Author: Devonne Piccaver (Page 1 of 2)

It was a brisk walk from the Ibis hotel in Mitte to Greifswalder Street, where Vitsche, a Ukrainian NGO, was hosting the conference “Between Memory and Stone”. When I stumbled upon the location Google Maps had guided me to, an old brick building, torn and crumbling at its highest points, stood there, making me doubt I was in the right place. Nevertheless, a vibrant sign for the event pointed to the entrance, which led me through a tunnel lined with an intriguing mix of neon LED lights and medieval-brick-clad bathrooms where modernity and antiquity joined. The hallways wound into multiple large, impressive rooms, where studio lights guided my gaze towards a stage fit for a play or a DJ set. However, a large screen with questions projected about re-contextualisation, memory culture, war, and the future of humanity demanded my attention more than the prospect of a performance.

Vladyslava Vorobiova, co-founder of Vitsche, an organiser of this event, and the best-dressed person in the building, stood before me with a plate of food.

“When we were setting up yesterday, I asked Yeva, didn’t we come to a rave here once?” she laughed. The duality was brilliant: once dancing to intense music in a building that was certainly shaken by sound waves, now she is hosting a conference where the Ukrainian community discusses its future.

This was during the lunch interval, when academics, journalists, and members of organisations talked among themselves, sharing thoughts and perhaps exchanging gossip about the silly answers to questions during the conference’s first panel.

“Where can we begin to re-contextualise history?” a member of the audience had asked. “We can begin with a QR code,” replied Dr Stefanie Eisenhuth, a research associate at Berlin’s Humboldt University. She was being totally serious, but it was totally ridiculous. “That’s the most German thing I’ve heard someone say,” said Christopher Bao, my classmate who accompanied me to this event.

Ironically, laid out on a table in the foyer outside the conference room was an abundance of stickers bearing QR codes. I went through and scanned each of them with my phone camera, excited not by the prospect of ‘re-contextualisation’ – as I had understood Eisenhuth’s statement to be peculiar, but by the prospect of finding more sources to further my reporting. One of them took me to the Instagram handle @Close_Russian_House, supported by their caption “No Kremlin in Berlin”, depicted in all-caps and furthered by their statement: “Russian state propaganda has no place in Berlin. Coincidentally, I am channelling my research towards the use of Russian AI bot farms to spread propaganda and anti-Ukraine sentiments on social media and Vitsche’s platform. Therefore, this QR came in incredibly handy. The other code I scanned took me to a website which I felt like I shouldn’t have reached. It was laid out in black, red, and green in a computational coding format, listing case files and investigative reporting about the Russian House Berlin.

I was telling Christopher about my interest in what I had found when we were interrupted by a woman who looked as if she were disguised as a witch. “I know you are Americans because you are loud,” she said. “I am British, actually,” I told her, laughing through the awkwardness. “It’s all the same,” she responded. She wore green business trousers, then told us she was the founder of the Green Party and began rambling about some notions I could barely understand. I nodded and smiled until she walked away to get coffee. Intrigued, we searched her up following the conversation, and she actually turns out to be completely bonkers. No mention of her to do with the Green Party, no sign of her anywhere on the internet at all.

I left shortly after this food interval, but was impressed by the multitude of interactions I had in such a short time. After weaving through the tunnels, I made my way to the exit and was abruptly blinded by the daylight. It was so dark in the conference space, and returning to outside civilisation would require anyone a few moments to adjust. However, it wasn’t simply my pupils that needed to dilate; my perspective did too.

These spontaneous events in unusual, strange places are alluring, and I imagine I will encounter many more throughout my reporting this week. I look forward to and invite more QR codes, pleasant food, and understanding of the situation in Ukraine and how it might evolve, especially given the influence of political propaganda.

