Yogyakarta Principles
peaceful friendship - Muslimah sisterhood, only in Berlin, Germany
photo owned by Diah Rofika, 16th may 2012
Ms. Rosales did not get to see the performance, but she put the picture up in her school locker, where she would see it every day before she went to class for another grueling day of rehearsals.
“They had these big ’fros, and they’re jumping, but with these pointed feet so they looked like they had ballet training,” she recalled, sounding excited just at the memory. “They reminded me of me.”
She does not like to dwell on racism but said there were difficult times growing up in a suburb of Berlin. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Marzahn was known for its neo-Nazis, and foreigners were warned not even to visit there. She said she and her siblings suffered attacks on the playground and racial slurs, with other parents standing by, doing nothing.
Friends in the United States could not believe some of the stories she told them, Ms. Rosales said, “because that’s like racism from the ’40s, things they hear from their grandparents.” Yet she said she did not let such experiences define her or her view of the country and added that she would love to return to Berlin to dance if she found the right company.
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“A Dancer Goes Back to Her Past in Berlin” |
