The Ten-Minute Audio Piece Before the Revolution
The excuses for why more people hadn’t shown up to protest the NSA surveillance scandal were many and inventive. The sun was too strong. The organizers had missed the point. The local population had other obligations—chief among them, presumably, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War at a cool lake somewhere with adequate ice and sunscreen.
About 2,000 people made it to Heinrichplatz in Kreuzberg that Saturday, to stand alongside the Pirate Party, the Greens, and a contingent of conspiracy theorists sheltering under aluminum hats, and demonstrate against the American National Security Agency and its apparent project of surveilling the entire population of Earth. That was what I assumed it was about.
It must be 90 degrees Celsius in the shade when I arrive at the junction near Kottbusser Tor early in the afternoon. A large open truck full of colorful banners, Love Parade nostalgics, and free rebellion merchandise is blocking the road. Police manage the traffic loudly. Around me: sweating faces and a handful of V for Vendetta masks that are also sweating.
We’ve apparently arrived at exactly the right moment. A young guy with long hair, black sunglasses, and a pale Edward Snowden t-shirt takes the microphone and addresses the crowd, which is seething in multiple senses. He says things I already know from the news. I’m not listening closely because I’m too occupied with managing my own body temperature. "That’s Stefan Aumueller," I hear from somewhere behind me.
The crowd applauds. "Now we march," I think. Now we all go to the Reichstag and Angela Merkel, overcome by fear, expels the Americans, personally frees Bradley Manning from prison, and publicly declares that we are sovereign citizens, that data protection is the highest good, that Stasi 2.0 cannot stand. Then, as a sign of good faith, she tears her clothes off and leaps yodeling into the crowd, cold iced tea sloshing from her chest. This does not happen.
A stocky pirate in a cowboy hat takes the mic instead, followed by a gangly man, followed by an American civil rights activist who means well but spends a solid quarter hour on the terrifyingly expansive history of her homeland, the Cold War, and the fact that not all Americans are idiots. The crowd groans. A small child cries. I glare at the parents for dragging the kid out here in this heat. They look back, baffled. Data protection matters more than child welfare.
Long-hair-Snowden-shirt is back at the microphone. There is going to be a ten-minute audio piece, and then we will march. The crowd boos. "We’re going now!" shouts one of the conspiracy theorists. Brief consultation with the Love Parade contingent. Fine, yes, we’re going now. Cheers. A man waves a Die Linke flag with great urgency. The woman next to him holds books in the air—presumably related to the topic; I don’t look closely enough to be sure.
The feeling throughout is that more than a few people here have lost the thread. Most of them came to tell the German government, and the world, that they didn’t want to be spied on by the United States. They didn’t come for fringe-party campaigning, they didn’t want a history seminar, and they definitely hadn’t asked for Venezuela solidarity statements delivered from a flatbed truck in this heat. My head pounds.
The truck lurches into motion with low electronic thuds and runs over roughly a third of the demonstrators while turning around. Then the march begins. I take a few photos. The person I came with asks whether we’re really going to walk the whole thing. I shake my head without hesitation. While the dutiful parents, the sweating pirates, and the American who had a lot of context to provide make their way into the heart of Berlin, we drag our damp bodies to the nearest U-Bahn station, bound for cold drinks and a balcony. Somebody has to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. Nobody else seems to be on it.