May he be safe

One of the most inspiring people in my life is currently travelling the south of Africa to connect with youth and fight corruption from the grassroots level. I met Felix back in the uni days when we both started to prepare an Erasmus year in Paris. From the beginning, Felix seemed the guy who gets up early to work towards his ideals, who renounces the worldly pleasures in order not to get distracted and waste valuable resources, who invests all he can in projects and people when he is convinced they will save us.

Back in Paris, Felix got me to help him run a campaign. He was connected with a French student organisation - Etudes Sans Frontieres - and they were all appalled by the fact that Russia would take the rotating presidency of the Council of Europe, a longstanding European institution for democracy and human rights, while it was waging a war against the Chechen people in the back of the country. It seemed so hypocritical. We did not want the Chechen conflict to be forgotten.

Felix mobilised quite a few people and together we ran a petition and a demonstration in front of the Centre Pompidou. The philosopher André Gluecksman spoke and Chechen students danced a traditional dance in the street, people stopped to watch and listen. It was an inspiring day.

Later on, Felix asked me whether i would want to help him set up a German branch of Etudes Sans Frontieres back home. My life changed a lot that summer and returning back to Konstanz i was happy to indulge in a new project. We found some more people and together founded Studies Without Borders -- Studieren Ohne Grenzen (SOG) e.V. -- with Felix as president, me his vice and lots of our friends on the board.

SOG-ESF is committed to supporting young students in regions torn with crisis. We want to help them qualify themselves, so that one day they can contribute to the future of their societies and realize their missions and ideals for the better. Either we do that locally by investing in them and their immediate environments, or we invite them to study with us in Germany engaging in a real exchange.

The first year in Konstanz was a hard one, learning the German law on associations to abide by it, mobilising more people, teaming up in working groups, getting our project ideas running while all the time studying for our degrees. Felix founded the Congo project of our organisation, i headed the group on the Chechen project. By the time i left Konstanz almost two years later the first Chechen student, our first scholarship holder whom we had been able to fund, was with us in Germany preparing his studies of political sciences, we had 15 scholarship holders in the DRC in Kindu, who were studying with the help of our stipends, Felix had taken the association with him to Tübingen to establish a powerful local SOG group there, and more local groups were establishing all over the country.

Today, SOG is working from more than 10 German cities, I have stopped counting the members, they are in the hundreds, an Afghanistan project is being created, there are currently projects under way for establishing the international level by connecting the various national branches in one global organization. I personally keep working with students in Germany to collect books (academic and fiction) in order to stock up the Chechen libraries that got destroyed during the war. We got all this far, because Felix constantly kept pushing with more ideas and input from the back, while he also inspired and empowered others to push along with him as well as bring in their own dreams and ideas. (Plus, i would probably not be here and doing what i am doing had i not met him.)

So, this is Felix. Unfortunately, i could not meet with him in Berlin this spring. He had already departed to travel the world. Last week, Felix dropped an email that he had started a blog to report from his trip. I was excited to follow him virtually.

This morning, at breakfast, my cereals got stuck in my throat. Felix had reported shortly before that his travels weren't the safest. He is moving on land to meet with Transparency International groups in various African countries (Felix started working with TI last year and is committed to their mission the same as to SOG's), passing borders, going through capitals. The previous robbing was more of a corruptive kind it seemed.

But now in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, he got robbed for real. While reading his recent post, i got really scared, scared for the life of my dear friend (though i knew that for the fact he had been posting this he must have escaped). It is true that it can all be over very quickly, it needs just a little moment of bad luck, and that can be it. Reading, i felt Felix' distress so much, i even started to cry a little for the hopelessness and fear that my friend must have experienced in that situation. I also had to smile upon his reactions though, the silent and the voiced ones (as well as the ones he has received since), because they demonstrate his pure, loving heart oh so well.

I want Felix to be here on this planet for a long time to come. I dare say i would even give my life for his if necessary, because he will achieve more. I believe that he is one of those who will help us move on to the next level, always forgiving us immediately for the impurities in our hearts and the suboptimal deeds that come out of them, deeply trusting in our potential and the goodwill of one and all. I now want to release as much metta as possible in order for him to be constantly wrapped in a protective layer of light and love. And it would be great if you could join me in these prayers.

May peace be with him, and with you, always.

March 2008, Felix second from right.