reaction on the crisis demo

ovis+dani 01.04.2009 17:43 Themen: Soziale Kämpfe
reaction on the crisis demo from the hungarian immigrant bastards
We are everywhere! Ok not everywhere… only in Berlin and Vienna

We ran away from the crisis in Hungary to safer, nicer places with less stress and more subcultural anarchist bullshit. We found out that there is no place to run and no place to hide. It is really everywhere. People give a strange name to it: crisis. We would rather call it everyday, boring and deadly capitalism. The decision to hold demonstrations on an international day of action was taken in Belém, Brazil in early 2009, where the participants of the World Social Forum thought it would accomplish something if tens of thousands people worldwide would dance around and be happy that they can feed the media with semi-interesting outfits and banners.
In Berlin the demo was mostly organized by unions on regional and local level, but there were numerous NGOs, political parties and other “normal” middle to lower middle class people. The unions on a federal level did not want to make a move, because there will be a separate union demo a few weeks later and they thought it does not make any sense to mobilize fully two times on such short notice. We really do not want to underestimate the technical problems of mobilization for a demo, but this signals something that was there in the air all along: this is a regular demo with a lot of standard political speeches and no consequences at all, except for the media message and the blocking of the center of Berlin for a few hours. For that 20.000 people were just enough (the media and the police say 15.000, the protesters say 25.000-30.000). In Vienna 15.000-20.000 people participated in the march from the Westbahnhof to the Parliament.

In both cities there was an anti-capitalist block with feminists, trotskysts, anarchists, antifas, syndicalists, but the majority of the people belonged to reformist organizations. It was funny to see the banners wanting a minimum wage and job security in the same crowd with the banners wanting capitalism and work to be abolished just a few meters from each other. The reformist majority can be explained with the distance taken from the demo by most of the radical anti-capitalists. There was a small block both in Berlin and Vienna and some squatters and anarchists appeared, but lot of them was not really interested in joining the big spectacle or went there to see what's going on, and met old friends, but didn't expect anything from it. The few hours of marching quickly got boring, because the colorful flag waving, marching around in weird outfits and shouting slogans is only interesting for half an hour. In Berlin the usual black clothed people were also running around with beer bottles and sticks waiting for provocation by the police, they were looking for the trouble but didn't really find it, only with a really limited amount of people at the very end of the demo. The media found it of course and tried to concentrate on the violence, but since there was almost none they tried to create some “news” by saying that putting a banner on one of the houses on Tor strasse was an “occupation” of a building (video by Spiegel.tv  http://www.spiegel.de/video/video-58282.html). In Vienna in terms of action and police repression there were two separate happenings. At the beginning of the demo two people were detained, the police said it's because some nazis somewhere close to the demo got beaten up. It's not clear if they faked the story at all, the coming days nobody knew much about it, and the two people could leave custody when the demo was over, so it seems more likely that the authorities took some people who they think would have made some trouble during the march so they just made up a story to have some official suspicion. Some people were spraying a stencil saying “Stop paying! Joy without exchange – Communism without a state!” But we don't know anything if they got arrested – which probably means they weren't. Active propaganda among the activists was also pretty much present in Berlin. Funny moment: in some places the speakers addressed the tourists in the center in english. Some people had in Vienna a banner in their windows in slovakian saying “Smrt kapitalizmu!” (Kill kapitalism!) and also the poster of the demo was in four languages (german, english, slovakian and turkish).

The classic social democratic unionist and the diverse NGO, anti-capitalist, party slogans (everybody saying what they would usually say) together with the peaceful, boring, festival like gathering (like 1st of May in Budapest, but with a march in the city) are saying a lot about the german and austrian reception of the crisis: it is there, but not really visible enough and not all pervasive like in Hungary or Ukraine. The unemployment rate has risen significantly in Germany, but the social benefits are still there to a certain extent (Hartz 4 which is a fairly old story - compared to the Bajnai-package prepared here - was still the hot topic in Berlin) and somehow the system seems to function better. If you talk to people about the crisis they mostly say oh you are from Hungary it is pretty shitty there nowadays isn't it? Which implies that it is not that shitty for the person asking the question… this is a commonplace… there is a difference between the “here” and “there” as if the crisis or capitalism or however you call the logic making our lives shitty wouldn't be global with local versions and locally appearing symptoms.