I’ve been waiting for someone to call out Nigel Farage for being, quite frankly, an idiot. Since studying in the US, I have had a much better grasp of American politics than of my own country’s (British politics). I actually learned more about Reform UK through social media, which pairs perfectly with Ayala Panievsky’s chapter on how social media and journalism are a perfect way for populist parties to launch their popularity. However, the reels that came up on my feed were anti-reform, parody videos where people acted out what people who voted for reform are like. Every single one of them blatantly mocked a potential lack of education. I found this chapter incredibly interesting after the interview I conducted with the German Professor Barbara Nagel for my analysis piece. She talked about how populist parties thrive on creating irrational arguments because it’s so much more fun and so much easier. You can quite literally bend anything, in fact, to work in your favour, and because the argument is basic and simplistic, uneducated people should follow. When Panievsky brought up Emily Maitlis’ interview, this directly reminded me of what Professor Nagel had told me. Dr Gorka had so much fun destroying the BBC on live television, even if he didn’t believe what he was saying himself.

Additionally, I actually had no idea that Farage had been on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, and to gain traction for all the wrong reasons. It’s such an unserious show; it’s meant to be for celebrity actors, comedians or television personalities, so the fact that Farage, a politician, was on there is laughable. I actually remember when Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley Johnson, I believe, went on the show; he was made a laughingstock, and then a few years later, we were stuck with “Bojo” leading us through the pandemic.

Another part of the reading which I found myself underlining was the AfD being declared by the German domestic intelligence agency as right-wing extremist and an anti-constitutional organisation “which has Nazi roots,” (81) and that the DJV “suggested that media outlets should use clear warning labels in all their articles about the AfD, similar to health risk warnings on cigarette packets.” (81) This reminded me of the times when Trump was banned from social media for posting heinous things, and how he is a convicted felon, and how is he also the president of the United States. Panievsky reflects a similar sentiment in her interview with the journalist, who asks, “How can this person be our prime minister?” (87) when referring to Netanyahu. But she ends up being just as bad as everybody else by reposting his replies. So it is a constant cycle that is being fed, like CBS claimed to have raked in the money when Trump voiced his heinous views on their platform. Then she goes on to talk about journalists who take a centre view, so they are not anti-MAGA in the public view. But surely that undermines everything they stand for in the industry? Integrity is so important; they can’t let that go just because they think their views might slip. Again, Panievsky later talks about strategic bias and how “journalists knowingly slant the news to favour one candidate, party or political camp regardless of their personal beliefs” (102). It’s the “regardless of their personal beliefs” that stumps me. Why do they choose to do that?

Panievsky really gets us thinking about certain aspects of journalism, politics, and mainstream media in a way I wouldn’t without prompting. I wonder what journalists thought of this book, since she blatantly calls them out for their lack of integrity in the field.

Germany’s far-right party, the AfD, has recently opted for the country to remove its support for Ukraine. This comes almost a week after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz travelled to Kyiv to announce a €1.3 billion German aid package towards military and energy support for Ukraine. Merz’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, is a centre-right party, but it could not be further at odds with the AfD over this matter. The political divide in Germany has always been present, but at this time it seems wider than ever before.

Many experts are left wondering why, but they still attempt to find a reason for this gap.

“A lot of what’s happening in Germany has already happened here,” said Barbara Nagel, a professor in the German department at Princeton who grew up in Northeim, Lower Saxony. In the months after the Trump administration came into power, Nagel saw a dip in statistics supporting the AfD, showing that it had been harmed. “I was hoping for some time, but with the last elections, that hope diminished,” she said.

Joseph Vogl, a professor in the German department at Princeton University, discussed separating history into elements to understand where this divide all began. The planning for Trump’s America, which has influenced the AfD, began much earlier than you might think, he said. Trump’s far-right bid their time; Vogl calls it “long preparation”, and the inauguration of the Heritage Foundation in the 1970’s prepared them for the 2024 U.S. elections, giving them a 50-year head start.

The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the Trump administration’s success in 2024, when conspiracies, controversies, and the very nature of public life were called into question.

“The pandemic was an important moment; it was the emergence of social media, which suddenly created a completely new public sphere,” Vogl said. These elements, combined, Vogl thinks, have been important in the rise of the far-right across Europe and have contributed to the party divide in Germany.

