We, some business people and shop owners of the Hamburg district Schanzenviertel, in view of the reports and the public discourse are compelled to describe our view of the riots over the course of the G20 summit.
In the night of 7 July to 8 July 2017 a crowd raged for hours in the street, looted some shops, in many others the windows were broken, burning barricades were erected and clashes with the police happened.
It is difficult for us to recognize the articulation of a political conviction in this senseless the destruction, much less the idea of a new, better world. We watched the events slightly frightened and skeptical on the ground and from our windows in the streets of our neighborhood.
But the complexity of the dynamics that happened here this night is not adequately reflected in the media, by the police, or in public discourse. Yes, we saw directly how windows were broken, parking meters were torn out, ATMs thrashed, road signs broken off and the pavement torn open. But we also saw how many days in a row every minor thing caused the completely disproportionate use of water cannons. How people were pushed without reason by uniformed and helmeted officials or even beaten off their bike. For days. This must not be swept under the carpet when considering what happened.
The highlight of this debate is a “black block” that in the night of Friday and Saturday is supposed to have raged in our neighborhood. Our own observations do not confirm this, the damages lamented by the press and that happened outside of direct confrontation with the police are only in small part due to these people.
The vast majority were young people looking for entertainment as well as voyeurs and party people, whom we would rather find on the beat, a football match or Bushido concert than on a left-radical demo. There were drunken young men whom we saw on the scaffolding and who were throwing bottles – treating this as a planned “ambush” and a menace to the life and limb of the civil servants is incomprehensible to us.
It was mainly these people who, after the windows had been broken, went into the shops and returned with stolen goods. Who in an act of sporting self-exaggeration and with a naked torso threw water bottles from a distance of 50 meters at other people, while bystanders with beer in their hands were egging them on and making cell phone videos.
It was rather the mixture of anger at the police, disinhibition caused by alcohol, the frustration of one’s own existence, and the greed for a spectacle that was the cause. This was not a left-wing protest against the G20 summit. To speak of leftist activists would be reductive and wrong.
In addition to all the violence and destruction on that day, we have seen many situations where apparently well-organized, black-dressed and masked people have been working together with local residents to stop others from attacking small, owner-managed stores. Who took the iron bars out of other people’s hands, who helped neighbors secure their bicycles and who prevented the senseless throwing of bottles. They also extinguished a fire when, in the devastated and plundered “Flying Tiger Copenhagen,” youths were trying to set a fire with a flare even though the house is inhabited.
It is not up to us to determine what has gone wrong here, which action led to what reaction. What we can say, however, is that we live and work here, and for many weeks we have been witnessing how the “showcase of modern police work” is creating a climate of impotence, fear and resultant anger. The fact that this comprehensible anger was now indiscriminately, blindly and bluntly articulated this way, we regret very much. It still leaves us completely shaken today.
Nevertheless, we see the origin of this anger in the failed politics of the Red-Green Senate, who wants to bask in the flashing lights of the international press, but has been totally incompetent and has let a highly militarized police completely manage this major event on all levels. This Senate has issued a “Carte Blanche” to the police – but that the problems, questions and social implications arising in the context of such a summit in the midst of a city of millions can not only be answered with police tactics and repressive means seems to have been lost in the drunken staggering of a quasi-monarchic staging of power and glamor. That this would not fly could have been foreseen with a minimum of political vision.
We agree when Olaf Scholz now speaks of an unacceptable “brutalization”, which we “all have to face”. But it must not be forgotten that this brutalization is also the consequence of a society in which any deviating political expression is criminalized and combated by the police with special laws and militarized units.
But in spite of all the shocking events of the weekend it must also be said: The pictures going around the world are indeed apocalyptic, dark, and sooty. But we were far away from the reality of a civil war. Instead of continuing to increase hysteria, pondering and reflection should now become part of the discussion. The street still exists, on Monday most of the shops opened as before, the damage to persons is limited.
We were more afraid of the armed special units aiming machine guns at our neighbors than of the alcoholic hooligans that let off steam here yesterday. They are stupid, annoying, and are breaking windows, but in case of doubt they will not shoot you.
For most of us shop owners, the far greater damage has been caused by the exodus of our customers, who were fed up with the many interventions and restrictions caused by the summit. And by our suppliers who have not been able to supply us since last Tuesday, due to the absence of our guests. The associated sales losses will hurt us for a long time to come.
For many years we have been living in a peaceful, often amicable and solidary neighborhood with all kinds of protest, of which the Red Flora is a non-negotiable part. This weekend won’t change that in the slightest.
Knowing that this superfluous spectacle is now over, we hope that the police enters a moderate relationship with democracy and the people living in it, that after weeks and months of hysteria and restrictions we can get some rest and tackle our everyday life with all the big and small contradictions together again.
Business people from the Schanzenviertel:
BISTRO CARMAGNOLE
CANTINA POPULAR
DIE DRUCKEREI – SPIELZEUGLADEN SCHANZENVIERTEL
ZARDOZ SCHALLPLATTEN
EIS SCHMIDT
JIM BURRITO’S
TIP TOP KIOSK
JEWELBERRY
SPIELPLATZ BASCHU e.V.
MONO CONCEPT STORE
BLUME 1000 & EINE ART
JUNGBLUTH PIERCING & TATTOO
SCHMITT FOXY FOOD
BUCHHANDLUNG IM SCHANZENVIERTEL
WEIN & BOULES
Original statement in German: https://www.facebook.com/BistroCarmagnole/posts/1451018668300206
Translation in Dutch: https://globalinfo.nl/Nieuws/verklaring-van-bedrijven-in-schanzenviertel-over-de-g20-rellen
QueerAnarchism 