Rehearsal, then direkt democracy

Harvey in front of Silver Future
(where we perform ShameNoShame on Nov.6th!)

After rehearsal I had plans to go write at a place called Silver Future, before taking a class of contact improvisation at six o'clock.  Silver Future is a really cool spot.  It's a reputed queer cafe/bar that has super clever and good kitsch art, some tables and couches and a big bag of snacks hanging from the ceiling from a pulley system.  It has a back room with perhaps a pool table, and some chairs outside.  Most importantly, it has a sign above the bar that reads : "Congratulation, you have just left the hetero-normative sector."  (Although, since nothing is perfect in this world, there's unfortunately also a sign underneath that says "no pictures"!)

I've been wanting to go hang out there during the day, get a long espresso perhaps and write for a few hours.  But I haven't had the time.  Between the Butoh workshop and the other activities I have; between the rehearsals, the impromptu decisions, and the getting lost in the city almost everyday, I have just not been able to make it all the way to that place.

And I didn't today either, because after working with Harvey I found out there was a "occupy wall street solidarity protest" again today in Berlin.

It's all over Facebook, and this time I have the intention of being part of it.  Somehow I have shied away from the protests and all the big events that have happened since I have been aware of the state of the world.  Somehow, I call myself a "political radicalist" (as in, radical = roots) and yet I did not take part in the FTAA protests at the summit of the Americas, when it happened in Quebec City in 2001.  I remember though.  I was in CEGEP at the time; I had decided that I didn't know enough about what the revendications were, and I didn't want to be a mere tourist.  I didn't want to be there out of curiosity, or of animosity even.  I wasn't sure I agreed with confrontation.  I admit I was also worried about tearing gas.

But then I did end up studying international politics, and I became deeply aware and convinced of  the historical, dialectical foundation of the political systems we live in.  I struggled intellectually with notion of "power", "government", and "centralization", and I read a lot of anarchist literature (from Proudhon to Kropotkin, Goldman to Chomsky). 

I have drawn some conclusions for myself, namely that there is real and undeniable imbalance and injustice in the world.  There are many who shamelessly and hypocritically abuse of the power they have - making use of violence whenever their throne is threatened.  It becomes so obvious and so sickening the minute you start looking into it.  No wonder why so many of us prefer to think about other things.

I didn't go to the anti-war protests when Bush (and the U.N. allies) began to attack Afghanistan and then Iraq.  I was in the United States, in the heart of it (well, I guess you wouldn't call Maine "the heart of it", it's true), and somehow I did not bring myself to attend events that were organized.  Smaller ones yes, but none of the major, visible ones.  On one level, my excuse is that I was a "legal alien", and I was afraid of what might happen.  But would I really have got myself arrested?  Probably not.  On another level then, I probably had a part of me that thought it was pointless to go and march with a bunch of hippies.

Hippies, Punks...
Subcultures as responses to political issues...
I want to learn more about it all.

For some reason.. I don't want to make excuses right now.  I think that this one is very important… Something might be happening.  And I'd like to be part of it.

Being a traveller I somehow still get to be at the margin of it, and thus be "safe".  Sometimes I wonder if I'd actually have courage for nonviolent (or violent, for that matter) action.   In truth, I am a bit ashamed to call myself an existentialist and not to act in accord with my understanding of 'responsibility".  (There is a quote i want to write here, but I forget! Help!)

So why not give it a try this time, and take a part in this Occupy Wall-Street movement?  This one is about numbers, hundreds and millions of people speaking up against the negligence of the few bankers and CEOs.. uh I mean, governments, who supposedly keep our society together?

Why not add my body and my voice to this giant organism that now sees this negligence and the injustices committed?

Peace is overrated... or over-idealistic maybe, when we acknowledge how we all have that perpetual was inside of us.  So perhaps justice is a more noble thing to shoot for.  I had never thought of this before, but I think I would agree with myself here.  I wonder to what extent the two are connected.

I wonder, if a movement like "occupy wall-street" can bring about some justice and peace in the world.

I am curious, this time around.  That's why I went to the Reichtag (a major symbol of the volk's political history here in Germany) today, to witness the Berlin protests.

I should say that I had gone to check out the post-march assembly last Saturday.

I went to Mariannenplatz (a beautiful park!) around five in the afternoon, after Butoh.  There were perhaps a hundred? A hundred fifty people?  I looked around and saw a few hippies, and punks, and families with their kids playing around.  There was a stage with someone speaking, and then a DJ took over.It almost felt like a block party.

I sat on the grass with a beer and observed the people around me.  I wondered what was going on in the "real" protests, in the USA.  I saw policemen standing on the outskirts of our gathering.  I wondered if protesters were getting beating up somewhere else in the world.  I wondered if anything would happen, if anything would come out of this.  I wondered.

