It's been a busy weekend. Huzzah for a few minutes to sit down and enjoy the fall weather and the Amelie soundtrack and a fresh-brewed espresso and blog.
So, what's new in Brussels land? Well, first of all, Leo the Scooter is alive and well. After a veritable manhunt to find a tow truck that tows scooters, and another to find a scooter store that would accept poor Leo before the end of November, Leo found a doctor (who gushed, "He's so cute!" the instant Leo wheeled in the door, making his owner happy), got his oil changed, got a new tire, and is better than ever before. He's been purring happily around Brussels all weekend, handling interstates, cobblestone streets, and roundabouts like a pro. His owner, on the other hand, has learned quite a bit about one-way streets, Belgian street signs (x's mean go, o's mean don't go), and about how bumpy cobblestones are when you ride a vehicle with limited shock absorption. That said, Leo, now that he's well, is a complete joy to drive, and the independence that he (and his ironic name) are giving me is a beautiful thing.
Independence means the ability to go out in Brussels after the metro closes, which is what I did. I saw a lovely, disturbing film about les maisons closes in Paris at the turn of the last century, experienced Oktoberfest Brussels style, had a picnic in Parc Royale, listened to jazz at the historic club l'Archiduc (which, I am informed, is as famous for its crowds of slightly besotted, unemployed artists as for the fact that Djengo Reinhardt played there back in the day), did some English tutoring, got Leo a rain jacket and myself some motorcycle gloves (complete with flower embroidery, of course), and went to a protest. I also got lost approximately six times, and almost ended up in Liege with Leo. This is what happens when you decide that Mapquest is overrated and/or that the way you got to a place will work to get back home (Lies. Everything in Brussels is a one-way street. The sooner you learn this, the less lost/frustrated you will be. Also, assume you will encounter cobblestones at least half of your drive, and remember not to clench your teeth when you do.)
I now want to pause and talk about another kind of independence, one that's not related to two-wheeled motoring around a historic European city. I went yesterday to the "Portes ouvertes" protest at Steenerkozzel Detention Center, a "centre fermé" where illegal immigrants are placed after they are apprehended. As I got lost with Leo, I missed the train out to Nossengem and thus had to take another train out into Flemish country, passing through Leuven, a charming university town, and chugging through potato fields and warehouses. I assumed that since Nossengem housed a detention center, it was probably an industrial wasteland; but as I watched warehouses fade again into quaint cottages and hedgerows I realized I was wrong. I stepped out of the train and into the kind of quiet country town one sees in Irish coffee table books, or in Disney's Beauty and the Beast: pretty, newly-painted houses; trimmed rosebushes; elderly gentlemen walking dogs; families on bicycles. I stopped to ask one older man for directions to the centre ferme, and felt myself blushing as I did so. It seemed almost profane to mention Steenerkozzel, whose name to me echoes the dull thud of more sinister detention centers from an earlier Europe, to the inhabitants of this picture-perfect town. The man was perfectly nice, however; he smiled and told me that it was a ways off. "Where the road dips down and gets shadowy," he said in poetic French, "turn right, and you'll see it."
When I travel alone, I notice little things and endow them with deep significance. I saw an antique Spanish ship in a window, its sails painted with Columbus crosses. It seemed fitting. So, too, did the travel store a little further down, stocked with shining sturdy suitcases that gleamed with the potential of new journeys under a Western passport. As I descended into the "shadowy" part of the road, I realized that I was right by an airport. Jet liners roared, their takeoffs echoing through the valley. I turned, and saw the huddled grey blocks that make up the centre ferme, hidden behind a double layer of green fencing. Centres fermes are not prisons, though they serve a similar purpose; since their "residents" are illegal but not dangerous, they have open windows with thin metal bars across them. I could see faces at the windows, faces which if all went according to Belgian bureaucratic plans would be sent home to conflict in DRC or unrest in Libya within a few weeks. Planes, which like train stations usually make something in me tingle with excitement at the idea of new potential places to go and things to see, suddenly seemed sad.
As I got closer to the centre ferme, I saw a news truck and, closer to the green mesh fence, a group of 100 or 150 protesters, complete with a makeshift band who banged on drums and cowbells at random intervals. The crowd looked largely like the sort that roam from festival to festival in the states; if not for the big grey building behind them, I couldn't have said whether they were going to Bonnaroo or to protest deportations. Most roamed around, greeting friends, snapping photos, or just staring glumly at the centre ferme. A few yelled out to the inmates, reading off the numbers of help lines in Arabic, English, French, and Dutch (no one spoke Lingala). Periodically, some would chant "No borders, no nations, stop deportation!" or similar things in French. Eventually, a few got wound up and started throwing themselves at the fence with wire clippers. This apparently alarmed the police, who had been hiding out nearby. They came out in full force, riot cops with bulletproof exoskeletons and round riot shields. The crowd obligingly started singing the Darth Vader march from Star Wars. Hanging out in the back of the crowd with my newly-brushed hair, my equestrian boots, and my neocon leather bag, I felt like an onlooker. In all honesty, the closest I've ever gotten to riot cops was good seats at Billy Elliot in London. (That sentence is entirely absurd, and shows how out of my element I was). That said, I also realized I was hopelessly trendy; aren't many white, privelidged Americans my age getting their first taste of riot cops and protests in New York and all around the States?
