Lecture Performance, Mohammad Abu Hajar (Tartous, Syria, Berlin)

“They say that every cloud has a silver lining. Let’s say that the inauguration of Trump was the declaration of the cloud’s arrival. I would like to say that we can find the silver lining, but first we need to ask: Was it all fine before Trump? It wasn’t, for there was white supremacy, gender-based discrimination, police killing people based on color, the increasing role of the USA around the globe, with all its colonial attitudes. Those conditions were the infrastructure that brought Trump to power and will generate other Trumps around privileged societies.

I mention privileges here because without them, things could be better. First of all, nobody was going to be forced to leave, so how do those privileges express themselves and what needs to be changed (including the “welcoming culture”)? The shift that happened to the international solidarity movement has been minimized mainly to “solidarity with refugees.” What does it have to do with Islamophobia or Islamophilia, if we can use this term? The aim is to provide examples of when and how privileges can participate in designing opinions and imaginary views on some places and cultures, particularly in the Middle East.”