The Story of My First Political Protest:
Anti Iraq War Protest on 15th February 2003,
in Berlin on the Straße des 17ten Juni.
In early February 2003, four friends — Axel, Danni,
Philip, Sebastian and I — started off on a journey from
Wuppertal to Berlin to take part in the protest against
the Iraq war on the Strasse des 17. Juni. We travelled on
what is called a Schönes Wochenende ticket. In English,
it could be translates as the “beautiful-weekend-ticket”.
It is really meant for families, but can also be used with
a group of up to five friends to travel anywhere on the
German rail network. The stipulation is that you must
travel on the slow trains within one day and the cost is a
very reasonable twenty-five euros for everyone. As we
bought two tickets on the way there and one ticket
back, the round-trip cost each one of us just fifteen
euros per head. I was kind of roped into it by my mate
Axel Böhnisch, who thought I was a bit boring and
should do something more adventurous or he wouldn’t
be interested in me anymore.
Axel and His Father
Axel was an unusual character whose father had, as a
nine-year-old boy, been forced with a gun to his head to
march from Silesia to Wuppertal at the end of the war.
In practice, this meant walking from what is now Poland
to the western part of Germany. He and his wife were
disabled and so they decided they were going to let Axel
do pretty much as he wished as a child — if he got hurt
he got hurt, if he got killed he got killed and that was
that. They allowed Axel to leave school at fourteen and
work in a gas station on the motorway, save money, buy
a VW Eddie camper van and drive all the way around
Western Europe in it with his mates from Remscheid
grammar. They all busked singing ‘Country Roads’ for
the petrol and a can of baked beans for dinner. She was
allowed out into the forest to play late at night and, yes,
even for the whole night if he had wished this was a
most original step for a caring father. I experienced a bit
of that with him when we went midnight sledging in
Remscheid with his mates.
Boarding the Train to Minden
Our trip to Berlin began with the Regionalbahn (regional
service) to Dortmund in the Ruhr where we changed for
another, newer RB to Minden in Westphalia. Both times
we went right to the end of the line. We arrived in
Minden at eleven o’clock and the idea was to doss down
on the station for four hours until the train to
Braunschweig in Nether-Saxony came at 3.05. Axel was
first to lay down his Isomat comfortably, declaring that
it could have been much worse; we had found a little
hallway to an office where a door had been kicked in
and four of us had eventually bundled in there like
sardines, sleeping side by side with girlfriend Danni, the
fifth person, sleeping on top of boyfriend Phil. Dear old
Axel had just pretended to nod off peacefully as a joke
and the first of about five long goods trains came
thundering through. We were in for a rough night.
Thankfully, like true hipsters, they hadn’t forgotten the
grass, and that did help us to get a few winks of sleep in
between goods trains. After playing with the juggling
balls that Sebastian had brought we were just mellow
enough for sleep.
The Tannoy I’ll Never Forget
We were woken up promptly by the announcement that
the 3.05 was to be approximately five minutes late, a
typically German good-will message to get up and catch
the train to Braunschweig. We scrambled everything
together and bundled onto the train. When we reached
Braunschweig we got a connection to Magdeburg in
Sachsen-Anhalt in the former DDR where we had a chat
with some of the local boys. My friends were quite
worried about them because they promptly told us to
‘get lost’. We were apparently from the West and we
had no right to protest in Berlin. In my relative linguistic
innocence, I remained totally unaware of this, instead
chatting up a young lady the rest of the way from
Magdeburg to Berlin.
Breakfast at the Lutheran Church Halls in Prinzlauer Berg
By the time we’d arrived, I felt very tired, but there was
no time for sleep. We were taken directly to the
Evangelische Kirchengemeinde (Lutheran Church Halls)
in Prinzlauer Berg where we were given a massive East
German breakfast spread by the very nice lady priest
who liked to chat about old times. In between the
politics, we talked about the little bread rolls she’d
prepared. She mentioned they were original East
German bread rolls that everyone had had from the
bakers in the DDR. After re-unification, the East German
population were promptly converted to the West
German Frühstücksbrötchen or West German Breakfast
Roll. Crusty and fresh each morning like from Lidl in the
UK. The truth is over time the East German roll was
missed and had made a massive come back. By 2003 the
East German bread roll machines were actually
valuable, because most of them had been thrown away.
