As readers of this magazine will know, it’s not easy to get a residence permit in Germany.
But some people enter into so-called Schutzehen (protective marriages). After all, a spouse of a German citizen has a much easier time staying and working in the country.
This Saturday, a benefit concert in the house project K9 in Friedrichshain will help people trying to get married, since the fees can add up to hundreds or thousands of euros. The Berlin rappers Tapete and Crying Wölf will be playing, as well as the Knoblauch Klezmer Band and several electro DJs. (Tapete became famous when the unemployment office demanded an explanation for his lyrics singing the praises of living off the dole.)
“My mother married a man from Nigeria, and it was incredibly difficult for him to come here,” says Crying Wölf. “State functionaries in Germany and personnel in the German consulate in Nigeria questioned – really, interrogated – my mother and her husband at the same time to decide if their marriage and his residency was legitimate.”
The concert has been organised by the left-wing student group Red Brain, and also serves as an unofficial wedding party for a recently married German-foreign couple (although naturally, no one wanted to talk about it on the record).
“No human being is illegal” says Wölf, who was born in the Balkans. “Privileged petty bourgeois can’t imagine what it means to be deported.”
RedBrain Soliparty für Schutzehen! | K9, Kinzigerstraße 9, U-Bhf Samariterstraße. May 11 21:00. €3-6, redbrain.blogsport.de
