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Title: The New Repression Author: CrimethInc. Date: May 15, 2012 Language: en Topics: Germany, berlin, may day, repression, 2012, Read All About It Source: Retrieved on 29th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2012/05/15/the-new-repression-may-day-2012-berlin
On May Day 2012, anarchists around the US succeeded in precipitating
clashes on a larger scale than in previous years. But it’s important to
strategize ahead of our immediate problems, in order to be prepared for
the subsequent challenges we will face when we succeed. This report from
the May Day 2012 mobilization in Berlin offers a cautionary tale,
showing how the commodification of rebellion, the influence of
accommodating movement leaders, and the rhetoric of creating safe spaces
have been used to neutralize a popular tradition of resistance. If
revolt continues to gain momentum in the United States, we can expect to
see some of these strategies employed here as well.
According to Fire and Flames, a book recounting the history of the
German Autonomen, the first May Day riots in the Kreuzberg area—on May
1, 1987—came as a surprise to everyone. A simple street party became a
major conflict involving many sectors of the population, forcing police
to abandon the district for hours. From that night of freedom sprang a
tradition of mass confrontation, a yearly day of rioting in downtown
Berlin.
May Day 2012 occurred in a context of resurgent revolutionary movements
seeking to project their strength. There were many signs that it would
be exciting and combative: unexpectedly confrontational actions during
the previous year, a call for insurrection days the weekend before, new
attempts to squat housing, and efforts to expand the conflict zone to
other areas of the city—not to mention, this was the 25^(th) anniversary
of the first Kreuzberg May Day riots.
Walpurgisnacht, the traditional anti-capitalist gathering the night
before May Day, was moved to Wedding, a residential area seeing
gentrification for the first time. This attempt to extend the conflict
zone met a suffocating police presence that tightly controlled the
actions of the 5000 participants and prevented almost any action outside
the route previously registered with the police.
On May 1, for the first time, the traditional revolutionary May Day
march attempted to march to the center of the city. Perhaps expectedly,
the police surrounded the gathering of 20,000 after some small
incidents, declared the march illegal, and steadily broke down the
crowd.
Special semi-autonomous snatch squads charged violently into the
gathering to extract individuals, making the majority of arrests during
the march. Here’s how these work: one cop selects the target and runs
forward full speed with the rest of the squad in a compressed line
behind. The group flows around the arrest site to form a circle, picking
the target up and running, the entire operation usually accomplished in
under 20 seconds. People were targeted for wearing masks and showing
some sign of fight towards the police.
The suffocating numbers of police caused people to leave so as to avoid
being trapped. Later that night, most people had returned to Kreuzberg
but were unwilling or unable to precipitate further clashes.
The protests have been received within the radical scene as a bit of a
letdown, while the state and establishment view this as a victory.
Papers were splashed with headlines such as “May Day Passes Relatively
Smoothly” and “May 1^(st) Demonstrations Largely Free of Riots and
Violence.”
The reduction of confrontation on May Day is not a result of decreased
social momentum. To understand what’s happening, we have to look at the
state’s strategy for undermining successful mobilization.
A large movement with thousands of militants can’t be ignored. Millions
of euros are spent on the security operation to ensure that the events
of May Day do not call the power of the state into question. Officials’
careers can be advanced or ended by the perception of how May Day goes.
Media coverage is extensive. The language around the necessity of using
force, and against whom, mirrors the US government’s description of
“surgical” drone strikes and bombing campaigns against those with whom
negotiation is impossible.
In 2003, Myfest was created by an alliance of do-gooder liberal types,
small capitalists, and neighborhood-watch-style initiatives. The
festival, now attended by tens of thousands, was designed specifically
to occupy traditional gathering sites of overt political action in
Heinrichplatz, Kottbusser Tor, and Mariannenplatz, remaking them as
depoliticized zones of cultural activity, commerce, and partying.
Through the joint public-private efforts of Myfest and the state, this
scheme is intended to achieve complete spatial occupation and
psychological control of the population of Kreuzberg.
The control extends from the big picture—about 10,000 police and private
security—to minutia: the smallest aesthetic detail of your presentation
can determine whether you are allowed to pass dozens of arbitrary
entrance and exit controls.
Massive security operations in the US, such as those seen at political
conventions and international summits, have carved out artificial spaces
in cities for the elite to gather. This security model is designed to
shut down all aspects of normal life in a particular zone by
establishing an impermeable demarcation between the normal and the
special. This is the use of crisis.
Berlin’s May Day, on the other hand, is the mapping of total state
control onto the everyday lives and experiences in a specific geographic
area. In the festival zone, control is about the creation of fixed
continuity and normality where nothing besides a festival can occur
above all because everyone knows that nothing besides a festival can
occur. The crisis model at least acknowledges a state of exception and
increased violence.
