to use it to actual get better at it. And a part of that certainly is writing, too, in all its forms. But at the same time, it’s also necessary to have a good foundation to start working on a project like eMAG. You need to have some basic understanding of how to structure your writing, that there are differences between writing in German and English – and that does include formal differences. And that is something we wouldn’t be able to do in just one term with one session a week. In a nutshell, I’d say that eMAG is a great opportunity if you have the necessary foundations.

For us, organisational tasks took up a lot of time and it wasn’t quite clear who was responsible for what. Also, what presented a bit of a struggle was that our course is supposed to teach writing skills before all else but the magazine focus didn’t allow much time for that. How do you handle organizational tasks within a writing course?

It’s good to see that similar projects are struggling with similar problems. There is no way around it and I was lucky enough to join the course at a time when a lot of these issues had already been dealt with and solved. There already was a good routine that people before me had set up. The trick is to give the course a real project structure with different layers of who would be responsible for what – teams for layouting and media and advertisement to just name a few. Within these groups, the regular members, who take the course for credit points, will mostly focus on writing and only take on smaller tasks to help create the final magazine. The experienced staff, on the other hand, get clear assignments on what needs to be done. In the end, the editor-in-chief has the fun task of managing and overseeing all those groups and bringing everything together.

Who is eligible to join the class, i.e. students of what semester or year of the study program? How many are you in total and what is the ratio between students who do the course voluntarily and those who do it for credit points? Do both of these groups participate in the same way?

There is no real condition set for joining the class, especially if you’re studying English: if you need the credit points, who are we to tell you you can’t come? We do prefer for the people to have completed the writing part of the module beforehand, or at least to be taking that class in the same term, but we can’t enforce that. Naturally, though, most people are doing it this way because following the module structure makes the most sense. In turn, that means that most new members are in or around their 3^rd semester. In terms of how many people join, there’s some fluctuation: there are usually more participants during winter terms, but it’s roughly 20-25 people in general. Only few of these aren’t English students – although I wouldn’t say there’s a difference in participation. On top of that, there is my team which consists of seven people at the moment. These tend to be people who have participated before and can’t get any more credit points. They are just there for a good time.

In our course, we tried to assign different roles to different people. However, we didn’t define clearly enough what each role’s job was, leading to the point where some people did much more work than others. What roles do you have within your team? And what tasks does each role involve? Is the work distributed in a rather even way, or are there also differences between the work load of different people?

I think this little chart from our guidelines does a better job at visualizing this than I could in words:
The new members are being split into either working on layouts or promoting the magazine, apart from working on their articles. Both teams are supervised by team leaders who know how everything is supposed to be structured and help out wherever necessary. If even they don’t know the solution, it’s usually my part to figure something out. Problem solver would probably be one of the better descriptions for what I do. There is a lot of organizing things behind the scenes, too, of course: finding printers, organizing everything to be in line with our university and making decisions on how to go forward or cutting inappropriate articles, though we do try to avoid that at all costs. Nonetheless, it happens every once in a while.

We struggled a lot to find a good balance between the workload of the layout team compared to the media team. Layouting is just such a time-consuming but necessary part of it all that it makes it difficult to cut down on it, yet the media team usually doesn’t face quite as many tasks throughout the term. Last term we struck a good balance by giving each member of the Media team the task to write one additional article which would be published on our website while the layout team didn’t get that assignment. This lead to the workload being evened out for the most part.

Apart from that, there’s Writing Support, a team that consists of three experienced eMAGgers. Their job is to correct early drafts and give feedback, before the final draft goes to the course coordinator.

What does your lecturer do exactly? What is their role in the production of each magazine? And how do they grade each person’s work?

The entire course is supposed to be run by students. But as we wouldn’t be allowed to give people credit, Mr. Jehle is the one who’s in charge officially. Until last term, it was Mr. James, who founded eMAG. The lecturer’s job is to organise exams and talk to the higher-ups of our university in case there are issues we couldn’t solve by ourselves. They also correct final article drafts so we do get some professional feedback.

As for grading, that’s a mystery, even to me. I think it’s really just magic… Ideally, though, we would love to be able to grade the work during the course and skip the exam entirely, but as we are part of the entire three-part module structure, we have to offer an exam which is also created by our course coordinator. Since the class takes up more time than a regular course, though, we try not to put additional work on participants for exam preparation. The aim is to create an exam that can be answered relatively easily by any regular class member.

We heard that your editors are meeting every week with the lecturer – what is being discussed in those weekly meetings?