To make sense of why the far-right is so successful, Nagel used an anecdote from a class she taught at Princeton during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nagel split the group into two and began a debate: one group argued for why vaccinations are necessary, and the other took on the role of conspiracy theorist anti-vaxxers. The group that argued against vaccines had infinitely more fun; they were able to make an abundance of irrational arguments.

“When we stopped, we were all so depressed, we hadn’t thought of this consciousness, of this joy of making counter-rational arguments,” she said, “I work on rhetoric, so I thought after that, Oh man, like this, we are doomed,” she continued.

Nagel wonders if the AfD learned their absurdity from Trump. “You know, [the AfD] is the party that called the Holocaust chicken shit, that is the party where Alice Weidel said that Hitler was a left-wing terrorist,” she said. Nagel thinks the AfD says things that are so absurd that they cannot be fact-checked. They maintain the intent to confuse and disorient, and it’s all for their own enjoyment, like the students in her class, who once derived great enjoyment from debating using irrational statements.

It must be noted that Die Linke, the leading Left party, won in Berlin’s September 2026 state elections, making this the first time a German-Turkish politician could become the mayor in Berlin. This shows that left-wing parties are “rejuvenating” themselves, but right-wing parties are too. “I’m afraid that the AfD will become the biggest party,” Nagel said.

The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia has worsened the economic state in Germany. The energy restrictions on Russian gas, coupled with Trump’s tariffs, have caused a foreign crisis.  Nagel explained that her friends at home in Germany are struggling financially, and she believes that companies raising prices by 300% “because of the war” are not justified. Rather, they are using the war as an excuse to capitalise.

“People feel really worried about humiliation, being unemployed. I would be, too,” she said.

Germany’s AfD gives a reason for its wish to stop providing foreign aid to Ukraine. According to a recent Reuters article, Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD leader in Saxony-Anhalt, presses CDU leader Merz to shift his focus to a campaign to end the war rather than to providing foreign aid to Ukraine. Siegmund wants the aid money to stay within Germany, “for the people in our country,” he said. However, it is not that simple.

“Putin is not going to stop the war. He just cannot stop it. He needs to continue the war for years and years because if he stops the war, the Russian economy is going to collapse faster than if he continues,” said Oksana Nesterenko, a Ukrainian public policy analyst and anti-corruption activist who works in Princeton’s SPIA (School of Public and International Affairs) department. According to this ideology, Siegmund is not truly interested in the end of the war because it is not possible. At the moment, he is more interested in retaining money in Germany.

Nagel thought about the state of politics in Germany, “all of this is depressing,” she said, believing that AfD will gain enough votes to take power in the future.

“Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral,” a phrase in German she said, “It means first you need to eat, and then you can have morals.” Working-class people will not pursue altruistic politics; they’ll think of themselves first. If the AfD promises people a better life, people will vote for them, and the party will prevail.

There are a couple of ideas which I’d like to try and follow through on. Firstly, I went down a rabbit hole after looking into Vitsche, a Berlin-based Ukrainian activism NGO. Their members are very active on social media and film a lot of their protests and outreach in a very cinematic way. I contacted a couple of the primary members on Instagram and have arranged to chat with the women who are the face of the movement. I’d like to learn more about the NGO, but more specifically the individuals who make it successful through influencing on social media. I have many questions, one of which is whether they receive any pushback from Russian representatives. I wonder if they’ve been contacted or warned in any way about the work they’re doing or if their safety is ever at risk. I imagine each of them has very powerful and moving stories, and I’d be interested in profiling one of them as well. This type of reporting would require me to visit their hub and watch them in action in Berlin.

In that same regard, finding and interviewing Russian journalists in Berlin who have either fled Russia or been exiled from it. I want to know how Russian journalists are being persecuted and if they can truly find refuge even once outside Russia. An incredibly pressing question which I have is what the hell is going on in Russia. At the same time, I don’t know how feasible or safe it would be to pursue a story like this, but the prospect of it does intrigue me.

