The First of May or International Worker's Day is a big left/socialist/communist holiday around here. It was a big day for the good old German Social Democrats (SPD), who, I want to note, are a mainstream political party, one of the nation's largest, who put on a well-attended street fair with free concerts, Turkish food, and a booth where you could write an answer to: "Why are you celebrating the 1 of May?" People wrote: "Because I love vacation!" and "Because I want free childcare!"
Right, so before I get to the riot: the socialists around here come in many varieties.
The First of May is maybe the biggest day of the year for rioting by the anti-fascist left--the German Communist Party (Yes, they're still around!), Antifascist Action, those folks. The anti-neo Nazi punks. Who, as I found out, seem to be mostly under the age of 17.
They kicked things off with a march, which I filmed! (Below.) The anti fascism march, as you can maybe tell from the video, seemed from the outset to be organized in anticipation of violent clashes with the Berlin police, who showed up in their usual large numbers and also in full riot gear (sort of like football pads, with a motorcycle helmet). The anti fascist kids wear all black, black hoods and sunglasses (apparently the police photograph them and try to arrest them later). Some seemed to be wearing multiple sweatshirts, for extra padding.
This was all somewhat out of tune with the democratic socialism street fair taking place in the same neighborhood (Kreuzberg). On the sidewalk with me as I filmed the passing demo were street-fair goers, one of whom was sipping a mojito. An antifascist teenager in all black ran by us, shouted something like "down with capitalism!", and knocked her mojito out of her hand.
She was like, "Hey, my mojito."
I guess I left before things got real lively. The next day the overly conservative newspapers proclaimed it the worst 1 May riots in years, with hundreds of police officers injured (injured anti fascists didn't make the newspaper headlines.) But they were gearing up to proclaim it the worse 1 May riots in years the day before. And having police in riot gear there from the get-go doesn't help things, right?
I did see one dumpster that'd been set on fire. I stopped to take this picture of it:
As I was lining up to take this picture, a little boy rode past me on a bike. I tried to get him in the picture too, but as I was focusing, the fire in the dumpster caught his attention and he wiped out, flipping over his handlebars and landing in the middle of the street. I ended up with a picture of this, too:
The boy got up and ran toward the fire--I guess it was in his apartment building, which may be why he wiped out on his bike when he saw it. He stood and watched the ambulance crew drag the dumpster into the street, where it burned.
This made me feel sad about the whole demo.
3 comments:
That was an interesting report. How come the German police don't like the antifa kids? Do they do anything other than set things on fire? There are antifa kids in Russia too, I think. They look as they should like little international punks. They often get beat up or worse by skinheads who identify them by the color of their shoelaces or something. I doubt they do much actual street demonstrating. As for May 1 (and more importantly May 9), it's been all-military all the time here - parades to the victory of the great patriotic war, etc. Don't think there were mojitos, but definitely lots of beer. And tanks. Depresso.
Ach Mein Mojito!
Yeah, Russia is way into May 9, I heard also. And the anti fa kids of Berlin had a May 9 "celebration of the victory over German fascism" which I think is an homage to the Russian version. The motto was "Whoever isn't celebrating, lost!"
That'll show 'em.
I think the police and a lot of people over-react when it comes to the anti fa kids. But the anti fa kids are pretty clear about wanting to battle the police, whom they identify with fascism. They smash up banks and do graffiti and stuff.
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