Ahmad Tavakkoli

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Ahmad Tavakkoli ( Persian احمد توکلی; * in Tehran ) is a German - Iranian journalist and ceramic artist .

Life

education

Originally, he wanted to start studying in the US state of California in the late 1970s . During the trip there, however, he visited friends in the north-west German city of Bremen and stayed there. First, he then studied architecture at the Bremen University of Applied Sciences and later at the University of Bremen production technology and cultural studies . He holds a diploma - engineering . He then qualified as a media designer for image and sound and completed training as a television journalist.

While studying architecture, he took part in a large demonstration against the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi organized by the Confederation of Iranian Students - National Union (CISNU) on November 25, 1978 in Frankfurt am Main , during which around 2,500 demonstrators attempted to defend the US Storm American Consulate General . Tavakkoli was arrested and charged with throwing stones at police officers . Then the Bremen city and police department threatened the deportation to Iran if it does not leave Germany immediately. The Jusos , the Young Democrats , the Evangelical Student Congregation and the Working Group of Catholic Student and University Congregations protested against this measure . On December 20, around 800 people demonstrated peacefully against the decision in downtown Bremen . Tavakkoli, in turn, accused the police officer who arrested him of beating him so severely that he suffered a bruised skull, had to be hospitalized and was unable to be questioned. He lodged an objection to the official order, which the administrative court of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen upheld on December 21, so that he was allowed to stay in Germany until the decision on the main issue. Ultimately, the deportation notice was revoked.

Professional career

Around 1991 Tavakkoli was working in the Senator's Culture Department for Education, Science and Art . Since 1994 he has worked as a journalist in radio and television in Bremen and is one of the defining figures on the free media scene and citizen broadcasting in the Hanseatic city . In that year he was one of the founding members of the youth culture radio Radio 46, which was produced in the Waller media center and received a weekly two-hour local window in the then new DeutschlandRadio Berlin . Tavakkoli presented the multicultural program Zem Se ( Persian for “everything flows”) on Radio 46 . Also since 1994 he has been producing and presenting the Bunte Bremer Fernsehen . It was the first live broadcast on what was then the open channel and it still exists on the successor broadcaster Radio Weser.TV . In the meantime, he also taught as a lecturer in media practice at the University of Bremen .

He has been making ceramic art since 2005 . To this end, he translates texts by Persian poets , philosophers and mystics - including Rūmī and Hafis - into German and thinks about suitable images. He then applies these to clay plates using Persian calligraphy , which he burns using the raku method . His works have already been exhibited across Germany - for example in Lilienthal in 2012 , in Eutin in 2013 and in Weimar in 2016 . Not far from Bremen, in the Ottersberg district of Fischerhude , Tavakkoli runs his workshop and is co-organizer of the "Fischerhuder Ceramic Days" that take place every two years.

Social Commitment

At the beginning of February 1991 - under the influence of the Second Gulf War - Tavakkoli and his colleagues from the Senator's Department of Culture for Education, Science and Art published a public appeal “for peace and understanding” in the Weser-Kurier . They positioned themselves against German arms exports , against the use of German soldiers “in the fight for oil” and against the military use of the Bremen ports . Furthermore, they showed their solidarity with corresponding protests by the youth.

As a member of the “Bremerinnen gegen Racism” initiative, he took part in a round table on refugee and asylum policy in Bremen in October 1991 against the background of increased arson attacks on refugee homes , where there were opportunities to ward off xenophobia and promote peaceful coexistence Germans and foreigners were discussed. In January 1999, Tavakkoli was one of the signatories - along with numerous representatives from Bremen's politics, culture and science - of a public declaration that was again reprinted in the Weser-Kurier , in which acceptance of the imminent introduction of the regulations on dual nationality was advertised. Around 1999 he was also a managing board member of the Findorff association “Refugio”, a psychosocial counseling and treatment center for refugees and victims of torture.

During the 2011 mayor election , Tavakkoli served as electoral officer for four electoral districts in the "quarter" . On September 20, 2014, he was elected to the board of the Lower Saxony-Bremen State Section of the German Union of Journalists (dju) as the owner . In addition, he was a board member in the dju regional association Bremen-Nordniedersachsen.

Political activity

Leading up to the state election in 1983 Tavakkoli was on August 4 of the Operational Alternatives list her to fourth place (BAL) Evaluation chosen. Many shop stewards and works councils from crisis-threatened companies as well as members of the German Communist Party (DKP) were involved in the alliance . Since the latter did not stand as a candidate in Bremen for the first time in 1983 and called for the election of the BAL, it was considered a DKP offshoot. Tavakkoli's candidacy was more of a symbolic character. Representatives of the BAL stated that with the election proposal they wanted to point out that “foreigners still do not have the right to vote at local authority here.” As expected, the election committee removed Tavakkoli from the list on August 26th.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Undine Zeidler: "Pictures made of letters". In: Wümme-Zeitung , № 227, September 27, 2012, page 3.
  2. ↑ a b "The fascination of texts". In: Rathauskurier. The official gazette of the city of Weimar , year 27, № 6, March 26, 2016, page 8396.
  3. ↑ "Demonstration without incident". In: Weser-Kurier , year 34, № 299, December 21, 1978, page 10.
  4. ↑ "Court: For now, Iranians may stay". In: Weser-Kurier , year 34, № 300, December 22, 1978, page 10.
  5. ↑ a b “Lower your weapons! Negotiate immediately! ". In: Weser-Kurier , year 47, № 28, February 2, 1991, page 17.
  6. ↑ Vivianne Agena: "Bremen Unplugged". In: Die Tageszeitung , issue 4237, February 11, 1994, page 27.
  7. ↑ Henning Bleyl: "Funkstille über Findorff". In: Die Tageszeitung , issue 9013, October 15, 2009, page 28.
  8. ^ "" Round table "against xenophobia". In: Weser-Kurier , year 47, № 243, October 18, 1991, page 11.
  9. ↑ "The Pass". In: Weser-Kurier , year 55, № 19, January 23, 1999, page 30.
  10. ^ "Money blessing from Brussels". In: Weser-Kurier , year 55, № 147, June 26, 1999, page 3.
  11. ↑ Marcus Schuster: "The first time". In: Weser-Kurier , year 67, № 119, May 23, 2011, page 8.
  12. ↑ ver.di - Lower Saxony-Bremen State District ( Ed. ): Annual Report 2014 to 2018. 5th ordinary State District Conference for Media, Art and Industry Lower Saxony-Bremen . October 2018, page 12.
  13. ^ "New dju board in Bremen-Nordniedersachsen elected". Press release (date unknown) on the homepage of the ver.di regional district of Lower Saxony-Bremen. Retrieved from nds-bremen.verdi.de on June 21, 2020.
  14. ↑ "Left tattered". In: Der Spiegel , № 38/1983, September 19, 1983, pages 26-29.
  15. ↑ "Final: BAL stands for election with 15 candidates". In: Weser-Kurier , year 39, № 180, August 6, 1983, page 15.


personal data
SURNAME Tavakkoli, Ahmad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Iranian journalist and ceramic artist
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Tehran