reclaim your streets…
I grew up in washington dc. i went to my first gay pride march at
fourteen, even though my thoughts on my own sexuality weren’t terribly
queer. (i have an embarrasing recollection of carrying a sign that year
with a pink triangle and the slogan *straight but not narrow*) then i
moved to london, and i found the friends i made initially, in bars, in
clubs, in random arts events. Liberal they all may have been, but
politics didn’t interest them, voting was regarded as a waste of time.
when i went to my first gay pride march in london, I soon found out
that the number of people who went to the march, were vastly
outnumbered by the number of people who went to the *after* party. so
at some point i stopped going to either.
i’m pretty sure many
other marches and demos in later years were missed because i was set
building or painting, or filming. Then september 11th happened,and made
me realise i couldn’t just tune out what was happening in the world
anymore. i went to the anti war demo in london shortly after. and i was
more than a little depressed to see how the british government pushed
on even with such massive lack of support. so when the london attacks
happened and then were attempted a second time, the idea of attending
any kind of demo again was beyond me.
Since moving to berlin
demos seemed something that were happening often, for all sorts of
reasons and causes. May day for me was the oddest of these, a kind of
pseudo demo/ anti-capitalist festival; with marches taking place
protesting against capitalism, fascism, and racism. it was better than
any may day i’..d been to in london, but also felt (in comparison to
london) a bit like notting hill carnival -lite (that actually turned
out to be the karneval de kultur)
But one demo i had really
wanted to go to but didn’t was a queer kissathon. the organizers wanted
as many queer people as possible to kiss in same sex couples in various
places in kreuzberg, neukolln and freidrichshain to promote queer
visability and protest homophobia. it sounded like a cute idea, that
could be nice to film. and then i remember the day before, explaining
the concept of the demo to a couple of straight guy friends, both who
are fairly openminded, and both found the concept kind of silly. what
was the point? they questioned. there are loads of gay people here in
berlin, you see gay couples holding hands together, its not a problem.
why not go to a city in germany that really needs to see change: and
they satirised the concept of gay pride festivals. *yeah drag queens
and caipirinias*. and i have to admit i kind off didn’t feel strong
enough to challenge them. i wasn’t sure myself. I didn’t go.
The
thing is I lost the point of gay pride marches at some point, and demos
and protests in general. you show up and you hold banners and shout
slogans and maybe people take your picture and there’s a bit of chaos
losing and finding your friends, but what did it achieve really??
totally aside from the fact; that on the gay issue, it feels a little
strange for me to go to queer pride events when my dating life has been
progressively more straight over the last year
At any rate, last
night i called thatf**kingsara, and she was pretty shaken up. there had
been a drag king festival at so36, a venue in the heart of kreuzberg
(my kiez) . A nazi gang drove by afterwards as the event finished. they
had baseball bats. they beat up a number of women who had attended the
event. some were here without a visa, leaving them terrified to go to
the hospital despite how badly they had been beaten.
you don’t
think this kind of sh*t happens anymore. Especially not in cities like
berlin, especially not in neighborhoods like kreuzberg. or maybe
rather, you can get lulled into a false sense of secuirty and forget.
sara told me there would be a demo happening today. i said i would go.
i arrived late . and by the time i got to the meeting point they had
moved on. i asked person after person if they had seen a demo and
finally found a couple of cyclists also trying to catch up wiht the
march. we cycyled together, and when we finallly met up with the demo
at kotti i was totally shocked at how many people were there. i locked
up my bike, attempted and failed to get a hold of sara and ended up
walking for sometime with the march but on my own.
And for the
first time in a long time i understood what the point of a demo was.
this was truly reclaming the streets. traffic was stopped, and i heard
passerby and people sitting in cafe’s along the street asking in
german and english what the purpose of the demo was, and again and
again i heard explanations being given, and this was the point. by the
end of the demo 3500 people had marched, organized entirely by email,
sms and myspace in a matter of days. and in this way berlin really
impressed me again. because when friends of mine have been attacked and
assaulted in london. we tend to tell a few close friends, generally
keep quiet about it and often not even report it to the police. here a
whole community banded together instantly just on principle. for
someone they may or may not have known. this is what solidarity is,
this is what raising awareness is.
and i guess i learned once
again that as much as its fine to play and get lost in yourself.
its
also important to stay aware and wake the f*ck up…