Another rather boring answer: it’s just to catch up on things that are going on. Making sure nothing’s being overlooked or forgotten about. Mr. James’ experience in this matter was invaluable. He didn’t encounter most problems for the first time, so he knew how to handle things if something went awry. And there tends to be at least one thing each term that does.

How do you organize the advertisement for your magazine?

At this point, we have a few contract partners that have been advertising in eMAG for a long time, which makes the process a lot easier: they know exactly what needs to be done once we come around and ask if they’re still interested. The process consists of two steps: first off, we need to get the contracts signed by our partners who then in turn will send us their ad. This ad is then being handled like a regular magazine page and copied into inDesign. After that, we need to deal with the entire bureaucratic process of handing in the contracts to our university. The people in charge then check if they are all legally printable and if any mistakes have been made. If everything is found to be in order, they write the bill.

Our first magazine didn’t have a general topic, and everyone just wrote about whatever they were interested in. However, we think it will be better if our magazine has that kind of topic for each semester’s edition from now on. How do you decide on a topic for each term?

That’s one of the funnier parts of class! During one of the last sessions each term we dedicate one hour to brainstorming ideas on what could be interesting as a topic. It must be a topic that hasn’t been covered yet, of course. Once we have a list of potential topics, everyone gets to vote on what will be the Main Topic for the following issue. We usually go with that decision, but I remember a few terms ago when more than 90% of people voted on a topic that we ended up not taking. My deputy and I decided on the topic Misfits instead, although that topic only had two votes, coming from the both of us. Guess that’s one of the few perks of being editor-in-chief.

How do you manage a deadline as early in the semester as one month after it started? And what do you do afterwards?

For everything to go as smoothly as possible, the team and I sit down during the term break to plan everything out with a very strict schedule. Experience, of course, already plays into this, so we kind of know how well some deadlines will work out or how much time you really need to give people with certain assignments to get reasonable results. Then, one week before the term actually starts, I write an e-mail to the course and give the participants all the details, so everyone is already well-prepared and know what’s coming. That method has been working out for us pretty well.

Do some of your Lehramt students plan on using the skills and ideas from your magazine project later on, in the school classroom?

As I’m not going to become a teacher, I can only make assumptions here, but I think working in a team project like eMAG definitely makes organizing a bit easier later on, when you want to get anything done with a horde of 30 pupils. I look at it realistically, though, and say that it’s most likely not going to be a magazine in and of itself. What is useful, I would imagine, is the skills you learn without even noticing for the most part: Working in a team, problem solving, time management. Skills that are becoming more and more important in our society. So maybe that is our little contribution to the development of our students in the course. I, at least, hope so and, most importantly, that it’s a fun time for everyone in what’s otherwise often a very monotonous university day.

”Let it go.“

Welcome back. We know you’ve swallowed the entire first part of this interview within a few minutes. Go get a drink and do some intellectual push-ups for warming up. There’s more to come.

Katharina: “You are not only a famous philosopher, but also a famous author. How do you connect philosophy and business?”

Achille: “You see, I wish the business part was mine, but unfortunately it’s not. The business part is for the publishing companies. No, I’m joking. Frankly, I don’t know how a book comes to be read by many people. What matters, as far as I am concerned, is that you choose to do something and you do it the best you can. You find joy in doing it. You don’t regret, once it’s done, that you could have done it this way or another. And when you reach that state with work, with a book, with writing, you let it go.”

“You let it go because you have equipped it with the resources for it to travel by itself. The moment you release it, there’s nothing you can do. It travels its own way, it speaks to people or not, it will sell or not. These are decisions that are beyond your control. What I am interested in, the moment I release my work, I ‘set it free’, is knowing full well I have done the best I could. And your satisfaction comes from the knowledge and the conviction that you have done the best. That is what matters to me. Questions of reputation or money are not really the way I conceive of all of this.”

Niklas: “You get paid in self-respect?”

Achille: “Exactly. Your payment is the level of self-respect you think you have gathered through your work, your dedication and the joy produced in the act of writing. I think, if you do not find joy in what you’re doing, you shouldn’t do it, you should abandon it. So in that sense, I think you have to find joy in what you do, not caring about others. And you have to allow people to take your work in directions you didn’t expect. That’s how it speaks to them. If it doesn’t speak to them, it just means it’s not a successful piece of work. The process, on the other hand, is about joy and freedom, if you ask me. In whatever one does, how does one achieve or experience these two affects?”

Katharina: “Do you think your books are received differently in the West than in Africa?”

