the story of my saturday in berlin, this 1.mai.2010:
with toni protectively by my side (please remember that as you read the rest of this post), i spent the whole morning running from HOARDES of riot police with thousands of other berliners as we tried to create a blockade against the hundreds of nazis who were planning a march through the city as part of the may 1st socialist celebrations.
wait what? nazis? like legit nazis? yes. insanity, right? and wait - the police were chasing
us through the city, impeding our every move with helicopter cover, firing tear gas and pepper spray (my first experience! hopefully not to be repeated!) at us for protesting against
nazis of all things?
i admit the entire experience was utterly surreal from start to finish, and i relied heavily on toni to educate me on how in heavens name all of this could still be happening: nazi marches and protests and rallies and all sorts of madness. of course germany is a democracy, and even though any and all third reich symbolism is illegal in the country, there is free speech and thus the modern-day nazi party has every right to stage a march if they so choose. any sort of demonstration, particularly all those on may 1st which is the
worldwide jour de demonstration, must be registered and approved by the city. so, anticipating the huge protest in response to a nazi march, police are shipped in from all over germany and help protect the nazis' right to free speech and assembly. so all of us were interfering, and this is why toni, me, and thousands of others spent nearly 3 full hours running somewhat chaotically through the morning streets of north berlin trying to create any sort of mass blockade along the nazi parade route - we couldn't remain in one location before storms of riot police (in full battle gear - SO SCARY) had blocked off the street before us, or began chasing and cornering us (yes, omg, by far the scariest part).
i mean what?! i seriously can't get over how surreal this whole chase was. please be assured that i
really was perfectly safe - toni was the perfect companion, having navigated such anti-nazi protests before (one of our first "dates" in oxford was actually a - MUCH milder - protest against a Holocaust denier speaking at the university :).
but the experience made me realize how real and scary the potential is for societies to revert to their worst historical selves, when memory of atrocities diminish and the false allure of pride and power overwhelm. the blockade was eventually successful by the way - the nazis marched, but only for a few hundred metres: the police could no longer guarantee the nazis' safety because of the thousands of people in protest swarming around. so huzzah for that - as toni consistently tells me, it is so critical to stand up against such groups - to not hide behind the idea that it could all be innocuous. the road to auschwitz was paved with apathy - a famous statement by a Holocaust scholar that i find trite but true. so huzzah for the fact that thousands of berliners protested so virulently against these pathetic remnants of national socialism. i find it hard to believe germany would ever all completely cower to nazism's idiocy again, but still: it's all an incredibly important lesson on the critical nature of history and memory, in whatever context. no?
and with that, i leave you with a link of pictures from the blockades, though they do little justice to the experience, as they were mostly taken in the afternoon and all media try to focus on any and all police brutality (which i didn't personally see any of, besides the chasing and spraying of course). in
this series of pictures, the blockade i was sitting at is the 5th picture (though this is just one corner of it: it spread through the huge lawn). and
this video is super ridiculous (look there's something burning! let's film it!), but again, if you want some of an idea of what it was like...
oh this day! it was seriously one of the most mad i've known - i didn't even get into myfest or the other revolutionary marches and more riot polizei and you-get-the-idea from the afternoon/evening... while the rest of that is crazy and interesting, it doesn't resonate with the same importance as this clashes i witnessed this morning. i'm super grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of it all. and really, i promise berlin isn't always like this, and that tomorrow all will be as safe and lovely as ever. can't wait for mom and dad to come visit! haha! no nazi rallies that weekend i promise :)
