memorial

I got off the train at the Brandenburger Gate again to get to my course in Mitte. This time I walked around the right way, through the Gate and past the Parliament. I stopped at the Memorial to Europe's Sinti and Roma Murdered Under National Socialism. It's a very calm and emotional space. Somehow, the story people told themselves changed to one where many people got prosecuted and murdered for just being members of particular groups. It is incomprehensible, yet it happened. I am reading Harari's book Nexus on information. His thesis is that totalitarian regimes work by controlling the flow of information by centralising it. The  communication tools that we have developed in the last few decades allow for more centralisation and control. We have to resist centralisation and keep talking. The world is complicated, messy, and multifaceted. The simple world the populists promise does not exist.



The workshop went well, even though it nearly ended in disaster because I had ignored the room update. Luckily nobody claimed the room we were in. We only missed the catering. It is fixed for tomorrow.