Aida observed demonstrations in Berlin and New York and thought about why so many people are taking to the streets – and what that reveals about a world that no longer feels coherent.
There’s never a lack of good reasons to take to the streets anyway – at least for fans of street protests like me. But at the moment it just won’t stop: One Sunday I watched the demonstration at the Brandenburg Gate, which was organized at short notice after Spiegel’s research into sexual violence against Collien Fernandes. About a week later I was in New York with a dear colleague to watch the third round of “No Kings” demos. Tens of thousands passed us: old radicals, young demo beginners, families, political organizers – and one poster was better than the next.
The occasions and the cultural context in which these demonstrations took place may have been quite different. But I think everything points to the same elephant in the room: somehow nothing fits together anymore. And by “here” I mean everywhere. Wars out there in the world, conflicts within society, between top and bottom, between genders – somehow everywhere.
The illusion of an ideal world
Of course, I immediately think of this interview quote from Adorno, when a journalist from Spiegel told him in 1969: “Two weeks ago the world was still in order,” and Adorno replied dryly: “Not for me.” Because the thing is: the world was never right. With a bit of luck, the horror of the present just wasn’t that close to many of us in the global north. Or we didn’t know any better. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. But is she really?
Not knowing things may make life seem easier at first. I think that’s one of the reasons why in comment columns about the Collien Fernandes case – alongside solidarity with the actress and presenter and the usual Manosphere hatred – you keep reading comments from people who write that “something like this should be clarified privately” or that it’s a war of the roses. And it’s not just profiles that present themselves as male that post something like this. A significant portion also seems as if it were written by female readers.
Looking away as self-protection
Of course, you never know who is behind a profile picture, and the Internet is full of fake accounts. But I still believe some of them are real. I could even understand her: If it is really true that Collien Fernandes was so betrayed by her husband and that she was allegedly subjected to digital, psychological and physical violence, as the reporting suggests – then what does that say about all the men out there? The men you might date as a heterosexual woman? Those close to you? Partner, family members, friends, neighbors?
Gisèle Pelicot’s rapists all came from within a 50-kilometer radius of her home. So who knows what the person in front of us in the supermarket queue is capable of. Or Collien Fernandes’ ex-husband – a long-time poster boy for German, somewhat mainstream, but somehow underground pop culture, whose humor accompanied my teenage years and part of my twenties.
A similar principle probably also applies to some fans of authoritarian politicians like Donald Trump. Sure, there are many who think racism, exclusion, war and violence are good as a matter of principle. But I am convinced that there are just as many who consciously take refuge in ignorance. The images of violence in Minneapolis, of bombs at girls’ schools in Iran or revelations from the Epstein files are tried hard to suppress because otherwise they would shatter one’s own self-image.
And yet: hope
But: I also hold on to something – hope. At least a little. Within 48 hours, 13,000 people in Berlin followed the call to demonstrate against digital violence. In the USA, in the run-up to the third round of “No Kings” demonstrations, there were speculations that it would be more difficult to mobilize people. But the opposite seems to be the case: this time even more people apparently took to the streets.
All around me people were dancing to Rage Against the Machine and Edwin Starr, to Ice Cube and demo chants. A demo doesn’t make change, but it can be a starting point. The beginning of a social discourse that takes us out of this feeling of rupture. And at least that’s not bad news.