Another potential topic to pursue, which is something that Deb spoke about in class and interested me immensely, is the divorce rates among Ukrainian couples. Ukraine has the biggest number of women in the military, and divorce rates have skyrocketed. As Deb suggests, the men on the front lines are meeting women on the front lines. A way of pursuing this story would be to find a couple who have had this happen to them, and interview them about their story and what the divorce process looked like. Again, I’m unsure how difficult it would be to find a couple who met on the front lines; I don’t know how common it has been for military couples to flee to Berlin. Another topic that we learned in class is that Germans are preparing for a war in 2030. I’d like to speak to people about what this preparation looks like, and what ignited it. Additionally, I’d want to know how widely recognised this is, and if the average person has the same thought in common to prepare for war or if it’s a few minority individuals.

Something which keeps popping up in my news feeds, on my social media and in my email inbox is how Afghan women are currently being oppressed by the Taliban. They pretty much cease to exist; they are barely allowed to breathe in Afghanistan at the moment — it’s so surreal that it’s almost unreal. I cannot believe they haven’t yet been rescued. We learn about what’s happening to them in the media, yet their situation persists. Considering the articles from last week about Germany’s admission schemes being revoked in 2025 and then re-implemented again a year later, I wonder how many Afghan women have been trapped because of this? I wonder if there’s a way to find out? I also wonder if there are any women who made the cut before the programme was revoked but have lost contact with family back home?

This is my initial brainstorm. I imagine that once we land in Berlin and I get talking to people, I’ll receive on-the-ground information or a window into a more refined story. But the above are a few angles I could take; I’ll continue to email and make contact up until we leave.

The Correctiv’s story on “A Secret Plan Against Germany’ was shocking. As many of the articles following this story clarify, it demonstrated ideologies comparable to Nazi Germany. What was discussed about ‘re-migration’ and a masterplan for forced deportations would completely dismantle the protective firewall or Brandmauer put in place to stop Germany from ever returning to that oppressive, tyrannical place. If one were to take the story at face value, then the AfD would surely be banned. Although the story had a large impact on public opinion and raised awareness in Germany, it is surprising that it did not result in the removal of the AfD’s eligibility. The meeting, how it takes place in a hotel, and how people were invited, is all incredibly suspicious. I thought it was interesting how Correctiv laid the story out in Acts like a play, which I felt slightly diminished the story’s reliability.

However, the Reuter’s article that supported the story and explained the complicated process the reporters underwent, alleviated my skepticism. It was reassuring to learn what the reporters thought about what they had found, “We knew the material was explosive,” one woman quotes. A couple of questions I had about the process of investigation are as follows: Why would the AfD send Correctiv an invitation? And if they didn’t, then who did? I’ve always been taught to declare when something is on the record, and this entire investigation happened undercover, off the record, so I wonder, what are the legal and ethical implications of this type of journalism? Does it not matter how the information is collected when the stakes are this high, when Germany is under threat? The Brussels Signal appears to be a right-wing outlet with the way it spoke about Correctiv having fabricated the story. It sounds a little bit like Trump’s response to call demonising truths about himself “fake news” a lot of the time. It is disappointing that Correctiv’s impactful revelation, a story that took months to report and prepare, can be dismantled by one Brussels Signal article claiming it was completely fabricated. I can see how it might be difficult for a German citizen, or anyone for that matter, to know what to believe when there are so many contrasting articles. I suppose one would choose to believe whatever their personal values align with.

The main points demonstrated by these articles regardless of reliability, is how catastrophic the AfD would be for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees if they came into power. I’m surprised that there aren’t more significant efforts to stop them considering the similarities between the AfD and Nazi Germany. On a slightly more recent note, I’ve just seen in the news that Friedrich Merz landed in Kyiv upon giving military support and funding to Ukraine – and “Urging Putin To End War” as per Al Jazeera. I wonder if this will result in any repercussions for Germany, by Russia? This stance taken by Merz feels very different to the Courthouse News Service article about him wanting to insert tougher immigration policies and failing. I wonder what changed?

