I'm a Queer Arab Berliner. Our Lives Are Not Political Weapons
Last weekend, a man drove a rented van into the crowd at CSD. By Monday morning, politicians were already in campaign mode.
On the afternoon of the CSD parade on July 25, I walked with my friends behind the Madonna float. To the right of me, a man shot a confetti cannon into the air. We watched joyously as silver particles fluttered in the air. I woke up the next morning to a flurry of messages asking if I was okay.
Berlin’s Pride weekend was cut short this year after a man identified by investigators as Abdul B. drove a rented van into the crowd at the CSD parade, killing one woman and injuring 31 others. As the hunt began to find the suspect, pictures emerged of a 21-year-old with dark, curly hair and a fair Arab complexion. He looked just like me.
As a queer, British-born Palestinian Berliner, I don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel anymore. I’ve run out of things to feel. Seemingly every community I belong to is at some higher risk of being targeted or killed. Something about who I am innately makes others uncomfortable, but there is little I can do to change that. Someone else has decided my identities are at odds with each other — am I supposed to choose between them?
Things escalated rapidly in the aftermath of the attack on the parade. Before many of us had a chance to mourn or process what had happened, much of the media — German and otherwise — began writing about Islamic extremism. Tagesspiegel splashed up the headline: "Islamism is the biggest threat to queer people in Germany". In the UK, The Spectator published a thinkpiece which confidently boasted: "The rest of us weren't surprised at all that the lead suspect is a 'known Islamist' named 'Abdul B'. Perhaps he learnt from Abdul A, and hopes to inspire Abduls C, D, and E through to Z".