Circle of Peace: My Syrian Aunts and Our Hammam in Exile

Walking into a spacious auditorium full of European experts on peace-building efforts in conflict-affected countries, I stumbled upon an announcement of a ‘safe space’ for migrants like myself. The two words were written in blue on a flipchart by the entrance which would be later moved to the corner, where it belongs within an important conference hosted in a religious venue in a German village.

The virtual Hammam

For the following two days, I couldn’t help but feel confused and irritated by the intrusion of this buzzword into such an exclusive white space. A space where people like me, troublesome to the mainstream – migrants and coming from conflict-affected areas, ‘the Middle East’ –  are spoken about on the stage but were represented in the afterparty’s playlist by Shakira’s Waka Waka. Strange that I was longing to get back to Berlin, where there is at least potential to belong to a virtual Hammam with other Syrian women.