The dough was white but slightly sourer, a little like Irish
wheaten bread but not quite the same — they have
more of a yeast-like taste.
Völker Hört die Signale!
After breakfast, it was straight out on the march with no
sleep after a twelve-hour journey through the night. We
walked from Prinzlauer Berg all the way to the
Siegessäule in the West (just past the Brandenburg
Gate) and were stationed about three quarters of the
way down the Strasse des 17. Juni near to the stage. The
picture above shows the view from the stage in the
opposite direction. Before approaching the march
proper, we had been confronted by some angry East
Berliners annoyed that we were taking up the whole
pavement. The priestess had responded by inviting
them to join us to which the answer was a swift “no
thank you” in abrupt Berliner fashion.
Chancellor Schroeder’s Lovely Comment
On the stage, we heard music from Veteran political
rock star Konstantin Wecker and some political
speeches. On the march, they estimated there were a
million of us but the actual number confirmed was more
like 500,000. The most touching moment was when
Chancellor Schroeder sent us a message from the
Bundestag up the road saying, “With regret, we’re on
America’s side, but to invade a country for purposes of
political expansionism is murder and to invade a country
for purposes of freedom, peace and happiness is
murder.” Considering Hitler did just that it really bought
the message home to me just how much we were
intending to follow suit in that situation. It was one of
the most profound political statements I’d ever heard. I
had been apprehensive about going on the protest
beforehand. I had believed in interventionism at first as
it had worked in the Balkans. Schroeder’s statement
completely changed my mind in an instant. It was the
word of an inspiring, charismatic leader who made me
believe I’d done the right thing. I’ve never wavered from
that position since. War is war; murder is murder.
In the Evening
After going back to the Lutheran church halls in
Prinzlauer Berg, we had some well-earned shut-eye until
about six o’clock when the others went to Kreuzberg,
but I remained in bed. I woke up later hungry for a meal
and slipped off to an East German Italian restaurant
somewhere around Friedrichsplatz. I had an appallingly
bad carbonara, which I assume was as the locals
expected it prepared, as with the bread rolls, from a
DDR recipe, but this time I wasn’t so impressed. I then
returned to sleep once again on a hard lino floor with no
pillow and just a backpack to rest on. By this time, I had
hardly slept for thirty-six hours. At the end of our time
in Berlin, we got up the next day and finished off the
previous day’s breakfast spread, thanked the priestess
for her generosity and set off back on the nine-hour
journey home.
The FC Magdeburg Fans
When we arrived in Magdeburg we were confronted
with some national socialists. A gang of unruly FC
Magdeburg fans got on board for a kind of joy ride to
Braunschweig and back. The nine-year-old son of one of
the ‘lads’ started running up and down the carriages,
shouting racial abuse about Germany’s first black
footballer, Asamoah. My friends confronted him and he
asked rather innocently to play with our juggling balls.
As lefties they thought this was sweet and rather more
what he should have been into at his age. His dad, an
avid FC Magdeburg fan, then came and asked us if we
were all German and to stop bringing his son into
disrepute, teaching him things he didn’t need to know.
After our lucky escape, I fell fast asleep. It was now
nearly forty hours without a bed and I was so tired I very
nearly missed the stop in Wuppertal and had to be
dragged off the train by a friend. I got caught in the
doorway in the process and I very nearly ended up
dead. One of the greatest and most fun experiences of
my entire life and it cost peanuts. Two of the best trips
of my life were with Axel.