All of this, plus the fact that I hadn't eaten since noon, made me grumpy. I watched the guys flinging themselves at the fence; saw the still, almost sarcastic faces of the riot cops. They were wholly ineffective; you could tell the riot cops were also hungry, and found it ridiculous that they'd been called away from Sunday mussels for a protest this small. Protesters started picking corn from a nearby field and throwing it over the fence; one riot cop moved his shield to bounce away a cob. His fellow officer looked at him and rolled his eyes, as if to say, "Seriously, man? It's corn." And, at the end of the day, that's all it was: noise, corn, a few well-placed stickers courtesy of Anarchists International (yes, I was a little alarmed they were there, but they seemed to be more interested in autocollants than revolution), a few grammatically questionable English profanities, and a lot of very wordy handouts about future opportunities to do the same thing. Part of me was excited to be part of something that was part Kent State, part Les Amis d'ABC from Les Mis, part Wall Street protest; part of me was angry at myself for how absurd and anachronistic that excitement and those references were; part of me was irritated at my fellow protesters for their fence-flinging and lack of showers; and part of me was frustrated at myself for refusing to fence-fling, for taking photos and taking notes rather than refusing to shower or fill my scooter up because that was funding the state that was sending these people away.
I left early, propelled partially by the time (I had to meet a friend later that night), partially by the cold (Brussels becomes frigid once the sun goes down), partially by hunger, and partially by my conflicting feelings. Did I want to join the protest earnestly, call the riot cops Storm Troopers, paste anarchist stickers, bang on a drum? Did I want to ignore it, to regret the inconvenience of going out to Nossengem, to make sure that no photos of my presence at such a thing ever got posted on Facebook for law schools to see? As I walked back out of the shadows, past the Storm Troopers that looked like regular family guys and gals, past the impromptu protestor campsites and the prim blue collar cottages, I thought about privelidge, and freedom. These kids, with their intentionally-worn clothes and studiously unbrushed hair, were privelidged; they had the freedom to go out, to spend hours protesting and lounging around with their friends; to make radical statements with little consequences for their current occupation as students. As long as you're a student, you don't have to curb your speech for fear your employer will find out; you don't have a job that starts at 8 or 9 am; you don't have a family and a stack of bills to pay. You can protest, you can be passionate: and I realized that that kind of passionate protest is a luxury, a gift, something that no one in the centre ferme at Stennerkozzel or the closed centers we call office buildings really has. And, like all luxuries, that kind of protest is largely self-serving; I am under no illusions that any inmate at Stennerkozzel was helped by the cowbell-banging crowd outside the gates. As I walked back, painfully aware of not only that luxury but also the luxury of being a legal immigrant funded by one of the most generous postgrad grants around, I thought about what could actually make a difference for those immigrants; about how sound immigration policy could be made; about how human rights could actually be defended. I remembered why I wanted to be a lawyer, and wondered if I could combine the fence-flinging zeal of my fellow protestors with the smooth hair and polished suits of an attorney. I thought about how far was too far: how passionate you could be before you became dangerous or counterproductive; how integrated into a system you could become before selling out entirely; how you could avoid throwing corncobs; how you could avoid living peacefully on the hill above the shadow.
Today, I went to the commune in prissy Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, took a number, and sat beside my fellow immigrants. I paid sixteen euros cash and received an invaluable paper, stamped with the seal of the Belgian king and the commune burgomeister. The office attendant handed it to me with a smile, informed me that if I were stopped in the street I should produce this paper and no one would bother me, and then said "Welcome in Belgium. We are glad to have you." In fairness, I've been through quite a few bureaucratic headaches for this little piece of paper; I've sent countless documents to the commune, the consulate in Atlanta, to ULB, and to the police precinct. Immigration is never easy. But as I walked out the door, paper and even more invaluable navy US passport in hand, I realized that for many in this and other countries, it's impossible. As they struggle to escape unrest, turmoil, or even genocide in their homelands, they encounter the impersonal, inhuman face of a bureaucracy that attempts to remove personal responsibility for their fate. They are stopped for their skin color (please note that I've never been asked to produce papers, while several of my fellow classmates of African or Middle Eastern descent are asked at least twice a week); detained often because they don't understand French or English or Dutch well enough to explain their situations; and deported back to their homelands with the fatal stamp that forbids them return to Europe for ten years due to their immigration delinquency. And while I can always call my embassy and bring US wrath on bureaucratic heads, these people's embassies often hold less clout than I as a single US citizen do.
I don't have answers on immigration, on social inequality, or on the best way to protest. But I've got more questions, which is where all revolutions, no matter how big or small, start.
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