From: sanio@netmbx.netmbx.de (Erhard Sanio)
Subject: Demonstration in Berlin Sun 8 Nov 92
Organization: netmbx, Berlin, Germany
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 19:13:28 GMT


Hi, 

I'm  just back from the demonstration against xenophobic violence and hatred
in Berlin under the motto of article 1 of our constitution: "dignity of man
is sacrosanct" (die Wuerde des Menschen ist unantastbar)
- let me tell a few impressions and give some short information.

The demonstration was called for by nearly the whole of the political life
of the Federal Republic: 
President Richard v. Weizsaecker had issued the call for the demonstration,
and all political parties except the ultra-conservative Bavarian CSU and
several right wing and Neonazi parties supported it, as well as all German
state governments except the Bavarian, churches, trade unions and lots
of cultural organizations. 100,000 people were expected to come.

Personally, under the impression of the attempts of Chancellor Kohl and
others against the constitution, I was in heavy doubt whether or not 
joining the demonstration where wannabe constitution breakers like 
Kohl took part as well. Additionally, the whole of the conservative 
idiots had heated xenophobia and contributed to the sad situation 
being the cause of the demonstration. Anyway, under the impression
of the need to express the will to protect life and dignity of all
people living here regardless of ther nationality and race, I decided
to overcome that IMHO justified disgust.

The demonstration started at two places, one in the East, one in the 
West of Berlin in order to unite at the "Lustgarten" in the Center of
former East Berlin - it's  where the Dome, the "Palast der Republik"
of the former GDR, the building of the state council of the GDR and
other partly classical, partly postwar buildings are located. The
northern part of the huge open place is the "Lustgarten", the Southern
one the "Marx-Engels-Platz" (CDU attempts to rename it failed so far).
The whole of the place was obviously not expected to be filled, as
several buses were allowed to park in the south of the Marx-Engels-Platz.

The demonstration had started at 1pm and was the finishing manifestation
was scheduled to start at 3pm. President v. Weizsaecker was elected to
hold a speech - no other politician should speak in order to avoid
conflicts about the highly sensitive topic of asylum seekers legislation,
constitutional changes and other highly conflicting positions.

Personally, I decided not to join one of the march columns, instead headed 
for the place of the manifestation directly by bicycle at 2pm, inspecting
both march columns underway (granted I'm a lazybone). Weather was fine but
rather cold (about 5-6 deg Celsius). The number of demonstrators exceeded 
the expectations of the organizers by far: to the East, major parts of the
Alexanderplatz were still crowded while the Lustgarten/Marx-Engels-Platz
was already full, to the West, the broad Avenue Unter den Linden was stuffed
with people nearly halfway back to Brandenburger Tor at 3pm. At that time,
I had fixed my bike at a fence protecting some loudspeakers on the southern
edge of Marx-Engel-Platz - climbing upon it I had a good position to look
around. A big TV screen (6*8 m or so) nearby transmitted what was happening
around the speakers' tribune where til 3pm several bands had played as well
as a Turkish pupils' choir. 

The signs, banners, flags and boards the demonstrators carried with'em
showed the wide variety of opinions and organizations taking part, from
political parties, trade unions etc. to  several cultural organizations
and organizations of foreigners living in Germany, of which many had
joined the demonstration.
The topic of not changing the constitutional right of asylum was the most
frequently raised one on banners and signs indicating that the majority 
of the demonstrators I saw obviously did not agree with the plans of the
conservative government.
Politically, I dare to speculate that the majority of demonstrators (i.e.
more than half of them) were social democrats or people inclined towards
social democrats' positions, of the rest (bit less than half) a majority
seemed to be inclined to Green (environmentalist)  a or further left wing 
opinions. There were some blocks of confessing conservatives  (CDU) or
liberals (FDP), but not so much. My observations were won from my obser-
vation point from where I could overlook major parts of the Marx-Engels-
Platz/Lustgarten and see the reactions of people  standing there -
clearly my observations or my interpretations can be plain wrong.

The age of the demonstrators as far as I could see was higher on average
than at a typical Berlin left wing demo - the number of people under 25
was balanced by the number of older ones. 

The the manifestation was opened by a message from a woman who had
protected the asylym seekers' shelter in Quedlinburg together with 
others against violent rioters ome weeks before. Before, the organizers
told that about 300,000 people had come. (Later in TV news, a number of
over 350,000 demonstrators was reported)
At that time, it worked already out that conflicts were arising around
the speakers tribune from where whistling and chanting could be heard.

