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WOW Jubilee IV 2020
Casablanca 2009
1 April – that’s a date which seems to be just a joke, but it isn’t funny that on 1 April 2010 Wilfried, just arrived in Casablanca on invitation of the Goethe Institute Rabat/Morocco to hold a workshop between 01-04 April, is attacked by two young criminals while he is exploring the medina (old town) of Casablanca about 12 a.m. The young Goethe Institute lady who is responsible for Wilfried’s security – Casablanca has the doubtful fame to be the capital of criminals in whole Africa – does not care and does not give Wilfried a security for company, so that he hardly entering the gate to the medina, in Wilfried is rising a really bad feeling because he feels some guys are following him, and then 10 minutes later in a dark and empty street his feeling to be persecuted come true, because two young guys about 18 years old attack him, the first one tries to press his arms around Wilfried’s throat and the other one tries to take Wilfried’s bag including a photo camera his mother gave him as a gift two years ago. By no means he want to lose this camera, therefore he is fighting like a lion, but minute by minute is passing and Wilfried does not want to give up, after neverending 30 minutes of fight for his life, in a final action the attacker gives Wilfried’s throat a final push, Wilfried is sinking unconsciously to the ground. While the dark street was completely empty before, when Wilfried opens his eyes after a while, the street is crowded with people now.
When an old man recognizes that Wilfried is still living and openes his eyes, he tells him, he would know the young criminals, they would live in his neighborhood. Some other people help Wilfried up, he looks like a zombie, more dead than alive. But then the old man points his finger to a little boy and tells Wilfried, the boy would bring him to the police. Wilfried learns, in Casablance exists a “tourist police” which is only availabe for the crimes committed to tourists, but Wilfried is full of fear and sceptical, what will happen if he would follow the boy. But soon Wilfried realises, he has no chance, if he wouldn’t follow the boy, probably the people surrounding him would kill him definitely. So, the boy takes Wilfried’s hands, and after crossing some streets and countless corners they suddenly stand in front of a building. Wilfried is surprised it is not the place for him to be killed, but it is the building of the tourist police. Inside, finally all fear is leaving him, but he gets a kind of breakdown. After a while recovering he is examined by the police officers in a most gentle way. 
But when he is asked for his passport, it becomes obvious, he had left it in his hotel. So, the police is driving him there and back to the office and finally all the administrative issues are solved and the police is dring Wilfried back to his hotel, where he is sopposed later the appointment with the young Goethe Institute lady. Now he is looking for the first time on the the watch and recognises that he spent all the time between 12 a.m. and now 6.p.m at the policestation. He is still very miserable thinking about how he had been nearly killed only some hours ago. Wilfried is happy when the Goethe Institute lady finally appears, he needs someone to talk about the horrible experience, but now he is again shocked by her reaction, because she does not care about the attack on Wilfried, but rises up really furious, how can the police dare to allow that such a crime happen to her, and she leaves shouting out load immediately the hotel lounge. Wilfried does not understand the situation, he needs some medical and psychological care and nobody cares! After nearly one hour waiting in the hotel lounge, the Goethe Institute lady returns, she had been at the police showing these people who would be the boss here (she!), she does not ask how Wilfried feels, whether he fells strong enough to hold the workshop scheduled at 8.pm.- but she is only talking about what people had done to her. When Wilfried is asking, the criminals tried to kill him and not her, she answered but she has to care for that, she would be the victim. The workshop is a desdaster because Wilfried is too weak to find his voice to speak. A taxi is Wilfried bringing back to the hotel, where he finally is collapsing. Next morning, the Goethe Institute lady appears for a common breakfast. She is telling Wilfried, she had one of the most horrible nights and couldn’t sleep at all, what have the Morrocans done to her! No word about the attack on Wilfried and how he spent the night. Wilfried gets so miserable that he is 
not able to stand up and say good-bye, when The Goethe Institute lady tells him she has to leave, and – indeed, Wilfried will not see her again during the stay that will take another 3 days, that person who had to care for Wilfried safety in Morocco simply vanished stealing from her responsibility. Would Wilfried survive the following days he was obliged to stay at the hotel in Casablanca, while due to the traumatization of the attack Wilfried’s health condition is turning slowly worse and worse? Wilfried will return two days later to Cologne, desperately weakened he is contacting a victims protection organization, and within two days he gets an appointment for a therapy at the Institute for Traumatology at Cologne University. After a while of continously declining, Wilfried’s physical and psychological condition however is meanwhile at a point, when the therapist decides to put Wilfried immediately in an artificial coma for the next following weeks in order to re-activate Wilfried’s self-healing powers. That’s a short story of a really complex matter which has a dramatic influence of Wilfried’s course of life.
It is difficult to switch in the same article 10 years later to 2020, when Wilfried opens today NewMediaFest2020 – 4th edition onlineNewMediaFest2020 – 4th edition online, happy how he managed the matter of the retrospective so far, thinking about the Corona crisis these days when people demanding solidarity on many levels, while he received neither solidarity, nor the slightest human feelings after he was attacked in Morocco and survived actually several times only, because a superior power decided that it’s not time, yet for Wilfried to pass away! He is thinking how profoundly society and the people living in have changed – see also the self-relatedness of the “Facebook” generation – and how it feels to be like a fossile or dinosaurus because Wilfried’s aims of life focussed on humanity and sensitivity have not changed. He is thinking of his mother who was born one year of the the end of World WAr I, experienced the Weimar Republic, the up-rising Nazism, and the system change the Nazi were enforcing, World War II and another system change only 12 years later. how she managed the family life after she decided to return to the professional life of a teacher, causing another system change within the family and at her late age the uprising digitalization through new technologies 
causing a dramatic change of nearly everything and the uprising feeling that she does not belong anymore to the world surrounding her. He is thinking of his rebirth in 2000 focussing his professional and private life on technology, before anybody else recognized the relevance of digitalization Wilfried was fully digitalized already on 1 January 2000, he was himself a digital, virtual instance and how he slowly returned to physical life during the following years and, now after 20 years, he is tired of technology, respectively the dominance of technology, he really hates how mobiles are dictating what’s going on in society, and he feels it’s time to resist and choose another course of life for himself according to the values which were characterizing Wilfried during all his life. But he does not know yet, how it might look like at his advanced age. He is thinking, if he is surviving Corona, the year 2020 will show and at the end of the year probably, he will know- at least a bit clearer.
