Dear Diary,
welcome back my dear listeners to a new episode of Tales from the Cemetery. I'm glad you could make it despite the thunderstorm raging on around us. All the ghouls and goblins welcome you back, they enjoy your company and look forward to you joining them eternally. So seek some shelter under the dead oaktrees, recline on an ancient tombstone, grab one of our only slightly poisonous drinks and listen to tonights tale:
This time we will talk about what befell my friendship to Belle and my descent into outlawed politics. To recap, Belle is this girl I met in Uni. She invited me to learn for an exam but quickly changed the purpose of our meeting to discuss her half-ex narcissist boyfriend. Since I am a good listener she kept writing me a lot and we hung out a lot. These meetings usually consisted of nightly walks through the forest or riding trains to random locations, especially during Covid times. She is a very interesting person, very spontaneous, afflicted by OCD, shallow and obsessed with her youthful looks, charming in a crazy girl type of way. As you can imagine I cant resist a girl treating me so intimately. But there was never anything between us even if I longed for it at some points. Due to some of the stuff Im gonna talk about that probably would have been a bad idea anyway.
When I stopped writing last time I still held contact to Belle. She was currently getting her singing career started. She had done a ton of small theatre acting. Her dream, like many, was always to be a famous actor or singer. Her acting is good I have to say, her singing was not on stage performance level however so she took lessons and slowly got better. She always sent me songs she liked, but I have to say that she has a very different taste from me. She likes these pop or I guess folk ballads. A little bit of everything by Dawes was her favorite song and she loved this british singer, I think it was Joss Stone but Im not sure. Well I'm the kind of guy who listens to videogame music and the songs referenced by the stands in Jojos Bizarre Adventure. I do not care about pop music expect for a brief period in 2008 where I listened to the radio while playing Super Mario Galaxy (Liked I kissed a Girl by Katie Perry, hated Viva la Vida by Coldplay). So we were really mismatched there. As a joke I even sent her this Opening to the Umineko VN I was reading at the time and she was like WTF. Here it is https://youtu.be/vjSavDI1s2A
Furthermore I cant really relate to most love songs because I have never had a relationship. I cant see myself in someone getting over a bad breakup. All I think when I hear songs like that is: Well at least you had a bf/gf. But someone like her who had approximately 10 different bfs wouldnt get that.
Anyway that was a bit of a sidetangent. All I wanted to say is that she singing at bars and was looking for bands to play with. She even contacted this boomerband that was clearly just out to exploit a young girl for their image. Well that was going on with her, like I said my dad died and my mom got that diagnosis. But I had already submitted the topic if my thesis I had to write it now. The first two months of my time were mostly spent in the hospital with my dad before he died and then trying to help my mom who had pretty much lost the will to live at this point. It was really really tough. Thats also why I stopped writing here. Not sure if I mentioned it in my last entry, I think that was between death and diagnosis. I dont want to talk about it in too much detail. But I had to start writing and I felt really bad about nit being there more for my mom. She now has to use a lot of eyedrops every day to lower her eyepressure. It was really hard to convice her to use them at all. And they have sideeffects, mainly worsening depression and she also lost all her appetite. I was so worried but also had to write. I was so stressed I even lost hair. Thankfully it grew back, but man I looked rough and I felt 10 years older. But I somehow did it, doing pretty much nothing but writing and editing for 3 months straight. And it turned out good too, 100 pages. Maybe I'll translate it into english at some point for you guys here to read.
Well after that whole ordeal and after some much needed rest I was ready to face the world again. So I met up with Belle again and we talked. And as it turned out she had radicalized herself to be a full blown Zionist and was also suggesting some other right wing talking points.
This had been a problem between us for a long time. Politically she always had this naive connservatism that she liked to mask with spirituality. (abortion is wrong beacuse its against mother nature for example) She also likes conspiracy stuff. During covid she was really into the whole anti mask anti lockdown stuff. I am a full blown leftist. I used to be more liberal because of the conservative environment here in Germany. But Ive slowly radicalized to the point where I would frankly prefer anarchy or communism.