Achille: “Yes. And in fact, they are received differently in different places within the West. For instance, the book called Critique of Black Reason was received very positively in Germany and in a lukewarm manner in the Netherlands. They didn’t like it. There are always different reactions. For example, On the Postcolony, a book I published in 2010, was basically ignored in France, even though I wrote in French. And then it had a magnificent reception in the US. And only after that, the French public began to care. But the book has never really made the kind of impact it had in the Anglophone in France or the francophone world. I think, in the case of France and On the Postcolony, people in France didn’t know what to do with it.”

“This was partly because, in the academic world in France, people are still extremely stuck within specific disciplines. If you are a historian, you act and write like a historian. If you are a sociologist, you are only that. There is not much interest in interdisciplinary research. And the book was very interdisciplinary. So they did not know how to classify it. And I also think the style of writing was not academic enough in their opinion, nor was it considered to be just public writing. It was a hybrid form and the French did not know what to make of it. But in America, then, it received respect from many different directions.”

Niklas: “What authors do you read? And I am not talking about research papers, but books you read for entertainment.”

Achille: “I read novels, mainly. Lots of novels. French contemporary novels, African novels, Chinese and Japanese novels. A lot from Latin America, but not that much from the US or England. The choice is huge already, but I think I should probably still expand it…”

“I also listen to lots of music, all kind of musical forms. I watch too much soccer, I’m almost an addict. I also cook, which is very good for meditation. Cooking is a fantastic exercise. Or running on the grass. I don’t go to the gym, I go running and playing soccer, on the open air.”

Katharina: “I’m sure you know Chimamanda Adichie. She talks about the concept of the single story, and how, growing up in Africa, she used to read Western literature and how it influenced people in negative ways, how it made people write novels that were Westernized, rather than Africanized.”

Achille: “I have a feeling that this might not be entirely true for all of us – an African writer writing in French would not say it. This might be a very anglophone problem. Writers such as Alain Mabanckou or Kossi Efoui wouldn’t say it, because they would not have the same idea on what being ‘African’ is all about. They would not see a clear-cut opposition between African things and Western things, not in the same way as Chimamanda does.”

“In their writing, there is much more fluidity between different spaces, much more playfulness with, for instance, the French language, much more mixing of forms, much more – to use the title of your magazine – respect for ‘misfits’. And this is what makes their styles extremely fluorescent, extremely luxurious, extremely playful, too. What is really interesting in this kind of work is the degree to which they are willing to combine things we do not usually combine.”

Niklas: “Talking about things that aren’t usually combined, you come from a country that people like to refer to as a ‘third-world’ or ‘developing’ country. We are from Germany. Few people would name our countries in the same sentence, one directly after the other. So how do you think, generally speaking, cooperation of richer and poorer countries could be improved, for mutual benefit?”

Achille: “I think there is a difference between a ‘cooperation’, that is based on ignorance and real cooperation that is based on the knowledge of each other. People who do not know each other can hardly cooperate creatively or fruitfully. And it seems to me that the big obstacle to cooperation between developed and so-called undeveloped countries is wilful ignorance. So in order to improve cooperation between these two entities, there is an absolute necessity to get to know each other better.”

“Nowadays, we have the means to know each other, to know Africa, its diverse and complex history; we do have the means to know. The question is, why do we still need to invest in prejudice, why this infatuation with ignorance and prejudice, when we do have the means to know. I think that is the question we have to ask.”

“I think, this investment in ignorance is so big because ignorance allows you to be irresponsible and still act in good conscience, even if the results are catastrophic. It seems to me that the West is invested wilfully in massive ignorance in regards to the rest of the world. Because only wilful ignorance allows the West to act irresponsibly. So if we want to change the system, we have to know a bit more. And that is possible – the knowledge is there and it is accessible. There is no reason why anyone, anywhere in the world, should be ignorant about others. Just do the work.”

Katharina: “When we talk about postcolonialism, we often mention how language divides people, how the way we speak about Africa, for instance, is completely different from the way we speak about Western countries. I’m going to be a teacher – how will I teach my students not to be ignorant, not to divide the world through language?”

Achille: “You see the material is there. One of the beauties of the new technologies is that they have helped the world to build new libraries, metaphorically speaking. And these libraries are mobile, they are portable, they are accessible. The Internet allows us access to a multiplicity of documents, of data, of facts, that, if used, would probably unleash the making of entirely new forms of knowledge – images, videos, sounds, documentaries, photographs…”

“So the material is there. The key is to organize it and use it in a pedagogical manner, so that it responds better to the expectations of our times. The material exists, but our thresholds have increased because of the high exposure to technology. So we need to pull people out of their own ignorance and unlock their sense of critical reading of these materials.”