The NYT investigation by Azmat Khan, is excellent, I am very unsurprised that it won a Pulitzer. Call me a dissociated international, but I hadn’t heard about the atrocities of U.S. military air strikes on civilians in Afghanistan and Syria prior to this reading. The notion that continuously reappeared throughout this thorough and intense investigation, was the lack of accountability: “mistakes do happen,” – Bill Urban, “policies, procedures, practices” are “sufficient for continued operation,” with no condolence payments to victims’ families. This lack of accountability is evident in the survivors’ testimonies, the people who want answers for why this happened and why their homes and loved ones were targeted by air forces. This kind of collateral damage certainly raises a moral dilemma. On one hand, there was a job to be done, and that was to stop ISIS, and the U.S. operations were able to do this, but at the cost of so many civilian lives. They had the facilities to make analyses and surveillance better and more equipped but they chose to spend that money on better weapons to create more damage. Why? It feels incredibly counterproductive. The reason the U.S. military were sending air strikes in the first place was to stop ISIS from committing terrorist acts and mass murders, but the U.S. military had a part to play in the killing of civilians themselves.

The “Play Time?” section of part one was both enjoyable to read, as it felt as though I was reading a fiction video game novel, but heartbreaking, because this is not fiction. I thought it was impressive how almost each air strike Khan mentioned had its own NYT article attributed to it. But Khan brings humanity and condolences to the casualties of these strikes in a way that the linked news articles don’t. Reading Part 2 in the magazine, demonstrated the immense amount of investigating, and the intricate methodology Khan used to gather her sources, her access to countries, sites, reducing misinformation from eye witnesses, it’s all so impressive. I wonder, with the amount of people she talked to, heart-wrenching stories she listened to, did she ever break down? Did she ever develop compassion fatigue? – as so many readers of migration and war time news do. How on earth did she manage to conduct so many hourly, personal interviews all on her own accord? Was it safe? Khan uses a lot of dysphemistic imagery, she says what she sees, or what the eye witnesses saw, but what impact does this have on the journalist?

In the Euro News and Politico, Reuters and Nieman stories, we learn of Germany’s abrupt decision to revoke a promise of resettlement for Afghans, and then a reversal of that decision. I am particularly struck by the quotes in these articles, “Germany must finally bring those seeking protection to safety from torture and death,” – Mareile Dedekind, and “For the moment, I don’t see any light in this darkness,” – Rubin, and “we’re safe now and can live like humans again,” – Baresh. The news and context is important, but quotes like this, I think, make the story worth reading, because we can see the actual impact a news development is having on those affected. I did my news piece on Ukrainians and their uncertainty in Germany as far-right movements rise, but it is clear that Afghans are directly impacted, with 2400, waiting to travel to Germany. It is certainly worrying for these groups as to what could happen to their protection and rights if the fair-right movement gains more traction.

Recent state elections in Germany have shown a rise in popularity of Germany’s AfD, a far-right party who push for mass deportations and a firmer emphasis on the nuclear family model. The AfD have had their success in the eastern side of Saxony-Anhalt, which according to a recent CNN article, is the closest a far-right party has been to gaining power in the German state since World War II. They may have fallen short of the majority this time, but AfD’s anti-immigrant sentiments are being echoed in schools across the country. Germany has been accommodating for Ukrainians, but many wonder how much longer this will last.

Kamila Isaieva, 21, fled Ukraine in 2022 as Russian forces began to seize eastern areas of the country. The swimming pools had closed down, and seeking elsewhere to train, Isaieva fled with the National Swim Team who moved from Hungary to Italy, Romania to Germany and Germany to Scandinavia. The team saw European countries and hosts welcome them and unwelcome them for around a year – then Isaieva secured a visa to study at Princeton and moved to the U.S. Now, with the rise of the far-right across the globe, and graduation drawing near, she grows uncertain about what home will look like next year.

Isaieva, a senior in Princeton’s politics department, regularly communicates with her mother and younger sister, who have taken residence in Lower Saxony, Germany, under the Temporary Protection Status. Isaieva’s sister, Dana, has increasingly experienced bullying in school by German students.

