Anti-What? G8 demonstration, Rostock

Sitting in the most crowded train I’ve yet witnessed (without having been in India), I wonder if the anti-G8 demonstrations will attract as many spectators as a football match, the Olympics, or a free Barbara Streisand concert. Opposite me a German woman reads a novel about Russian migrants in Berlin, next to me a Chinese tourist reads a Spanish beginners text, while behind, the well-dressed French party are thumbing through pages of conference briefs about the summit. They laugh heartily at every boisterous shout emitted from the small troops of black-dressed antifascists crouched near the exits, and I’m pleased to observe such an acceptingly multiethnic presence.

In reasonably good German, the Chinese tourists ask us what we are demonstrating against. They have planned a daytrip, and by coincidence, are travelling to Rostock via Schwerin. We inform them of the NPD, or as we call it ‘Nazi’ demo and counter demo which is to take place in Schwerin, but they don’t seem too fussed. Attempting to list as many reasons as possible for demonstrating against G8, it seems easier to inform the sightseers that we’re simply anti-everything; however the question remains on my mind.

How can such a heterogeneous crowd be mobilised in one direction? How many protesters really know what they hope to achieve? Does this event, the G8, in some way unite all its opponents? Do we all have an anti sentiment in common? The only party that appears to be for anything are the G8 leaders themselves. But still I have the sense that we are coming together for a common good.

We pass several stations around Schwerin and the passengers are delighted to see real live Nazis at which to direct their disgust. Police are omnipresent. At every station, departure is delayed and the driver’s announcements, starting with: ‘Keep the doors free’, are soon embellished with ‘Please!’, and ‘We need to get to Rostock today’, before an eventually resigned: ‘Can I take off now?’. We catch a glimpse of riot police jumping on someone outside on the platform, before the train leaves and we begin to bundle our belongings.

Upon arrival in Rostock it was clear the demonstration would be as big as expected. Across the railway stood several thousand colourful demonstrators, the march that would later be converging with ours at a central location. Our group was to leave from 5 km up the coast of Rostock’s inlet.

We found our group and joined our political comrades: a large, loud, bright group of refugees, asylum seekers and friends of immigration. These had been lucky enough to secure the front of the march, no small feat, and were well decked out with mobile prop boats, 10 metre-long novelty wire cutters for make believe camp fences, a plethora of signs and banners, drums and tins. And in this fashion we made our way for the meeting place.

This turned out to be at Rostock’s small, though less than quaint harbour, lying beside the slightly more picturesque old city. The smell of carnival bratwursts greeted us even before the welcoming announcements from the modest, Bono-less stage. Happy enough not to be surprised by anything too disproportional, my friends and I stepped off the path of the march to consider our next move; I began to wonder what I would write about.

Some other friends had stayed with the march and as they disappeared and complacency came upon us, a frantic scramble began ahead. At the point where both marches were to converge, the police had positioned themselves in massive groups of armour-clad, post-adolescent riot security. In the same area, the unidentifiable ‘Schwarze Block’; ‘Autonoms’ and/or ‘Antifascists’ were gathered to protect -as they may see it- the peaceful demonstrators from the law.

Despite having seen the unfolding conflict, itself escalating for some hours, I could not and will neither attempt to explain the cause of the situation itself. Bottles vs. batons, stones against tear gas and water canons; what most threatened the safety of thousands present were probably the police stormings, whereby helmeted battalions ran at the dense population in double lines looking much like an American football team on amphetamine. I confess I’ve never seen anything like it.

From the stage, event organisers told us to remain calm, stay together, ignore the provocations of the police, and most wisely, ‘come to the music’. I wondered, as I still do, what was meant by provocation. Is it the fact that around 15 000 police troops were deployed to a demonstration where the real opposition, the G8 leaders, would not be on location for 4 days? Was it the demonstrations by anti-whatevers in the weeks leading up to this event? Was it the idea of the NPD or ‘Nazi’ demo in the close by suburb of Schwerin? Was it the authorities’ granting of their permit to do so? And if so, why hadn’t the Antiracists demonstrated on location? Later we found out that the NPD demonstration had been called off; still, 150 anti-NPD protestors were arrested in Schwerin after refusing to leave the area.

So had the police indeed been provoked by the black-hooded, beer bottle-throwing antikids? It’s hard to see why they pose a threat once you have witnessed the presence of the police over the last few weeks in Hamburg. But perhaps the chaos is enough to seriously annoy Mr Schäuble, Germany’s minister for security. And apparently he’s not the only one.

Myself, I’d hate to see the demonstrational efforts by refugees -themselves struggling for the very chance to live in a country not threatened by war- be over-shadowed by media reports of ‘police coming to violent clashes with unruly demonstrators’. It would be a great shame to forget about our stance on climate change awareness and global economic exploitation, but at the moment I’m finding it hard to get off the topic of demo-politics.

Martyrdom is not officially practiced in the West, but increasingly, the Left is falling victim to ill thought-out schema, often pulling its good will onto the sinking ship. I asked my partner if there is also an anti-antifascist group threatening them the way they do the Nazis and heavy-handed police: the answer, not surprisingly, yes. Apparently anti-antifascist practice is to photograph the autonoms as candidly as possible, in order to post the photos on the web, making them identifiable targets for Nazi thugs. Hmm, cameras eh? Well it sounds a lot like the police trend we have been seeing: sending cameramen along with every squad, in the hope that the fear of Big Brother will be a pacifying presence. Brain-dead yes, but perhaps not as stupid as dressing up like the enemy and hitting them with the violence we are accusing them of.

The news reports on the morning after were fairly mixed, regarding injuries, arrests, and numbers at the demonstration. Certainly the media favoured police reports over the claims by organisers, that police had fuelled the conflict. (Theory also exists that the autonom-scene is heavily infiltrated by blood-thirsty, undercover police, who generally spark the fires in order to justify police retaliation.) Unfortunately, this will remain unclear as long as some groups choose to protest ‘autonomously’ in this fashion. Does it taint the milder left movement? Hopefully not. But it is an affiliation that the vast majority of demonstrators and activists would not appreciate.