Nostalgic Violence

I had never been in a riot before, but I had been hearing about the May Day Kreuzberg riots ever since I first came to Berlin. I had witnessed a few demonstrations in

the past where sullen-faced crowds lurched down streets, chanting and thrusting their posters with inane slogans in the air, but the hype surrounding May 1st had compelled me to stake out a place on that day in front of SO36, an inconspicuous old punk club on

Oranienstraße and the apex of these legendary riots. I came prepared: beanie to cover the head, a scarf for the face, comfortable running shoes, dark clothes and plenty of beer.

Throughout the afternoon and the early evening, the activity on the streets around Kottbusser Tor resembled any other festival: the scent of sausage and weed in the air. The city government has learned over the years to give the people plenty of festivals like this

that drain the desire to throw Molotov cocktails at storefronts. I saw batches of riot police throughout the festival, frozen alongside the curbs, the only ones who looked liked they

weren’t having a good time. As midnight approached, they began lining up at the intersection of Oranienstraße and Adalbertstraße, straight-backed with severe calmness as hordes of giddy strangers strolled by. A quarter of a mile down Oranienstraße, smoke

began trickling up into the sky. A group of people gathered around a trash bin that had been set aflame, all of them hypnotized by its light and the swirling ashen flakes like

attendants of Walpurgis Night, the pagan fertility ceremony that has occurred in Germany on the night of May 1st for centuries and another ritual consecrated by fire.

More people collected around the flames as the police slowly drew closer. A

German friend said: “What do we have to riot about? My family, my friend, they’re all leaching off the government in one way or another. We’re just waiting around to be

kicked in the teeth so that we finally have a reason to complain.” I wondered what anyone here really had to complain about. One of the highest

standards of living in the world? Free education? A comprehensive public health care

system? Generous unemployment benefits? Besides, why are they rioting in one of the historically poorest areas in Berlin and not in a wealthier part of the city where the ruling

elite live? Perhaps Germany’s economic growth in recent years has dried up the impulse to revolt. The spectacle of the May Day riots continues, fueled not by injustice or capitalist oppression, but by nostalgia for the riots of the 80’s and earlier, inspired by

twice-told tales and faint memories of wide-scale social problems. When rioters, my German friend included, began to raise their beer bottles high

above their heads into the warm night air to loft them at the police, they weren’t fighting for the impoverished, or wishing prosperity to all in the seasons to come, but honoring the rioters who had stood there before them with their midnight toasting.