To neutralize Berlin’s history of active resistance, Myfest imposes its
own convergence on the area. This starts with the branding of the event
as a safe space for families, immigrant business people, and anyone
wishing to participate in a political May Day event without conflict.
“Protest leaders” play an essential role in legitimizing and enforcing
the idea that this is not a space for confrontation.
Two dozen stages physically occupy gathering sites; music monopolizes
the aural space. Artifacts of resistance are offered for consumption,
wielded as weapons against any potential for resistance. You can watch
bands under anti-Nazi banners railing against police and fascists. At
night, there is a movie showing on the history of the protests.
Heading towards the festival zone, the police presence becomes visible a
full mile away, increasingly steadily until you reach the actual
checkpoints where bags are searched for bottles and weapons. The police
officers who serve as bouncers courteously move aside to let in the
right people, but sternly grip their weapons as they tell other
individuals to fuck off. At one line, you may not be allowed to leave
due to a pierced ear or a political t-shirt, while at another you have
no issues. It’s the kind of arbitrary repression that says, “We do what
the fuck we want.”
The zone itself is closed to all vehicular traffic, ceded to pedestrian
commerce in order to avoid the possibility of people trying to occupy
the roads for anything else. Groups of 30–60 plainclothes police with
earpieces monitor the crowds; additional groups of “Anti-Konflikt-Team”
police work to “reduce tension.”
As the night progresses, the proportion of radicals begins to rise and
police visibility becomes more suffocating. Small autonomous groups of
riot police snake through the crowd seemingly at random, looking at
individuals or standing near smaller groups they wish to intimidate.
Sometimes they deliberately shoulder people to emphasize that there is
nothing anyone can do in response. It’s a difficult tactical
environment, a fact recognized by those who want to continue contesting
space and by those who believe it’s better to stay out of the way.
All this is not to say there is no future for May Day confrontations in
Berlin. Many avenues for experimentation suggest themselves: shifting to
decentralized actions around the periphery, attacking the checkpoints
themselves, precipitating conflicts at new flashpoints via squatting or
occupations. This is not the venue for a complete evaluation of the
options. Rather, we should focus on what May Day in Berlin can teach US
anarchists.
Many US cities have been known as anarchist hotbeds over the last
decade, and at least one seems in the running for a repeat championship.
Yet successful outbursts of activity have often been followed by
escalating police repression and movement fragmentation, locking
anarchists in cycles of confrontation with the state (and each other)
that have been difficult to disengage from.
What’s astounding about Berlin’s May Day is not just that the
authorities have been successful at limiting people’s ability to riot;
it’s also that each year thousands of people keeping trying despite the
odds. The ability to regularly manifest a collective desire to publicly
attack our oppressors is missing throughout the United States. This
failure speaks to the problems anarchists have had at rooting themselves
anywhere from which they can consistently struggle—be it workplace,
school, neighborhood, or margin. We’ve gotten better at gathering for
occasional storms, but haven’t yet broken through to creating permanent
sites or traditions of confrontation—Oakland’s admirable recent attempts
notwithstanding.
Throughout the year, rioting and acts of sabotage occur regularly in
Berlin, but they exist in the context of a movement that still holds
significant space from which it can continually gather, regenerate, and
attack. Social spaces and housing and the intimacy and support such
spaces generate go hand in hand with the ability to weather repression.
The constant flurry of activity at social spaces and their function as
default social gathering points enable them to bring new people into the
movement on an ongoing basis.
Yet movements rich in numbers and space and steeped in the history of
specific tactics often have a hard time adapting and experimenting with
new approaches. Owing to the sheer weight of resources being directed
within them and against them, shifting strategy often requires a large
movement buy-in that is difficult to achieve. If US anarchists are to
consolidate recent gains, we’ll need to sink the deep roots our German
comrades have, while retaining the unpredictability and dynamism
necessary to push beyond plateaus and impasses.
It’s also important to strategize ahead of our immediate problems, so we
will be prepared for the subsequent challenges when we succeed. The
cooption of Berlin’s traditional May Day rioting via Myfest is an
important cautionary tale, showing how the commodification of revolt,
the influence of accommodating movement leaders, and the rhetoric of
creating safe spaces can be used offensively to suppress outright
resistance. On May Day 2012 in Seattle, a few dozen anarchists may have
accomplished as much damage and unexpected disruption as occurred in all
Berlin. If this kind of combative activity continues, we can expect to
see some of the strategies exemplified by Myfest employed in the US
alongside straightforward policing. Let’s be ready to identify and
counteract them immediately.