Dear Doris

An interview with a 76-year-old German BDS Activist

an easy trap in intolerable times is the one that says: noone has ever been here before. in truth the light we need to see by is very often at our backs, not up ahead. we take better routes when we pay closer attention to the shadows casts, and seek out those who remember the first fires. who were there. who are here.

here is my show for this month with my friend Doris on her life in solidarity.

Doris was born in 1949 into what she describes as an ordinary workers’ family, playing amongst the rubble in what would quickly be harnessed into something useful. They’d called it West Germany. Her story is a sort of Marxist Forrest Gump for the '68 generation. We get into so much: working as a student at the infamous 72 Munich Olympics, where she learnt for the first time about Palestine, getting politicised with the Marxistische Gruppe and eating Das Kapital ‘for breakfast,’ becoming becoming a Bhagwan devotee and only wearing red in the '80s, going to Palestine alone during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in in '82 and being greeted by the German secret service upon her return. She shares the experience of lock-ons to the roofs buildings due to be demolished during ISM missions in the camps of Jenin and Nablus in the '90s and early '00s.

We go deep on the wildly different textures of Palestine solidarity movements either side of the wall during the years of separation, and the weird first encounters between politically active people trying to work together after reunification, the unhinged response by German civil society when trying to boycott Israeli goods, her founding of BDS Berlin, and staying focussed despite of constant harassment and accusations. In 2019 German Bundestag passed of a non-binding resolution condemning BDS as antisemitic due to its ‘argumentation and methods.’

The ramping up of this came last year in July 2024 when retiree nurse Doris and her group were given the official classification as a threat to democracy. She speaks about the psychological wages of repression and setting her alarm at 5:30 to be awake before the police, and how to think through fear when we face down state power.

Doris during her Bhagwan era. She was on the ashram the day John Lennon was shot and remembers his speech that morning, and says the meditation skills helped during encounters with IOF soldiers.

We recorded this show at her apartment in the top corner of her West Berlin altbau on a warm afternoon over tea and baklava. This interview was a sprawling and frequently hilarious look at her life in solidarity: it over 3 hours in total but cut down into highlights for the radio programme alongside some of her favourite tunes.

Here’s my first attempt at additional bonus content here, with a section that wouldn’t fit in the show. Doris speaks on her participation in the 1990s with the trend of bringing young Israelis and Palestinians together to share space in Germany, and what their behaviour revealed about each groups’ political subjectivities. If you liked the show and want more from Doris here you go!

On Youth Exchanges:

The strongest movements are intergenerational. Doris is a deep well of insight and energy with a precious perspective. Incredibly proud to have her as my dear comrade and to get to document some of her life. I really hope you’ll listen.

Finally, I won’t say too much on this but it is not a simple or at all risk-free thing in Germany for a station to broadcast shows like this, especially about BDS in this moment. I am so thankful that my home station which I will not name here for reasons you may have gathered continues to hold the line with strategic aplomb and the kind of care we need in these times.

Perhaps obviously they recieve no state funding and absolutely need community support, so please sign up as a supporter or buy some bits to help make sure they still exist for a long time to come.

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Post-script; speaking of banned organisations and insane repression, Musaab Abu Atta is a committed activist with the prisoners movement and sits on the executive committee of the Masar Badil.

Musaab is a stateless Palestinian who like many in the community here was born in a camp in Syria. Germany banned him from ‘all political activities’ in 2023 and he has been held without charge in Berlin since February when police raided his home. His aslyum status makes him especially vulnerable to deportation. He’s been denied almost all prison visits during this time. Asking everyone reading this to support him with the upcoming court dates and legal fees using this link!