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Mahmoud Al-Zein in Berlin in 2018: The clan chief has submitted an autobiography
Photo:
Sean Gallup / Getty Images
Finally, after 254 belligerent, self-glorifying book pages, Mahmoud Al-Zein comes to the real reason for his writing: He has heard an incredible amount from his boys about the clan series "4 Blocks" lately.
Enthusiastic and devastating.
They all agreed on only one thing: "Al-Zein was copied."
Cheek!
Mahmoud Al-Zein, whom they call the "Godfather of Berlin", was really irritated when he heard this.
And it would be better not to irritate him, the city knows that, his opponents know that.
Because his family is very big.
And if he declares war, then there is war too.
But we're lucky.
Mahmoud al-Zein has grown old, peaceful and wise.
He no longer strikes back with axes, but with letters.
So he wrote a book that ends like this: "So the hell with '4 blocks'. Now the original speaks. I am the original."
Welcome to the gangster world of Berlin.
Welcome to the world of clans: "My way, my family, my rules" is the subtitle of this underworld primer.
Mahmoud Al-Zein, with several criminal records for drug trafficking, head of a family of, as he himself writes, 2000 members.
In 1982 he came to Berlin from Lebanon.
According to his family's wishes, he should only be taking a short vacation here.
Calm down a bit, in the Beirut Civil War he was considered a particularly hot-headed, fearless warrior and leader of his own militia.
Self-righteousness instead of German justice
His family, he writes, feared he would not live there long.
So why not go to Berlin to cool off?
But during his stay in Germany the Lebanon war broke out between Israel and his homeland.
A return was initially impossible.
So he stayed.
And the war he brought with him to Germany.
So he writes it himself.
Mahmoud Al-Zein wrote a classic immigrant story as a success story.
However, success according to its rules.
Rules that the German judiciary, the German police and the German state do not recognize for reasons that are incomprehensible to him.
Al-Zein doesn't need rules or laws that anyone has written down for any reason.
The law is himself. He applies it for the good of all.
He calls himself a mediator, a "good diplomat", someone who "regulates" things.
"Occasional fights in my early days in Berlin were not absent. Especially if someone hurt my honor or that of one of my brothers, I was very tough. A brother did not have to be a blood relative. We also called close friends and cousins that. Whoever turned them on got to do it with us. The name Al-Zein quickly got a controversial ring on the street. "
One or the other drug deal
This sound then sounds like this, for example: A "lanky handsome guy" had lacked the necessary respect.
"Who are you anyway?"
this handsome boy had asked Al-Zein.
"Who I am? Mahmoud Al-Zein - remember this name, you little dog. If you mess with me, you'll regret it."
Somehow, the pretty guy didn't really remember the name.
In any case, our husband and his brothers have to be clearer: "We couldn't let this provocation stand like that, it would have weakened our position."
Sure what follows: "We made short work of him, broke him."
It is for this man, one thinks again and again when reading this book, that the word "self-righteousness" was invented.
"I was guided by my own principles and my sense of justice. That worked well," he writes.
Ultimately, it remains incomprehensible to him that he has been sentenced to several prison terms.
Well, he admits one or two drug deals, but actually only so that the judges have something against him at all.
The basis of his life and business is: "Respect".
That the city has respect for him.
Others might say: fear.
Remarkable tearfulness
He describes his business as follows: "We didn't have our own shops, but we were involved in all kinds of businesses. Here a targeted crackdown in a gang feud, there a clean-up in a club, cigarette deals, security ... We did anything. And we did it reliably. "
The word "Schutzgeld", for example, does not appear in the whole book.
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Title: The Godfather of Berlin: My way, my family, my rules
Editor: Droemer HC
Pages: 256
Author: Al-Zein, Mahmoud
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Mahmoud Al-Zein combines his story of the conquest of Berlin with a remarkable tearfulness when it comes to Germany's integration achievements.
How he would have loved to understand the German language better, for example.
Unfortunately, this was "only taught one hour per school day."
He felt rejected by the Germans.
He complains of a lack of respect among the employees of the offices, whom he himself calls "office stallions" in the same breath.
He complains that his wife's pregnancy, who gave birth to a total of nine children, is not recognized as a reason for him to be released from prison.
He complains: "Nobody took our hands to answer questions about our upbringing."
And: "Today I find it undignified how the German state treated people like us who had nothing but themselves."
Absurd self-glorification
When a business friend wanted to give him a villa in Buckow, Brandenburg - no joke, Al-Zein had done him such a favor - he was followed by the police on the way to the inspection and arrested again.
So he couldn't move into the nice present.
Instead, we go to jail again.
He finds it completely okay that his family receives social assistance from the German state all the time.
After all, the state is to blame for it, as a stateless person has been denied recognition as a refugee for so many years.
That his "family" has now grown to 2000 people in this inhospitable country must have some other reason.
Maybe the beautiful landscape.
At least he's out of business now.
"At the hardware store I bought soil, a shovel, rake, seedlings, planted fruit, got chickens and rabbits, and tended my own garden."
In the end, he also has a message.
To all.
To the "German society as a whole" and that is this: "Maybe that it should form its own picture instead of taking every villain cliché from the newspaper at face value."
Is that good advice?
The reader of this absurd self-glorification wants to seem as if every media cliché from "4 Blocks" or from elsewhere is more credible and likeable than this one.
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