Berlin's underground Spirit

Katie a rencontré de jeunes allemands qui ont décidé de s'affranchir des normes sociales de leur pays et de donner à chacun de leurs actes un sens politique.

In Spain, where we met, he referred to them as ‘gente alternativa’—alternative types. These were his friends, Jaan explained to me, people who purposefully broke from the norm to make a point that the norms of German society were archaic; that they were oppressive; that they were something to rally against, and overcome.
This rebellious spirit characterizes much of Berlin’s underground, inspiring its art, music and with a political mindedness missing from the independent youth culture of other major cities. In Montreal and Barcelona, people party—but when they do it they are doing it mostly for the pleasure of flirting outrageously. In Berlin, they seemed to party with an agenda—they gathered in the name of prisoners’ rights, open-border immigration, fat acceptance. The major ‘isms’ (racism, sexism, anti-semitism, nationalism, totalitarianism) are so topical among the young and culturally involved that activism becomes a daily fact of existence. Vegetarians don’t just not eat meat, they protest against corporate food production; squatters don’t just not pay rent, they denounce property ownership; women in same-sex partnerships don’t just prefer women to men, they condemn gender inequality and segregation, biases and body consciousness.
In Canada, most people I know won’t even bother to vote next week, in an election that will determine the country’s next leader. How are young Canadians so apathetic, while Berliners give eating breakfast a political charge?
Over New Year s Eve last year I went with Jaan to Berlin, curious about the ‘alternative’ lifestyle that he and his friends were living in that city. I found a scene similar to the one I’d imagined: most of his friends lived in Kreuzburg, a historically East Berlin neighbourhood populated largely by artists, immigrants, students and others who, since the fall of the Berlin wall, were attracted by the plentiful and remarkably low-rent housing to be found in the area; many of them lived in the same house, in a communal set-up that required each of the 30-odd tenants to provide a vegetarian dinner for the household once a month, participate in organizational meetings once a week and pay rent according to income and occupational eligibility (one of the mandates of the house was to provide free accommodation to illegal immigrants unable to work in Germany); many of them were street artists, whose pieces always reflected their ideologies, whether literally (‘Nationalism=Nazism’) or figuratively (a McDonald’s logo replaced on a burger wrapper with a skull and crossbones graphic); and many eschewed the dinner, dancing and fireworks of New Year’s to protest the imprisonment of radical Berliners . We ate vegan pizza, discussed Israel and neo-Nazism in East Germany, the rise of the EU and the corresponding rise of German nationalism, and went to punk rock shows in overcrowded basements where we shouted anti-hate slogans while crushing each other’s bodies into the damp walls.
Maybe this was just Jaan’s scene; maybe this isn’t typical Berlin youth culture. But you’d be hard-pressed to find any hip young Montrealer willing to discuss Canadian politics anytime of the year, let alone on New Year’s.

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