Antifascist March for Die Linke, Wuppertal Oberbarmen, 2004
One day, flatmate David from Gesellenstraße, Wuppertal
told me of an antifascist demonstration
in the Oberbarmen Bahnhof and asked me if I wanted to
go with them to help. David being the biggest hippie of
the group I really felt I couldn’t let him down and
decided to go. He was a member of the then PDS Partei
Demokratische Sozialismus the daughter party of the
Sozialistische Einheitspartei SED that once ruled the
DDR and was thus a member of the antifascist league.
The Aim (Protest Mission)
The aim was to stop the Nazi’s assembling in and
marching out of Oberbarmen station. We met a couple
of the local lefty punks with the mohicans and DDR
tattooed into their right arm. They went onto the
platform where the Nazis were going to arrive to
directly oppose them. David wanted to go onto the
platform with them and risk possible arrest but we
decided to take notice of the police and go onto the
square outside where our registered anti-protest
was officially taking place.
Pushing the Police Cordon
The police were obliged to protect the Nazi’s right to
protest and march through the town because it was a
registered protest and we were only a registered counter
demonstration. Eventually, things got a little violent we
decided to put pressure on the police cordon, pushing
against them with progressively more force and then
they stood in line in their riot gear out drew their batons
showing them off like wolverine and belted our
front line across the knees. Some of them were
older protester and got trampled underneath us. I sudden
found a granny pop up from somewhere underneath my
arm shouting “Nazi Schwein!” at the police and
clutching her leg above the knee. I don’t know why they
used batons. There were only about one hundred and
fifty of us and we weren’t in any serious danger of
breaking through, but they did baton us. Luckily for me
we were at the back.
Inside Oberbarmen Station
We as the Antifa did actually win that event it was
before the town really started to go progressively more right
wing and we were in the majority. The police said
they weren’t allowed to assemble and march though
the city at first. We claimed victory and then they secretly allowed
the Nazis to march a little way in either direction.
The March to the Synagogue
This took place when the Antifa we were with
marched away together in victory.
David was a Jew and the they’d just built a new
Synagogue in the centre of Barmen in Wuppertal so we
decided to march there and pay our respects to the
holocaust.
The 5 Jewish Guys with the Israeli Flag
Some unwelcome guests in my opinion marching with
us were five Israelis dressed in fine Jewish man’s attire
and carrying a huge Israeli flag to the synagogue. They
hijacked the prostest shouting through the streets
“Gegen die Faschismus und Antisemitismus, Solidarität
mit Israel” (“Against fascism and antisemitism solidarity
with Israel”) which wasn’t necessarily everyone’s view
who were against the Nazis.
To this aim they were confronted by an angry Turkish heckler shouting “Was sagen Sie?
Israel ist ein Mörderstadt!”(“What are you saying Israel is a murderous state”)
in the other direction to which they took no notice. Even David looked apprehensive and he
was Jewish. He was a leftie and didn’t really like them. All
the same the Nazis should leave the Jewish people in peace in Germany.
Lighting Candles and Saying Prayers
David and I did light a candle on the steps of the
synagogue for the victims of the holocaust and we said a
few prayers and had a moment’s silence for the Jews of
the second world war and then disbanded.
Since then however, the situation with Nazi protest in Wuppertal has got severe.
There are no go areas. The tolerant multi-kulti
atmostphere of the noughties as expressed by the
rapper Meelman in his song Lebenslang Schwebebahn
(lifelong rider of the suspension railway) has now gone.
I have met Meelman personally and used to
teach one of his mates Pana English at Hauptschule, Barmen
Indeed, he said it himself in his other song
Wuppertal Stirbt Aus (Wuppertal is dying). I have a lot of fear for the future
of my beloved Wuppertal especially after Brexit.
Student Strike at Cologne University Philosphikum Albertus Magnus Sqaure 2006, Cologne Germany.
Boss of the University Senate Faction Die Linke
The beginning of the strike was kind of surreal. I had
heard that something had been approved but I had not
foreseen the chaos that was to ensue when all the
students turned up for class only to find the Die Linke
faction of the University senate present handing out
leaflets, giving their messages out to their generals from
their command bunker in in the centre of the
philosophical faculty, and barricading off the classrooms
with a row of steel and plastic seating. “No, you’re not
going to classes today are you? Cross my picket line at
your peril”, she said with an icy stare. So, even though I
found it rather inconvenient at first and wanted them to
solve the overcrowding issues and lack of sufficient IT
resources at the university, I had no choice as to
whether 500 euros student tuition fees per semester
was viable for me or presented value for money.