Niklas: “We would like to thank you for the interview.”

Achille: “It was my pleasure.”

(This text has been edited for clarity and length)

Authors:

Katharina Tancré, Niklas Schmidt

Pictures: Fotostelle Universität Augsburg

A life of movement

Have you heard of Achille Mbembe, the famous Johannesburg-based philosopher from Cameroon, who graced our university with his visit in summer 2018? If you haven’t, read on to find out what makes him just the kind of person you want to quote at all the fancy cocktail parties we know you’re attending on a weekly basis. And if you have, you already know what you have to do: stay where you are to get the intellectual boost you so desperately need during exam season.

Katharina and Niklas from eMAG got a chance to interview Achille Mbembe in one of his few free hours. If you like the interview, don’t forget to read the second part, which will be published tomorrow.

Niklas: “What role can philosophy play in times of populism, as well as political and religious extremism?”

Achille: “I think that we live in a time when the need for a critical understanding of where our world is going is more urgent than ever before. And philosophy as the key discipline that teaches us how to exercise our reason is absolutely central, not only for training and education of students today, but also in helping to sustain a democratic public sphere – one in which rational deliberation is at the centre of exchange and communication among citizens. I believe that we need to put philosophy as the critical exercise of reason at the heart of what living together is all about, both nationally and globally.”

Niklas: “When you write and publish your books, what sort of audience do you usually have in mind? Whom do you expect to read your books?”

Achille: “The audience is composed of people of good will, who are interested in the types of questions the books address; people, who are interested in making our world habitable and hospitable. I believe that the current moment, we are in, is full of risks and dangers, and that the need to repair our planet is probably the most urgent task humanity is facing. And I take writing as part of the tools we use as we undertake the task of repair. And therefore, those I have in mind when I write are those who would like to take part in that planetary endeavour of repairing.”

Niklas: “When you were still a student in Cameroon, you used to work for a Christian student group. Would you say that your religious beliefs influence your work as a philosopher?”

Achille: “It is true that I grew up in a Catholic family, and I went through Catholic educational institutions, secondary school in particular. I also was involved with an organisation called the Young Catholic Students, which is an international organisation and a huge part of my world view was shaped by traditions of Christianity that had to do in particular with liberation theology.”

“But I am not a practitioner. I’m interested in Christianity as a set of ideas and in so far as it offers life ethics, parts of which speak to what I consider to be key problems of our time. So I have an interest in religion in general as a key dimension of people’s existence, how they make sense of their lives, how they relate to themselves and to others, as well as to the forces that are above them. In that sense, my interest in religion is not limited to Catholicism or Christianity. I’m just as interested in Jewish theology as in African pre-colonial modes of religion.”

“That being said, I still think I have taken a lot from Christianity, intellectually as well as in my own life. And what is very striking in Christianity is the way in which it puts at its centre the Other, with a capital O. In fact, in Christian thought the Other is the Alpha and Omega of every act of faith. That means you are not a believer if the Other is not at the centre of your thoughts. So that preoccupation with the Other is something I consider to be the kernel of faith itself – and of the practice of faith, if you want to speak in those terms.”

Niklas: “Talking about the Other, both Germany and Britain – and, of course, France – have a colonial past in Cameroon, and not exactly a glorious past. Does it feel in any way strange to you to be talking to an English-speaking magazine while in Germany? Is it hard for you to look over our shared past?”

Achille: “Not really. I’ve spent my entire life dealing with this kind of situation. And I need to speak many different languages. It’s true that the English language is one of the dominant languages of our world, but I also believe that the world that is coming will be a multilingual world, and that those who are the best-positioned to harness the beauty of our world in any way are people who can speak more than one language. Of course, translation is truly important, but multilingualism, I believe, is the way of the future. And monolingualism is the worst way to prepare oneself for what the future of the planet holds for each of us. So I don’t see it at all as a problem.”

“In fact, I think both English and French have become African languages. They have been thoroughly Africanized, just as they have been Asianized to a large extent. They are spoken by millions of people. They have been spoken by millions of people over centuries, and that’s enough to qualify them as African or Asian languages, I think.”

Katharina: “What are your associations concerning the term misfits, last term’s main topic for our paper magazine?”

Achille: “That’s an interesting concept. That which does not fit, which is out of place, and yet its very existence opens up a whole set of new possibilities. So, on the one hand, I think that it’s an unfortunate concept when one applies it, for instance, to those who are not us. Those who seem to not belong or those whose presence we think is abnormal, those who do not look like us, who suffer from maladaptation. We can tolerate them, but they don’t really fit with us, there is always a gap.”

