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Climate strike in Berlin: For a long time the movement was deprived of its most important form of action
Photo: GEORG HOCHMUTH / AFP
On the stage in front of the Brandenburg Gate, Luisa Neubauer sums up the great insight of the global climate strike: "Hell yeah, we are still there, we are so from there!" She calls out to the demonstrators.
At this point in time, the sit-in strike for the climate in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin is just under two hours old, one of around 450 protests planned for that day in Germany, more than 3000 worldwide, at least that's what "Fridays for Future" (FFF) reports .
It is the first global strike day that has taken place physically on the street since the beginning of the corona pandemic.
We're still there - that may sound obvious to outsiders.
Wasn't Neubauer himself, together with Greta Thunberg and two Belgian activists, recently with Angela Merkel in the Chancellery?
And weren't you also received by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen?
Hadn't the four of them written an open letter signed by celebrities from Leonardo di Caprio to Coldplay to Malala Yousafszai?
Wasn't there a recent debate about Jakob Blasel, a climate activist who wants to join the Bundestag for the Greens?
Didn't "Stern", "taz" and "Hamburger Morgenpost" publish special editions for the strike in coordination with the movement?
May be anything.
But half the year of the pandemic was actually draining for FFF.
As a movement of science and reason, "Fridays for Future" had prescribed particular caution.
Don't endanger anyone.
Just don't give away your own principles.
The movement was thus robbed of its most important form of action.
In view of the previous effectiveness and professionalism, it could easily be taken for granted that it would not harm them.
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Luisa Neubauer: "We are so from there!"
Photo: JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP
On the other hand, it was about a movement of students, just over a year old, loosely institutionalized, who thrive on their anchoring in the area.
Many key activists always knew that such a long break was dangerous.
So now the way back to the outside.
Only there is really attention.
And only there you experience yourself as movement.
No comparison to the previous year
Suddenly the "Hell yeah" sounds understandable.
One can therefore assume that Luisa Neubauer would have given this speech in any case.
That was the big message of this strike: the movement continues.
She can still do it, she still wants to, Corona has only slowed her down a little, not paralyzes.
At the time of her speech, it was already foreseeable that Neubauer's evocation is not just a wish, but a reality.
The Straße des 17. Juni was not filled for the entire two kilometers to the Victory Column, as FFF itself announced, but it was for a considerable part.
Despite the rain at the start of the morning demonstrations.
A few hours earlier that had been far from clear.
Around eleven o'clock a group had gathered in front of Berlin Central Station to ride their bicycles in an arc across to Strasse des 17. Juni.
On the way from the train station to the Brandenburg Gate, on which almost exactly a year ago, during the biggest climate strike to date, crowds of people streamed past the Chancellery for hours, a few people ran.
The comparison of this climate strike day with the previous year does not make much sense because of the pandemic, the activists emphasized with great enthusiasm when one spoke to them in advance about their expectations and hopes.
You couldn't get so many people out onto the street because of the distance rules.
So that's not the point.
"People want to see that we fail"
Luisa Neubauer
What it would then be about, or rather, what would be determined on Friday evening, whether the strike was a success or a disappointment, remained unclear.
A feeling would only arise in the course of Friday.
In addition, the more than 400 planned strikes were repeatedly emphasized.
Numbers didn't matter.
"We have changed a discussion. And now we come to the point where we demand action and need action, and we won't let up there either, of course not. And people, that will be tough," said Neubauer, as if she had to stop the movement swear in.
"It gets uncomfortable. People want to see how we perish. People want to see that we give up. People want to see that we fail."
People wanted FFF to give up, "but they won't get that".
This is how one speaks in a movement that has more to suffer from cheap pats on the shoulder than from open contradiction, only when one is afraid that the next few months will be really difficult.
Therefore: coordinated protest outside, despite Corona, according to online formats and small, event-related campaigns.
In terms of content, the positions are known: Politicians should not shirk their responsibility.
Measures adopted so far are not enough to meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.
Time is pressing.
Each party needs a program that is compatible with the 1.5 degree target.
You don't necessarily need more demonstrations for these messages.
For political pressure, yes, but above all for motivating the movement itself. "You have to show presence in order to be able to change something," said Nele Leich, 22, a participant in the demonstration.
"I think it's good that" Fridays for Future "can take place again."
However, the strike was also a major risk.
In Bavaria, actions planned for local elections had to be canceled in March - something like that saps motivation.
In addition, there are the costs, which this time were significantly higher than those of previous strikes, mainly because more technology was required to prepare more stages and more space for corona.
A cancellation shortly before the appointment would have put the movement in dire straits, financially and in terms of collective psychology.
In order for everything to work out despite the Corona situation, the local groups had submitted detailed hygiene concepts in some cases.
In Berlin, volunteers had sprayed white dots on the street that morning at a distance of two meters.
Even something like that didn't help much where, like in Munich, the number of infections was too high.
The strike that had actually been planned was canceled there.
In Hamburg, a few days before the strike, the social welfare authorities rejected the complex concept submitted.
FFF went to the administrative court and was right.
In Berlin, folders were constantly walking through the crowd.
"A man doesn't want to put on a mask and becomes very uncomfortable," said a woman to a steward.
"You'd best go straight to the police," she replied.
The conditions were strict, the stewards diligent - the mobilization was better than many had feared.
On Friday afternoon, FFF sent a "breaking news" to subscribers that there were 21,000 people in Berlin and 10,000 in Cologne.
Suddenly numbers were important again.
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