However, I do believe that a yes to tuition fees as it was
at the University of Essex is a slippery slope to paying
11,000 euros a year. This was to be the second phase of
the introduction of fees. The first stage to charge for
people staying on and doing a second BA where they
could have previously enjoyed total academic freedom
for nothing proved very unpopular and the
management had won that process. So, the students
had fallen back behind the lines of protecting their
rights to a first degree for free.
Many of the staff were complicit.
Being the NRW a traditionally socialist area of the
country many people were for the status quo of zero
fees and Professor Reuvekamp-Felber who taught us
medieval German upstairs where the classrooms were
open was even inclined to say, “The official line is that
you are to go to class and stay here, but I’m not going to
complain if you want to disappear downstairs and
defend your interests!” or words to that effect. They
were lovely the staff of Cologne University it would
never happen at any university in England now.
The Protest on Albertus Magnus Platz
There must have been a good 5000 students there on
Albertus Magnus Platz that day when I came into Uni I
just joined them in their standing protest. Outside the
main building Axel Freimuth the Rector of the University
had come out of his office to address the crowd. He
made the argument for investment for the future and
thinking about the research rating of the university as a
priority. One student argued passionately for a free
university education. She was poor and she wanted to
preserve the right to a free university education for her
children in the future and preserve it for future
generations. Then another male student, suited and
booted, and much less of a hippie, argued for better
facilities and for the students to go back to their
classrooms. Axel thought him a bit of a traitor to his
own kind and took the Mickey out of him saying that he
could come into his rectorate to view his personal art
collection which has a sexual implication in German. It
wrapped up with no progress being made on that hot
sunny day so the students escalated their efforts up a
gear.
The Senate Meeting
The battle for zero tuition fees for the 1st degree
reconvened several weeks later in the main building
outside the hall the Aula. People gathered with their
bongos and other drums clapping and stamping their
feet and chanting the following line
Es ist aus! Einfach raus! Freimuth macht die Bildung aus!
It’s finished! Just go! Freimuth is is cutting out our education!
The Verdi Boys
Someone then got the boys from the Verdi union in
from the pay dispute down the road at the hospital.
They had been camped out there in a marquee for
weeks. They had a very attacking style with Claxon
horns and 5ft flags they were raising and waving inside
the main building. They laid siege to Freimuth
conducting a senate meeting in which the decision for
tuition fees of 500 euros a semester was being made.
Baton Rounds
The police beat back the protesters with batons to stop
them entering the senate room and crashing the door
down. They then bundled Freimuth away in the back of
a police car under armed guard for his own protection.
Never again was the senate meeting with student
representation to take place on campus. There were
posters up everywhere saying Freimuth is playing
Scotland Yard with us we’ll find out where the meeting
is going to be before it is too late, but we never did and
the decision was made to bring in tuition fees of 500
pounds a semester with staff members of the senate
alone which was illegal. This is probably why they
eventually offered to reverse the decision to keep free
university places for all and the students won. The
management are still trying to introduce tuition fees
and the student strikes have become almost a yearly
occurrence in Cologne now.
Freimuth Gets the Boot
As a final stunt by the students that year as an ultimate
expression of distaste against Freimuth’s invitation of
the male student to see his art collection. They all gate
crashed the party and held a sit in protest 24/7 in the
rectorate for 2 weeks ejecting Axel Freimuth from his
place of work and living in there. They placed his big
black leather chair outside and handed out their leaflets
from it. Being a German thing when the protest was
broken up the students were legally obliged to clean up
the office most likely so when girlfriend Marina
collected her degree I distinctly remember walking past
and hearing their hoovers going and people climbing out
of the windows on ladders with full dusters.