“So in that sense, it’s an unfortunate concept, but on the other hand the beauty of the concept is that a misfit always allows for unexpected possibilities to emerge. I think there is a productive dimension to the concept, in the sense that it allows for the emergence of the unexpected.”

“And in that sense, for all that’s to it, it’s a paradoxical concept. It’s a double-edged concept. If you have a misfit in your midst, you cannot predict what will happen. It makes it impossible to predict what happens when you bring in a foreign body, or something that shouldn’t be there. It’s a way of creating a new form.”

Niklas: “Talking about foreign bodies, both Cameroon and Germany are countries that have accepted lots of refugees. Refugees from different conflicts maybe, but refugees all the same. What are your thoughts on welcoming refugees, on how we should live together?”

Achille: “Let’s start by defining what a refugee is. Strictly speaking, a refugee is a human person who has been forced to leave the place he or she used to inhabit, his or her home country, as a result of a catastrophe. Whether a natural catastrophe or a human-made catastrophe – war, famine – an event that has made it impossible for that person to fully enjoy his or her existence in that place. This is what a refugee is: A human being running away from danger and in search of protection.”

“And usually, in the strictest sense of the term, a refugee is a human being whose life is in danger if he or she doesn’t leave. So the choice refugees have is pretty simple: either you stay and run the risk of losing your life, or you go. Most people don’t want to leave their home, the place where they were born. This is what people would prefer, to conduct their lives in the place where they were born. Refugees are people who have no choice but to go.”

“So the question is, when they knock on our door, do we open the door or do we tell them, ‘We’re not here, go somewhere else.’ I think that each society has to make this decision and it’s a good thing that, in the midst of the dramatic crises of the last few years, Germany has decided to open its doors to a number of people who would have been in danger otherwise. And Germany has done much more than many other European countries, both in terms of numbers and in terms of creating the conditions for receiving people in a way that ensures their dignity. But of course, as we know, everywhere this is a very complicated issue. Of course, you have people who do not want to see refugees for all kinds of reasons. The fact is that they don’t want them, they want to keep the doors closed.”

“So, Germany, Cameroon, other places like Turkey – these are choices those societies have to make, they have to decide whether or not this is something they want to do. I believe lots of people think that the German government made the right choice. Now, of course that raises all kinds of issues. I guess that’s part of the democratic debate. Society has to decide if it wants to live by a certain set of values, including the value of hospitality and assistance to the part of humanity that is in danger, or whether it simply wants to be indifferent to what happens to human life elsewhere. Europe has to make that choice. Our entire planet has to make a choice of how we deal with that part of our humanity that is in danger.”

“But you also have to look at the issues that are at stake. For instance, the West cannot go on destroying entire countries and bomb them to the ground, like in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in many other parts of the world, and expect people to just stay there. Of course, people will want to run away from danger. So it’s also a question of responsibility. We can’t go and destroy entire environments, entire people’s histories, cultures, and then say, ‘No, no, you stay there. Don’t come here.’ This is not responsible. So if we don’t want people to come here, let’s make sure we do not aggravate the situation where they are, we don’t render life in their homeland unsustainable. So I think these are also dimensions that have to be brought into these kinds of discussions. You cannot keep your door closed if you mess up with the little they have.”

“This can be done with a whole variety of means, with pillaging their natural resources, their wealth, rendering the environment toxic, extract all we can, leave with nothing behind. It can be done by selling weapons to dictators who do the destruction indirectly. Responsibility is absolutely key; responsibility is justice. A huge part of what sets people in motion is the weight of injustice. So it’s a debate we have to have, and I hope that this year it will be conducted beyond just hate and passion.”

Niklas: “You mentioned home, and that most people would prefer to stay there. What does that term mean to you, since you’ve been around more than most of us.“

Achille: “I have no idea what my home is. I’ve spent my entire life moving from one place to another. I guess if you spend your life like that, moving from one place to another, what you end up doing is that you carry them with yourself, bits and pieces of the many places you have inhabited. So they accompany you along the way. You carry memories. Your home is memory, if you want. Memory becomes your home. The memory of the many places you have been to find yourself. So home is no longer just a physical space you enter or exit. It travels with you throughout a life of movement.”

(This text has been edited for length and clarity.)

Authors: Katharina Tancré, Niklas Schmidt

Picture: Fotostelle Universität Augsburg