 Inflation

Today in front of the Reichtag I found another small gathering.  It was interesting to walk out of Brandenburg Tor U-Bahn, right in a major touristic area of the city. (see blog on History of Berlin) Around and above us stood the embassies of several other nations( and the iu88only reason I am not using the word "nation-states"- since it would be the appropriate technical term -  is because there is a flag of Quebec!!).   On all side, tourists and cameras and vendors and shops; a Starbucks, next to the Kennedy Museum(?).  I had ask someone, and then walk through the Brandenburg Gate, to quickly reach the Reichtag building where I found a small crowd sitting in a circle on the ground, surrounded by a few tourists and a few journalist.

I must say, I considered myself to be a little bit of each.

Then I made a connection in my brains.  I remembered what a few of you have been telling me recently, about being a citizen of the world…

I smiled.

'Cause the phrase is easier to throw out there - for you, and for me - then to actually live, in practice.  So what I realized, is that this is the practice.  It's a shame I cannot take part in discussions of "Arbeitgruppe" (I'm not sure what it specifically refers to, but they kept talking about those).  It's a shame, but I cannot say that I am part of a community, because I find that the type of community I am thinking of is intrinsically rooted in a place.  You must understand one thing: this is what I think about every day.  

That's why I feel so restless sometimes.  That's in part what this pilgrimage is about.  I believe that something major is in the process of shifting, world wide, and forever.  Call it an economical crisis, call it the Fall of Babylon… call it a transformation in consciousness, call it  2012… something is happening, once more time…

We don't know what the world is going to look like tomorrow (it's true, we might have never known.)  How much more speculation can the neoliberal system take before this big bubble of false value blows up?  

When is the next natural disaster going to hit?

What if the seasons keep getting out of whack?

"Another world is possible".. should be "Another world is inevitable."

Now it's a matter of how we want it.  And I guess that's why we need to come together and discuss.  I guess that's why forums are opening up everywhere, bubbling up because we are under pressure, blop blop, the internet is a marvelous tools for such phenomena to gain momentum.  This movement has enormous potential for something else to get created, for new ways of organization to emerge and function.  This movement has a lot of potential…

What I saw today was quite exquisite.  What I saw was about sixty or seventy people sitting down in a circle, with more people standing up all around.  Those sitting were holding the ground.  In joining the ring one made a stand, "I am going to be here for a little while."  Right behind this crowd stood the parliament building.  I wondered if they were aware, concerned with the events.  I wondered if they could hear the protest from behind their office windows.  They certainly didn't hear the protest songs and slogans from the masses.  There were none of those.  Instead, what was taking place was a veritable forum: one by one, people voiced their ideas and concerns, their questions and their suggestions, and everyone repeated what they heard, sentence by sentence, thereby attesting to having listened.  

Someone would say: "Mic check" (in English) and would wait for the response of the people: "Mic check."

"Something something something in German", they'd say.  And everyone would repeat after.  When they liked what they heard, they'd wave their jazz hands up in the hair, the way they do in some parts of the world, i.e. some parts of Africa.  Sometimes someone would make a different gesture, rolling their hands on top of one another; I'm not sure what that meant.  There was a moderator in each of the quadrants of the circle, making sure everyone who asked for a turn had a chance to speak.  Everything was in German.  I thought, "This would be the perfect way to learn German: listening and repeating the utopian visions!I could understand most of it.  I had shivers a few times, and I almost cried when someone said "Thank you, Thank you, for being part of this."  I guess I took it personally.

I don't know how we can organize 7billion of people to live in harmony.  Greed and fear are everywhere.  I'll be the first to pledge guilty.

But there are instances like this one: witnessing the amount of collectives and anti-authoritarian groups that are active and productive in these necks of the wood (Berlin, Prague, Zurich.. Some people are telling me… it's happening), today.  Some people have been going at it - what is it?  "politics", that is, "the art of living together") for such a long time, and are still trying to do it.  They have experienced communism and capitalism, and that's after years of monarchism, warlordism, and surely even more isms and schisms… They have had some time to see the trend: there are a few in power, and the many are left lacking…

And they, of course, is also us. For we in the "New World" are but the (logical? certainly not.) sequence to the colonization phenomenon.  Our ancestors have decimated indigenous populations and ripped them of their resources.  Our ancestors have labored these lands and they have invented and built many great things.  This is all one big story: humanity.  

Class wars, nationalistic wars, religious wars… I can't help but reach the hypothesis that it all has to do with only one thing: resources.

  

The rest is pride, and/or ignorance.  

I left the sit in and made my way toward the dance studio, only to realize that I hadn't had a chance to look up the address of the studio. I decided to take a guess and go anyway.  I never found the place, so I came back to the apartment.  

On my way, I stopped by a chain store called Rossman, and got organic pasta sauce and muesli.  

Life is full of irony.

Notice how the American soldier (they are actually actors!) is counting money in his hand!