Second Protest against the Right in 15 March Luton UK, 2011
Tommy (Lennon) Robinson on Newsnight
What on earth would inspire me to put my life in danger
like that? It was a very turbulent time in England. We
had just had mass riots in 2010 and Luton is in the home
counties.
10 years previously the EDL had been formed
as the Royal Anglian Regiment had marched through the
town and some of the predominant Muslim population
in Luton with families in Iraq had organised a standing
protest against the Royal Anglian Regiment. Tommy
Lennon, so named after Luton town’s most famous
football hooligan of the 1980s, (not his real name),
claimed that this protest was being made by radical
Islamists who were trying to poison the British
population against their military and their intervention
in Iraqi politics.
The Muslims held banners with
“Butchers of Basra” on claiming that the British army
had committed war crimes against the civilian
population in the south. It is uncertain to this day
whether they were, the news blackout in that area
could imply a cover up. The story has been swept aside.
However, it could be that the Muslim groups were
exploiting genuine grief for their own political gain.
Lennon was himself attacked several times for having a
go it them in the protest and had to wear a stab vest. He
was sent to prison, but on Newsnight he didn’t come
across as a very pleasant character at all.
As I had just been going out with a member of the Syrian elite.
I felt I had to risk my life to defend my Muslim girlfriend’s
interests in Luton. The thing is with all that has happened
afterwards some of his theories may have been
vindicated and Lennon demonised to a certain extent to
protect a political line favourable to the left
To be fair to him his fears may have been
real, but we really could have been Butchers in Basra. It
was probably six of one half a dozen of the other. It just
didn’t feel that way at the time in my naivety I just
imagined Reem as one of those women being attacked. I
was defending my interests by going in other words.
Coming Out of Retirement
In preparation for the protest I attended a meeting of the Socialist Workers Party the SWP at Essex
University in which the leading light of the scene
recommended that we didn’t get involved in the
antifascist scene in the UK unless we were serious about
doing it professionally as you were likely to get a certain
reputation as a trouble maker and get threatened by
the EDL and possibly attacked.
I was however determined to make a stand against the arrogance of
Lennon whom I had despised on Newsnight destroying
even the very capable Jeremy Paxman. He gave me so
much of the wrong impression that I was willing to risk
my life to say how I felt about him at that stage.
I was trembling in my boots when the day came to get on the
minibus. I was crying almost because I thought I was
going to either get beaten up or stabbed myself. So, on
the way out I just saw the confirmation cross my school
chaplain had made me from an Olive branch in
Bethlehem and I grabbed that with its shoelace chain
and put it round my neck held it praying that
I’d be okay and that the Muslims would be protected. I
took it with me as a talisman and wore it the whole day.
For once, at least my prayers were answered and I came
to no harm.
Having My Photos Taken for the Police Database
When I got to Essex University from who’s campus I am
officially banned for no real reason. I said something rude
because I was losing my woman. I shouldn’t even have entered the
car park even they were so strict. The four of us
going were met by a police riot van.
A policeman armed with a camera
photographed our faces and said that we would be kept
on a police database of protestors for 3 months after
the event because they were expecting a lot of trouble.
If we did riot then it would be easier for them to prosecute us.
Many of us were very unhappy about this,
but they refused to let us on the bus without a mugshot.
It was supposed to be a free country but no, we didn’t
get away without going on that database as far as I
know I could be still on there, probably am. The officer
gave us the option of going home right then or having a
mugshot and nothing else. He said that was a free
choice, but it is our right as citizens to protest in a
registered protest there was nothing illegal about what
we were doing. It was a bit like Minority Report the
movie in my opinion guilty of committing future crimes
before they had occurred. It is typically, and bigotedly
Colcestrian. Colchester is an army town and they are so
big on niggling details and little bits of discipline like that.
Those Present at the Protest
Present on the protest were the future leader of the
student union UK Mark Bergfeld a member of Die Linke
from just outside Cologne. He didn’t travel in
with us, me and an American female student, a guy
from Liverpool studying politics at Essex, and a red
headed male student who was determined to start a
revolution.
