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Corners at the kiosk in Hamburg
Photo: Niklas Grapatin
The interiors of Hamburg's restaurants will fill up again on Saturday evening - the Italians will have their wine glasses clinking, the Greeks will have ouzo spilling onto the tablecloth, you will hear people laughing at the next table and partying a bit. If you want to experience that, you need a reservation and a negative quick test. Opening it is a risk; the coronavirus spreads more easily indoors than outdoors. But the Senate considers the risk to be manageable and the step appropriate in view of the falling number of infections.
In the Sternschanze, on the other hand, it should remain calm.
The Schanze is the offshoot of Hamburg's Kiez, where thousands of people, mostly young people, meet in the open for a beer at the weekend.
So also last Saturday.
Several thousand people met there on a mild early summer evening, including someone who had organized a rave in a park.
They wanted to party, drink, be wild.
But people didn't keep their distance, didn't wear masks, and in the end the police came.
The city reacted quickly and harshly: From 8 p.m. there is a ban on alcohol in the Sternschanze, it is even forbidden to run into the Schanze with a bottle of beer.
Similar measures apply or are being discussed in other cities.
In Hamburg, outdoor catering is not affected by the ban.
But anyone who has tried to get a seat outside after 8 p.m. since the pub opened knows that it is almost impossible.
And the beer costs more in the pub than at the kiosk.
A policy that the young forgets
The ban is a cheek.
It is indicative of a policy that young people forget.
Because while compromises are made for everyone, who are mostly older and richer, those responsible for a place where young people live out can only think of hardship.
Young people, who had to sit at home alone for the most part for the past year and a half, have missed a lot of what it means to be young.
To be young means to have more time than clues, more fun than obligations and sometimes more thirst than reason.
To be young means: going overboard, screwing up and learning to stand up for it.
They say: kisses that taste like Berentzen sour apple, and when you wake up you think: dude, did that have to be?
It's called: loss of control.
Everyone suffered from the lockdowns, from the lack of celebrations, parties, birthdays, encounters, kisses.
But how much worse is it if it's not just any birthday, but the 18th?
What if it's not just any party, but the prom?
What if you don't miss any kiss, but the first?
By the time young people are vaccinated, summer will be over
Now the numbers are falling, the air tastes like summer, and there is such a thing as hope.
The streets are getting full again, the shops are open, the vaccinations are going well.
Everything that has built up now seems possible again.
But while some older people can now sit at their reserved tables, vaccinated, the younger ones will have to wait.
By the time they can fully enjoy their freedom again, this summer will probably be over.
Despite all reason, despite all understanding, that feels unfair.
I announced my displeasure with this rule on Twitter shortly after it was adopted.
In addition to approval, I also received a few comments that blamed the young people: "Then these young people should behave sensibly," wrote one: "They didn't have that last weekend." Another wrote: "I can go anywhere Meet Hamburg and drink.
Just not where this “right” has been massively abused again on the last weekends. ”What worried me most about the last comment was that“ right ”was written in quotes.
Politics based on the motto: "If you don't want to hear, you have to feel"
Yes, it's true, you can meet for drinks elsewhere. Yes, it is true that rioting and mass gatherings are prohibited and should be punished. But it makes me think how frivolously politics occupies an area with prohibitions that young people use to live out their freedom. That no compromise can be found between the desire to have an athlete's foot with friends and the risk of infection.
In restaurants and bars, risks can be contained in laminated hygiene concepts, in QR codes instead of menus, in quick test results by email. Tables are moved, seats are arranged, people are distributed, upper limits are set. All of that was and is correct. But politics can't think of anything for public space, where you have the freedom to stand around and drink a beer. There has been a lot of talk about solidarity lately. The young stayed home to protect the old. You have given up a lot. Solidarity now means finding a solution that is better than: "If you don't want to hear, you have to feel."