“I cannot believe the way she’s treated in school. They are saying things like you f*ing dirty Ukrainian girl, go back home, go back to war in your country,” Isaieva said. According to Isaieva, the rise of Germany’s AfD has worsened Dana’s experience in school. “If they’re saying something in school, it means that it has been discussed in the family,” she added.

Joseph Vogl, a Professor at Princeton’s German department since 1996 is reassured about the safety of Ukrainians in Germany because of their importance for the economy. “I think at the moment, Ukrainians are not endangered. They work in a lot of professions which are important in the country, and they have a strong community.” Vogl, 68, is more concerned about Afghans and Syrians who are “the most endangered group.”

“The question for the AfD is how to Germanize culture,” Vogl said, when discussing a cultural battle which places art, museums, monuments and theaters at risk of indoctrination. Vogl said that the AfD wants to privatise public schools, making them more religious and reinforcing family structures. Vogl also spoke about the misconceptions surrounding the AfD, “Most people have the impression that the AfD are protestors against the elites, against a certain mainstream politics. I have the impression that people know what they are voting for, and that is racist politics.”

Oksana Nesterenko, a Ukrainian public policy analyst, and anti-corruption activist who works in Princeton’s SPIA (School of Public and International Affairs) department, also fears the consequences if the AfD were to win the majority vote. “The consequences would be more serious than the deportation of all Ukrainians back to Ukraine,” Nesterenko said.

Nesterenko, who packed up her entire life, and fled with her six year old son from Kharkiv to Western Ukraine after missiles were being dropped near her home, believes that “Ukrainians are very practical and pragmatic people, they used to travel around Europe a lot even before the war, so they are flexible when migrating now.”

Nesterenko foresees the worst case scenario with the AfD, “They could stop providing military support to Ukraine, Germany could leave the EU and there would be a big war in Europe,” Nesterenko said.

With the future being uncertain, Isaieva considers life post-graduation, although she’d like to continue living in the U.S. she is afraid her major would not be specific enough to facilitate a visa. “I would love to stay in America for at least a year, which is impossible. I’m not a STEM major,” she said. However, finding a place to live elsewhere is too – complicated. “I cannot work in Europe because I don’t have an EU citizenship, and I don’t want to go back to Ukraine,” she said. Isaieva is looking into Graduate schools as an option, potentially London, and endeavours to make plans soon.

This week’s theme is all about Ukraine. The Ukrainian museum in Berlin depicted by the Guardian article ‘A living, moving exhibition’ is striking and I imagine, very vulnerable to walk into. It touches on some of the heartbreaking stories that characterises the horror of Russian attacks against Ukraine. The ‘Social Taxi’ attack in particular, places a focus on normal, regular every day jobs and people who are targeted for showing humanity, for doing exactly what their role in life is. Something that I thought was both unsettling and concerning was Hanna Maliar’s ending quote in this piece, “My advice to Germany is whatever you do, don’t get rid of your bunkers.” If that doesn’t say that things need to change, and the war needs to stop before it becomes cataclysmic for more than just Ukraine and Russia, then I don’t know what does. I actually think that an article like this, ending on that note, should have gained traction and propelled some sort of worldly peace conversation, it was published over a year ago. Did these conversations happen? If not, my question is, how do we get them to happen?

The article in the Kyiv independent, like Deb’s own fact file in the modules for class three, provides statistics for Ukrainian refugees and their settlement in Germany. One figure that astounded me was the 20 billion Euros funded into Ukrainian accommodation and integration. It goes without saying that that is a huge amount of money, I’d be interested in seeing what this lump sum looks like in action, in Berlin. Then we continue onto the next article and the picture becomes larger, in the second Guardian article we see that ‘Berlin reports rise in attacks on refugees amid surge in far-right crime.’ I’m not overly familiar with German politics but I can say for certain that the same anti-immigrant sentiment is shared by the unfortunate rise of the Reform party UK, which vows to prevent people from crossing the borders – even those who have a right to claim asylum. This rise of the far right in this sense, seems perpetuated across borders. It seems that people are displaying active efforts to prevent violence against asylum seekers and refugees, Jian Omar expresses this in the article “We demand a clear protection plan for refugees.” There is hope.