Facing Down the Enemy
The student from Liverpool was an experienced
antifascist protestor and he taught me how to face
down the enemy and scare them off even if they are
armed. He said that if we did march the likelihood
increased of us having to use that skill against the EDL.
Basically, you make your body as large as possible shout
at them louder than they shout at you and then run as
fast as you can away from them. If they don’t run you
do, but it’s Tarzanesque show of male strength and
nothing else apparently in that situation.
We also exchanged mobile numbers to keep in touch at any one
time. It was frightening that protest it really was.
The Standing Protest in the Market Square
Apart from Mark Bergfeld marching up to the Muslim suburb of Bury Park to meet some of the Muslim leaders we were supposed to be defending the general idea was to confine the demonstrations by the EDL and the counter-demonstration to standing protests in two adjacent squares. The EDL had slightly more people than us we had about 800 they had about 1500. One of the old lefties with a wizened face a veteran of the Militant Labour demonstrations of the 1980s smiled at me with his yellowing and broken teeth and chatted to me offering a Militant Magazine. It was a bit like Wuppertal again fancying the girl with green hair and viewing the two punks with Mohicans on the mini stage that formed our live band entertainment. I met some gay Rastafarians and a genuine 1960’s hippie girl with a rose adorning her whilst hair boogieing away on the right with her partner. There was much leafleting going on and big inflatable mock ups of Tony Blair. There was the iron fist in a clunking great banner marked with SWP. We were allowed to permeate the police presence at first and buy drinks, get something to eat and go to the loo in the only department store that was open and collect placards. Apparently, according to management an attempt to stop the EDL assembling at the railway station had been partially successful.
Heavy Police Presence
The police were there in abundance with a ring of steel
formed around us and the EDL both protecting and
confining us. The square was circular and fairly small
with all the shops having closed down for the day and
been boarded up. It looked a little like ground
zero. The police were stationed in a circular fashion
adorned with full riot gear, shields and police horses. So,
the full caboodle. A presence of 2000 plus officers
attended that day. We saw hundreds of police cars
parked on the way out. In fact, they cheated on us and
let the EDL march whilst confining us to a standing
protest.
Getting videoed for U-Tube by Some Muslim Guys with
Mobile Phones
When we were outside the department store some
young muslim guys videoed us with mobile phones to
place us on U-Tube with our placards. I had a big bushy
beard at that stage and I was jumping up and down
saying my bit for anti-racism.
Fight For This Love
When we returned to the square the band played a
number of hits for a while whilst the leader of the
protest started to make a series of speeches. Everything was
fine until they decided to play Fight for This Love by Cheryl Cole
and then the whole crowd just moved on
mass to break through the police lines and beat up the
EDL whilst I moved back into the opposite direction
and waited in the centre of the square.
They attempted
to break through the police lines and make a few
headlines by beating them up despite the police
presence. Sirens went off and they might have overturned a car
Someone was telling me that unless they
were violent they were unlikely to win any publicity
from the event but the EDL would. I had never been involved
when a protest had gotten violent and turned into a riot
like that before and I was notably shaken and scared by
the actions of the side I was supposed to be
representing. They didn’t share my views on violence and
aggravated protest and I never took part again in
antifascist action in the UK.
“When He Wraps It Up. You Can Go!”
We were waiting to go for a long time after that phase
of the protest. The protest leader who was some kind of
teacher in London had gotten into a massive heated
rant on how socialism had smashed fascism in past
decades with its iron fist and would do so again, thus
destroying all the bigots and cons and corrupt officials in
society or words to that effect. The police officer was
giggling away in his riot gear and saying, “When he
wraps it up. You can go!”.
We were scared and we wanted to get
the hell out of Luton by nightfall and we
had to wait at least an extra twenty minutes or half hour
before slipping away to the relative safety of our
minibus where a rather relived scouser was glad to make a
quick getaway. Even the guy who had suggested
facing down the EDL was scared by that stage.