For the same topic in Vienna we got similar answers, even more directly saying, that you don't feel the crisis in everyday life. Of course, there are people, individuals and separate (and alienated) households who are already in trouble, the unemployment is growing as well. But the news about the crisis are talking about the USA, Great Britain, and the eastern region, especially Hungary and Ukraine, also Czech Republic and Slovakia. This is a hot topic also because of the fear from the eastern unemployed crowd coming in, and when we talked with some local hungarian people, it turned out, that although it's Eu, Schengen and everything, it's quite hard to get any job as a foreigner from Hungary, mostly illegal jobs, because of protectionist policies. We don't want to complain and ask for any jobs as well, this is just for giving an overview on how people see the crisis in general in a country where they do organize a demo against/about it.

It's quite funny in general that there is a serious crisis, which you can feel in everyday life in Hungary, but not much happens, only some fascist are playing street games twice a year with the police, and the government is cutting all welfare money until they are in their seats... (Any other party which is likely to get into government would do the same economical politix, maybe a bit more direct ethnic face and rhetorics.)

So all in all there are street parties in countries that are not that much feel they are in trouble, and even there not much practical stuff is happening. The parties are collecting votes, the NGO's are collecting money and volunteers, the radical red and black blocks are closing themselves into a subculture, they don't even talk to other people much. And even they admit it, and see it as a problem. But they talk about it one by one, so it seems they are also alienated, at least regarding this problem of a closed subculture and few connections to everyday realities; but when it comes to do something about it and they get together it seems the group dynamics start to work and that closes out – by psychological and other ways, not necessarily by clear statement of any exclusion – every other person who is not punk enough and who was not an anarchist or communist activist for a few years already.

In the same time in Hungary there is no subculture to close ourselves in, which also means there is no community which would secure the activists (what activists anyway?), who would take care to have a lawyer available anytime if something happens and write the phone number on your arm on the demo, there is no culture of discussing and organizing and so on. So having a tradition and history can have advantage, but most probably only if you can overcome (aufheben:) it. And having no tradition can have the advantage, but only if there is enough people who take the cause of overcoming the crisis by overcoming capitalism enough seriously to go to the streets, to go to the villages and cities and mobilize people instead of sitting in their homes and small clubs discussing the revolution in a theoretical manner.

But what to do then, from this position of history and tradition (both as NGOs and radicals), in the “developed” countries, where the crisis shows up with a different face – for example in the fear of eastern and southern unemployed forces attacking the country or the fear that some banks and other companies will go bankrupt because of their risky investments? Unemployment is growing there too, and it's no question that other symptoms will show up sooner or later. The trade unions and the civil sector is loosing power, people will have less money to donate (in Hungary the government wants to put a 105% tax on donation, even on food distribution for free!), and there will be less and less power to lobby. (And no one can really say there was a huge power in NGO lobby until now...) NGOs! Trade unions! Extra-parliamentary parties! Instead of waiting to loose the members and the little political power you have, radicalize! This is the moment when a radical turn is the only one which would keep any movement alive! And you, radicals! Open yourself to the everyday life of the people who are different from you! Don't close yourself into subcultural circles! Agitate! And be open to the people you're trying to convince!
Creative Commons-Lizenzvertrag Dieser Inhalt ist unter einer
Creative Commons-Lizenz lizenziert.
Indymedia ist eine Veröffentlichungsplattform, auf der jede und jeder selbstverfasste Berichte publizieren kann. Eine Überprüfung der Inhalte und eine redaktionelle Bearbeitung der Beiträge finden nicht statt. Bei Anregungen und Fragen zu diesem Artikel wenden sie sich bitte direkt an die Verfasserin oder den Verfasser.
(Moderationskriterien von Indymedia Deutschland)

Ergänzungen