We had talked a bit about Israel/Palestine when October 7th happened. She had seen some pro Israel tiktoks and was already leaning that way. I was already vaguely aware of the colonialist nature of Israel, but I couldnt provide that much insight at the time. I argued for the palestinians, but in the aftermath of these killings her reaction was understandable. Killing civilians is wrong after all. Even now its really hard to explain to people that you can do wrong things for a just cause. Israels violent campaign to drive out all palestians from their land is the cause for all this after all.
So 5 months later I had followed all the horrible accounts of the genocide, learned about the Nakba, the occupation, the Apartheid and how Israels racist enthnostate keeps everyone from living together in peace. The power dynamics were pretty clear to me. But Belle was full on Zionist now. And I quickly understood that were was no point in arguing much with her. She is really stubborn with her opinions and the general consensus in Germany agrees with her on this point. So I didnt press it too much. She saw me as an evil Hamas supporter now though, or at least her attitude towards me worsened.
I didnt immediately get a job after graduating and on May 1st last year I went to the traditional Labor protests together with some members of the party Mera25. I got interested im them because they are pretty much the only party here supporting Palestine so I got into contact, helped them with their posters for the european election and some other stuff.
So after going to the protest I chat on whatsapp with Belle. And suddenly she strikes this really mean sarcastic tone. Why are YOU going to a labor protest? You are just a lazy freeloader who doesnt work. Someone like you shouldnt be allowed to go there. Thats basically what she said. I was perplexed where did that come from? I had literally only told her about my day no provication from me at all. What she said mirrored a lot of right wing talking points here about lazy jobless people. I got rightfully angry at her and told her that she sounds like AFD (pretty much the new Nazi party here) and asked what I had done to her personally to warrant this. She basically denied doing anything and asked why I was suddenly so angry. I said are you kidding me, quoted her earlier messages and demanded an apology. She said that she doesnt understand everything she said was right and she doesnt have to apologize for anything. All of her messages had this weird disdain for me suddenly and I think it was because of the Hamas thing. She now saw me as an antisemite and had this superiority because of it.
Well long story short after some long arguments we broke off our friendship and havent talked since. I still value the moments we had together though. Most aspects of her are so awesome and I will always be thankful for all the attention she gave me. I will never forget how we sat at that brook on a warm summer night dipping our feet into the water and playing with this ceramic pot we found. If she had been my girlfriend it would have been insanely romantic. It really sucks how all that right wing garbarge has changed her.
But the Palestine genocide has radicalized me too. I went to the protest camp at our Uni and to several Palestine protests. The community there is really great. Most of the organizers are muslim women, but there are also people from the black community, from anti-zionist Jewish organizations and general antiimperialist leftists. There were so many people from different countries there. This one christian girl from Korea and a bunch of people from South America too who talked about their struggle against Neocolonialism. The palestine cause has united so many people, I just wish it wasnt because of such a sad event.
Disrupting the uni life with protests was fun though and the food was good. I felt more at home there than at most official courses. The political climate in Germany is terrible though. There was a lot of police, but thankfully no violence like in Berlin. against protestors. They beat up women and nobody cared, its crazy. At our Uni they even revoked the right of Muslims to use the prayer room temporarily. The general sentiment against foreigners especially muslims is growing worse. And the insane thing is that it is done in the name of remembering the holocaust. Because apparently the lesson from the holocaust means we can ignore a genocide and even provide weapons for it, if it is done by a state that claims to represent jewishness. Even leftwing people here defend Israel for the most part. The boyfriend of a friend who I thought was a leftist told me he thinks Islam is just as bad as fascism and Gaza deserves what Israel is doing, because they are all terrorists who hate women. 😓 This country is getting worse every day. Or maybe it was always bad and I just notice it more now.
Well I am getting sleepy now. If this wasn't a ghoulishly scary story I don't knwo what is. You can rest in one of the graves. Don't worry the ghouls and ghosts wont burry you, they will watch over your sleep until the sun banishes them into the earth once again. Sleep well and come back for another tale on a black eerie night