The podcast on Reuters about the drone war immediately brought to mind operation spiders web, which I had read a significant amount about in a journalism class I took last fall. Ukraine dispersed 117 modular FPV drones that targeted – not people – but Russian military aircraft, weakening their modes of attack. Note how it’s primarily defensive, not offensive. On the subject of drones, I saw a concerning article in the NYT the other day about Open AI gaining a sort of consciousness of its own, now that is frightening, especially when drones are now being powered by AI. It feels as though all those ridiculous fiction films or novels about robots taking over the world (The Terminator or Robopocalypse) is scarily becoming a reality. In the podcast, one of the presenters mentioned how AI drones don’t need to be programmed necessarily because they can “talk to each other” or communicate like a flock of birds. Perhaps it is not corrupt political leaders we should fear, but AI powered drones, or weapons. Just a thought. Moving onto Deb’s substack, will the volunteers who are guarding the skies now and shooting down drones, have the capacity to take down AI powered drones?

I began my readings with Loubna Mrie’s memoir, she had an emotional story to tell. Although she discussed being unable to come to terms with her mothers death, or face the reality of it, perhaps this memoir and reflection was a way of doing that.

I felt these chapters reflected a journalistic intent to investigate, particularly when attempting to track down her mother. Mrie reflects on calling anyone and everyone to find her mother, “I try reaching out to everyone I know who has worked for him,” (238) then proceeds to list all of the connections or connections to connections, it is frantic, it is honest and it is brutal. At the same time, the readers cling onto a hope that she will find her mother, we are safe behind the pages, we keep the faith that in a few pages time, Mrie and her mother will be reunited. But as Mrie eventually explains, “to see my own story unfold in the same space where I have shared the suffering of countless others,” (247) highlights a harsh truth – this was a sickening reality to exist in. One line which I felt particularly moved by was Mrie’s understanding of her mother’s disappearance as fragmented into two parts: “before my mother’s disappearance and after,” this is very much how grief feels. There is a life that exists before a loss, a life with the person – it looks different, more colourful, and then there’s the bleak and grey aftermath – it takes time to return to normalcy, but normal will never be the same again. Then she questions whether she is grieving correctly, unsure how to deal with it, reckoning with its unusualness. I feel that Mrie captures this unavoidable part of life so well but also so uniquely as she mentions at the end of chapter 21, that therapy is unheard of in her hometown.

For Anand Gopal’s, Days of Love and Rage, I had read the first few pages about Abdul Hadi Bisher’s dreams of becoming a footballer and thought it would be a sporting success story similar to the movie “The Swimmers” which I had watched with a full heart a few years ago. However, this one quickly became political, when Bashir fell-short of professional football and seemed to  channel his failed sporting passions into activism instead. Again I hoped that for this chapter, it would end in optimism, especially as Bashir’s parents philosophy endorses “the faith that everything will work out in the end.” Bashir’s efforts fail, and I don’t think we see the reconciliation we’d wanted but Bashir appears to learn a lot about himself.

With Patrick Kingsley’s The New Odyssey, the structure felt as though it began with a typical family introduction, and quickly evolved into a statistical and graphic recounting of all the different violent events that occurred in the detention centers. None of these readings hold back from being dysphemistic with descriptions of the torture and crimes to mankind that took place. It certainly gets to point across, it cannot be ignored when it’s staring us directly in the face.

As a kid, Ellis Speagle would constantly get in trouble, the rules always seemed to be in the wrong place at the right time. It didn’t seem fair. Six years in the military didn’t help either, and unable to avoid their towering landscape of regulations, he learned every rule in their book. So, when forces of power tried to defy the rules, he noticed – and made certain – that justice was served. Now, Speagle is a sophomore in Princeton’s politics department, working towards law school.

