Ansprache von Annette Schiffmann (Initiative "Freiheit für Mumia Jamal" HD) an die Soldaten

I’m Annette Schiffmann of the Heidelberg Coalition Against War.
I’m addressing you here – American fellow citizens in uniform.
You’ve seen us time and again during this year – opposing the war in Iraq.
No further arguments here.
You haven’t been allowed to listen anyway.
I want to share some thoughts with you instead.
And still you’re not allowed to listen, let alone to talk with us.

How strange.

You may not know how strange it is to have you here and see you somewhere nearly every day, and realize that you have no idea who we are – and we have no idea about you either.

Since you don’t talk to us.
You’re not allowed to do so.
You may not know how strange it feels to realize that you’re afraid of us.

Or what else could be the reason for this dramatic wall around your houses?

You may not know that we’re the ones afraid of you, time and again – think of yourselves as liberators – which once you were – and pointing with machine guns against us here.

We meet you in the summerheat around the barracks here on our way home somewhere in Rohrbach - in combat uniforms,
we meet you in the cashier queue in Rohrbach Minimal market – in combat uniforms,
we meet you sitting with your families in Mandy’s diner – in combat uniforms.

Not talking to us.
Ignoring us.
Being afraid of us.

While we keep wondering each time: where does this soldier come from?
Has he been in Iraq? Or she?
Has he already killed someone? Or she?
How may that feel?

You treat us like enemies – though we are the citizens of this town and its inhabitants.

And you don’t talk to us.

You behave like aliens in our neighbourhood instead.
You are so proud to have the world’s best democracy and freedom – and you’re afraid to even talk to us.

Don’t you ever feel that something’s wrong with that?

You may not know how strange it is for us to love so many things you as a people gave to us – in music, literature, and art – and being addressed by you as enemies, while the only thing you can fault us with is rejecting the politics of your government.

You may not know how strange it is to feel the contradiction that we know how many of our Americans friends are such incredibly nice human beings – and that you as a nation, once under the command of your president, often behave like a bunch of killers.

Why is that so?