Social protests | Uprising endured

Was there something? The recent protests in Germany were fought verbally and with chipboard. Photo: IMAGO/Panama Pictures And so it just passed again and gave way to winter. A storm went through the media. Strong warnings were issued. Shops were made weatherproof. You could have built beautiful stage sets with all the pressboard, but empty shopping streets became the backdrop.

What was anticipated did not happen. As the saying goes: “Revolution in Germany? That will never happen. If these Germans want to storm a train station, they'll buy a platform ticket! I forbid myself from romanticizing the revolution in any way, because I don't know what I actually want and what should actually happen today. I too am German.

A protest whose possible escalation is declared to be an actual event in advance loses the possibility that anyone will even talk about the content. And when attempts were made to articulate demands, they were silenced by the overrepresented police force. The water cannon had to be used because it ultimately cost a lot of tax money. The state is generous there. The Berlin police's action to use water cannons to cool down tourists in front of the Brandenburg Gate in the heat of the summer can now be seen in a different light when the temperatures are cool.

In this way, the expected violence displaces the political issue. What is the use of the democratic means of demonstrating to express dissatisfaction if, in the end, the concerns are not negotiated, but rather the executive shows who is wearing the pants? I will spare you further rhetorical questions about demonstrations at this point. It is enough to know that parts of the self-proclaimed center were considering curtailing this supposedly ineffective tool of such a defensive democracy. Defenders of the basic law become questioners of the basic law when young people begin to criticize the conditions and developments that await them and demand change.

The most telling images are those of reporters in empty pedestrian zones who were assigned to report on conjured up war-like conditions. But there was no one left to breathlessly interview with fingers in their ears in front of burning roadblocks of rental bikes. Everyone had already gone home.

I'll be in Paris soon. Maybe the enthusiasm on the streets hasn't been completely beaten down yet so that I can get a taste of the rebellious air that I miss so painfully in Germany. And at the same time, I have already created a shopping list for French drugstore products in my notes app: cinnamon toothpaste, vanilla shower gel and face cream. Until then, it's time to dress warmly, because heating is expensive, and wait for nothing to happen. We are great at endurance.

This article cost you nothing. Us: research, production and technology. We saved on office rent as well as printing and distribution. And we gave up salary. Nevertheless, the calculation doesn't work without you. We need 300,000 euros by the end of the year. You pay what you can, in return we keep writing.

No paywall, no small print, just one goal: that nd stays.