Everything had frozen. I stood there with my heart in my mouth waiting to see what would happen next.
The police had given us the three customary warnings to leave after a legal demonstration and we had obeyed under threat of arrest. We moved out in a group, knowing the customary tactics of dividing the group that the German riot police liked to conduct. But suddenly they had charged. Around 30 riot police had rushed headlong into us with batons drawn and eyes bearing on us with provocative intent.
We were nearing the end of the German Clima Camp based from a field in north Hamburg.
The idea of the Clima Camp had been birthed in England and after a few years seasoned campaigners like Tadzio Mueller had imported the idea to Germany, traditionally the home of a sizeable active radical left community.
The idea, like its successful counterpart in Southeast England, was to highlight the problems that increased energy consumption was having on global climate change as well as the problems migrants faced when trying to settling in our beloved EU. Tired of ineffectual lobbying against these multi-national corporations with much more financial muscle and therefore influence, the growing consensus was towards direct action. This included, like in the Kent camp, a protest against a coal power station, namely Hamburg's facility in Moorburg, which is currently under construction and one against the airport and its
At first the police presence was scant as they took a backseat in our primary welcoming demonstration, and then were in small numbers at the second big demo outside a low-cost Aldi supermarket in the city centre, the latter in favour of fair trade products. We would then retreat to our camp, where a huge itinerary of informative workshops and debates were running throughout the ten days we camped there.
Then came the turning point. In order to make our presence felt we decided to take our march to a residential site near Moorburg which would be directly affected by the presence of the coal power station. But instead of remaining there, a decision was made to march on the power station itself. This meant that there would be a clear route towards the station itself and there would be no police to overcome. Hurrying along the streets waving flags and chanting songs, our 300-strong body surged towards the building site, only to be intercepted by riot police coming from behind us to thwart our advance.
However, they were powerless to stop two teams getting into the site and hoisting a banner on a crane and staying in place for a full five hours before being arrested. Others blockaded the entrance to the site, a van providinig the music as we danced in the ring formed by our amour-clad, growling 'spectators'. In the end they stopped our spontaneous action for another ridiculous reason: “This is no longer a demo, it is a party; and you need a separate permit for a party. If you don't go home, we will arrest you!” They then proceeded to remove people forcibly as they sat stubbornly at the entrance to the complex, while others decried their democratic rights in uproarious disapproval.
On the Friday was the demonstration at the airport and we were equally mistreated. One group of around 60 was arrested in entirety, solely for blocking one of the many arteries leading to the airport. The police, now smiling smugly, surrounded the protesters before rounding up the whole group and bussing them off to the cell for a few hours before releasing them unceremoniously after the humiliation. Another group of 300 carried out an 'action' in Terminal 1, where, by means of theatre and music they complemented the main march outside which was again heavily cordoned off by the police. We had evaded capture while marching with the first group and later it was at this main march where the police had charged us.
The silence in those moments seemed to last forever as we questioned the integrity of a democratic system we vehemently criticised as being undemocratic. But for that small matter of minutes we were hoping the strands of freedom of expression that remained would sustain our right to leave the site of the action. And so it was to be. With the press cameras cataloguing the police action deemed inappropriate by our mobile PA system they finally capitulated and fell back allowing us to march to the metro station still clasped arm in arm in solidarity.
The next day the police reacted with more fury, using water cannon to disperse a second march on Moorburg, the rain driving not only vertically but also horizontally in what is one of the wettest regions in Germany.
Many people learned that to exercise the freedom to protest it was necessary to test that freedom and that to push for change was never an easy struggle. But more than anything we made a stand, and as we had come to know, the fight is only lost when we stop fighting.
Now there are plans in motion to start a climate camp in Spain next summer as a prelude to a big meeting of climate campaigners in Copenhagen in September 2009 to coincide with the most important UN Climate Conference to be held since Kyoto. Interested individuals wishing to be part of this movement should contact climatecampspain@gmail.com.
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