After graduating high school, Speagle travelled from his home in Phoenix to Palma de Mallorca, Spain, and to a realisation that he needed a fixed job. On his second day working as a waiter in a steak restaurant, his boss shouted at him concerning his apron length. Fed up with being ordered around, “I said you know what, fuck this, I’m never gonna put myself in a position where someone yells at me like that,” so that same day, “I signed up for the military, where they yelled at me like that every single day,” Speagle laughed.

Beginning in 2019, Speagle’s journey in the military proved a gruelling yet enlightening six years, and he was moved around – a lot: deployed, stationed, returned – repeat.

It was 2021 when Jessica Tutor walked into a job training class required by the military and saw only one open seat, nervous and slightly embarrassed in the new environment, she slowly took the open chair beside Speagle. It was an instant connection. “He was the first one that made me feel comfortable,” Tutor said. Through this class, they became close, but by the end of their deployment on a ship that sailed around the middle-east, they were family.

“We were on deployment in Guam when it happened,” Tutor began. Tutor and Speagle’s ship had docked in Guam one evening, and off-duty members of the corps, including Tutor, partied in the bars and clubs. With it being humid and uncomfortably hot, Tutor left the party to sit in her rental car with the air conditioning on. Mistaking her stationary time-out for drink-driving, a Chief Officer filed a case against her which would have resulted in severe punishments or expulsion from the military.

“I was beside myself because I felt wrongfully convicted and targeted, no one was on my side,” Tutor said. Feeling alone, Tutor turned to Speagle. “I was reading [Tutor’s] statement, and I don’t know why, but I was calling bullshit,” Speagle said. Afterwards, he researched the rental car model, and learned that it was a push-to-start, so Tutor couldn’t have placed the keys in the ignition like the statement against her claimed. “The next day, the whole case was dismissed,” Speagle said. “That man saved my life, and he didn’t even have to,” Tutor added.

However, separately, Speagle acquired his own court cases. In August 2021, Speagle had been stationed in a psychiatric unit. “I was dealing with my own mental health problems, and here I am in the psych ward, giving mental health coaching to other people. It was insane” Speagle said. Speagle turned to psychedelics to guide him through this period, finding himself spiritually, on numerous ayahuasca retreats. “That saved me,” Speagle added. During this time, he took a leave for two-weeks to Guadalajara, Mexico and tried Kambo, a drug where one burns tree frog poison into their skin thus becoming extremely ill, but “you have this amazing, profound experience throughout the process,” Speagle said. However, an illness prevailed following the return to his post which required surgery. While sick, his superiors in the military ignored, delegated, and built a court case against him, claiming he was faking doctors notes.

“I still remember this moment. I remember I woke up, and something came over me. But I said, I’m gonna fucking fight this. I’m gonna throw everything at this, and if I lose, I lose, but I’m gonna do something,” Speagle said. He ended up writing a 105 page long statement from 277 pieces of evidence and was found not guilty on all charges. “I proved it,” he told me.

“I would say that he is easily the most incredibly gifted, smartest person I’ve ever met,” said Brendan Merrill, an extremely close friend of Speagle’s. Merrill and Speagle had worked at the same unit in the Navy hospital in early 2022, “Every time I need someone, the first person I call is him,” Merrill said. “I always wanted to become the person that I always wished I could call when I needed help,” Speagle said.

After landing himself in $20,000 of credit card debt in 2023 from multiple ayahuasca retreats, Speagle decided to ditch his rented apartment and moved into his Toyota Takoma. From here, he worked tirelessly to pay off his debts, continued to fight a court case against the military, and learned that he had a benign brain tumor on April 10th 2024. 3 weeks after winning the court case, “I had another coming to Jesus moment, and thought, what am I going to do with my life?”  His father desperately wanted him to apply for Princeton, “I have a really good feeling about it,” said Speagle’s father. “So I threw everything I had into this one basket, and it paid off,” Speagle said.

“He always happens to be in the right place at the right time, and he always does the right thing,” Tutor said.

Speagle defined himself as resilient and defiant, but Tutor said that he is irreplaceable.

When it comes to making things right and making things happen, “Whatever it takes,” said Speagle, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”