In Mahmoud Kaabour’s documentary “Being Osama” (2005), which follows six Canadian men who all happen to carry the first name Osama, one of the protagonists describes his undue detention at a Swiss airport (at 1:20 mins):
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“In the Swiss airport, they put me in the room for eight hours – without charge. No coffee, no…..nothing!”
A dearth of coffee can indeed exacerbate a humiliating experience, as I discovered on a recent trip to the Berliner Ausländerbehörde (foreigners’ office). There, Yousef*, a Syrian who had been granted asylum in Germany, and I spent five hours loitering in a corridor. There was no coffee, no nothing – no chairs, for example, so we alternated between leaning against the dirt-smudged wall and squatting until our feet began to feel numb. A multi-generational family of about seven or eight people, who had arrived before us, were doing the same thing. We spoke in hushed tones, until one of many doors that dot the corridor would open and a stubby woman perched on impossibly high heels emerged, carrying a single sheet of paper. We watched her as she tottered down the endless corridor, until she reached her destination: another door.
After about four and a half hours of waiting, my blood pressure had sunk dangerously low, and I stepped outside to scavenge for something to drink. Outside, a man pointed me toward the cafeteria, located in another building within the complex. But the cafeteria was shuttered, and in lieu of coffee, I found an official seated in a booth.
One apparent job perk for petty bureaucrats is the opportunity to relay bad news. The official informed me – with the unmistakable satisfaction of someone who has been waiting all day to reply to a question with a resounding “Nein” – that the cafeteria closes at 11am (oddly, because the foreigners office stays open until 2). I asked where, at this ungodly hour, I might buy something to drink (it was just after noon). I’d have to walk all the way to a supermarket outside the industrial zone that houses the agency – a fool’s errand, she implied. Better bring something with you next time, she called after me.
Two women from the family who had been waiting alongside us in the corridor were standing outside smoking. I borrowed a lighter and we struck up a conversation. They were Syrian-Palestinian refugees who had arrived in Germany two months ago and had already made many visits to the Ausländerbehörde. They had come prepared, and insisted I take a bottle of water and a packet of crackers to share with Yousef. I accepted gratefully, and we smoked, discussing the situation in Yarmouk camp from whence they had fled, and lamenting the unnecessary hardships inflicted by German official institutions.
Back upstairs, I handed Yousef the crackers and explained the coffee situation.
“You know,” he said, tearing open the package, “back home, when you get called in for questioning [by the secret police], they offer you coffee. Even if, an hour later, they’re going to be beating the shit out of you. First, there’s coffee.”