When Pres. v.Weizsaecker started his speech, obviously eggs and color
"bombs" (small plastic bags filled with wallpaint color) were thrown.
The speech was interrupted and police surrounded the tribune.
After a short time, v.Weizsaecker continued his speech, while policemen
shielded the politicians from eggs, tomatoes and color bombs with their
plastic shields while bystanding politicians shielded Dr. v.Weizsaecker
and themselves with umbrellas from ballistic hits.

After some time, policemen started to push people back from the tribune
which was commented by "booh"-chants and whistling from many parts of
the place, even from people who obviously did not appreciate the distur-
bances. The police (I could observe all at the big TV screen) acted
relatively moderate, only sometimes tried to catche people out of the
crowd causing some trouble. All in all, there was no brutality as far
as I could see. Due to the utterly crowded place, police failed to clear 
a sufficiently big area to prevent egg-and-tomato bombing to continue.

After a while, the loudspeaker line broke for a while so that I (and most
others) missed part of v.Weizsaecker's speech. Finally, the speakers 
became operational again.

Some highlights from what I got:
W. lined out that Germany should remain an open country - no new walls
must be erected against poorer nations. He emphasized the individual
right of asylum to be maintained and blamed those calling people searching
better life asylum cheaters ("Asylbetrueger") - that was a kick in the
ass of the CSU crowd, btw. . He emphasized that the constitution protects
the dignity of man, not just the dignity of Germans, which would be gone
if the dignity of all people - especially foreigners were not guaranteed.
Further on, he mentioned the need to create new rules for immigrants -
a breach of the conservative dogma that Germany is no immigration country.

Beneath that, Weizsaecker was obviously confused and angry about the distur-
bances. At several places of his speech he blamed "right wing and left wing
extremists", "rowdies" etc. in a questionable way, which made not much dif-
ference between people throwing firebombs at undefended people and probably
ill-mannered protestors throwing eggs at well-defended politicians. Those
parts were obviously included spontaneously and  not carefully considered,
but well, the president is a human being too and was obviously pissed off.
(TV news assert now that also stones have been thrown which exposes the 
attackers as just worse idiots).

My guesses about the political values of the bystanders came from observations
who applauded to which part of the speech, btw. . 

The rioters were a relatively small group of some hundred people - so 
called "Autonome" (autononomous groups - it denotes ultra-left wing,
anarchistic groups). Their goal obviously was to discredit the whole
demonstration which they felt to be hypocritic by a massive police
counterattack as an overreaction on their harrassment. Then, they would
have been able to show that the police comes in huge crowds when eggs
are aimed against a politician while ducking away when refugee shelters
are under attack. That plan failed under my impression because the reaction
of the police remained rather moderate.

At the end of the manifestation, Ignaz Bubis, head of the Jewish community
spontaneously took the micro for a short speech. He blamed the stupidity 
and insensitivity of the attackers which were likely to damage their own
cas as well as the case of the foreigners and asylum seekers by those
methods. He urged them to go home peacefully and finally - in mention of
the antifascist agenda of those left-wingers told them (from his own ex-
perience, btw.) that we are not living in 1938, when those protestors 
would not have had a chance to act that way. His way of speaking to the
protestors like to deviant children while not excluding them definitely
calmed down the emotions significantly. Mr. Bubis got a lot of applause.

After that speech (not interrupted by any booh or whistling) the rowdies 
had calmed down, but Mr. Diepgen (CDU), mayor of Berlin, could not help
to make a fool out of himself by taking the micro, "thanking" Mr. Bubis
for his speech and blaming the rioters in harsh words again thus heating
the sentiments acwnother timegain (asshole remains asshole, y'know).

Anyway, nothing significant happened as the masses were going home and
the situation at the tribune remained stable. I left at 3.40pm circa .

In summary, I consider it a real success that such a huge number of people
took part and expressed their will for a peaceful life with the foreign
habitants, workers and refugees in Germany. The disturbances are an
insignificant event compared with that, which could probably have been 
avoided to a wide extent by better organization - I remember that the
students' demonstration easily overcame those attempts by forming a 
marshal's service from demonstrators which protected speakers' tribune
and other strategic places effectively without any aid of the police.

But instead, mayor Diepgen, who is and always was a stupid asshole,
raved in TV calling the clowns having disturbed the demo "demonstration
terrorists" announcing decisive action for the future. So far the
annoying part of the affair.

Anyway, I tend to outline the positive impression of that demonstation, again.

regards, es