Popular Discontent is widespread in Europe these days, no matter whether we look to Greece where the new "anti-terrorist" law targets strikers, or to Spain, Italy and  France where syndicalist and republican traditions are very much alive and where the right to protest has always been regarded as a republican and democratic right. Right now,  millions are actively participating in a general strike in France. Workers blocade refineries; as soon as the police dissolves the blocades, new blocades are set up. Seventy per cent of the population support the general strike and those actively involved.

Germany has always been more conservative. The authoritarian socio-cultural heritage has been significantly weakened in the wake of "1968" (in fact, in the wake of the critique of the Nazi past by the younger generation that culminated in the events of 1968): but the trade unions have been tamed by legal provisions and most middle-class citizens were never prone to take to the streets, at least not in post-war West Germany. In East Germany, the party organized mass demonstrations and this also has subsequently dampened the enthusiasm for demonstrations.
It seems that only when the kettle has been boiling too long that citizens in this country take to the streets. It is all the more astounding that recently, a large part of the population in what most commentators thought was an especially conservative part of Germany, the state of Baden-Wurttemberg in the South-Western part of the country, discovered the possibility - and necessity - of civil disobedience. And this without reading Thoreau!

The following is an attempt to place the events in Stuttgart in a larger context and give an overview regarding the various fields of conflict and the social movements in Germany during the last few decades. Perhaps this brief list is useful in two respects:
It lets us recognize that the present protests in Stuttgart are not the only protests
that take place and that have taken place in the country. 
Often such protests have been undertaken by, or have led to single-issue movements. The relative (but not abolute) failure to link these movements is a weakness, when we see such protests in the context of a quest for a more democratic society where people have a real say, especially with regard to essential questions that affect their lives.
In Stuttgart, at least in the beginning, the protests seemed to be concerned very much with a single issue, rejection of the project known as “Stuttgart 21”. It implied a number of questions, of course: The horrendous cost, the inappropriateness of such investment in high speed trains when the branch lines and of course commuters were neglected, the ecological aspect, the aspect of preserving the historical patrimony, the fury because citizens were not heard; obbiously the “participatory” exercises undertaken by the authorities (so-called Buergerbeteiligung) appeared to many citizens as a farce. 

IN TALKING ABOUT STUTTGART, IT IS IMPORTANT TO SEE HOW MUCH THE LOCAL AND REGIONAL SPECIFICITIES MATTER THAT ARE INSCRIBED IN THE ISSUE, AS IT WAS PERCEIVED BY PROTESTING CITIZENS (AND THIS, OBVIOUSLY; BY ACCENTUATING DIFFERENT COMPONENTS OF THE ISSUE IN DIFFERENT WAYS).

IN OTHER WORDS, PROTEST AGAINST “STUTTGART  21” DID NOT  ONLY LEAD TO THE FORMATION OF A SINGLE ISSUE MOVEMENT, IT WAS AND STILL IS ALSO A MOVEMENT WITH A STRONG, VERY SPECIFIC REGIONAL CHARACTER. 

AND AS A MATTER OF FACT, THE IMMENSELY SUCCESSFUL WAY THE PROTEST MOVEMENT IS ANCHORED IN THE LOCAL AND REGIONAL POPULATION  FORBIDS IN FACT ANY MINGLING BY OUTSIDERS. THEY COULD DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

Does that mean that the protests have only a local and regional as well as a temporary significance and will simply wane when a solution, perhaps a compromise concerning the “Stuttgart 21” issue has been found?
A few months ago, that might have been true.
In the meantime, however, there is a learning process that the citizens participating in the protests – and many who do not participate but sympathize with the protesters –  have been undergoing.

This has much to do with the way politicians that people in Stuttgart once trusted have acted and have talked to them. 
It has also a lot to do with the violence that non-provocative, peaceful protesters were subjected to by the “forces of order” that were apparently told by the authorities to be rigorous.

Commenting on the events of Sept. 30, 2010 in Stuttgart, Prof. Thomas Ebert focused on the immediate effect of the violent action by the police, during an interview or conversation with a radio journalist, broadcast on WDR5 radio, Oct. 20, 2010 at 7:15 p.m.
He said, “Der Einsatz der Polizei, der sehr aggressiv war, der provoziert reaktive Gewalt – in diesem Moment.“ (The way the police proceeded, which was very aggressive, provokes reactive violence [among attacked demonstrators] – in this very moment.“ – This analysis of the likely reaction of peaceful protesters to an unprovoked attack by the police can help to explain feelings of anger verbally vented by an old lady who was among the demonstrators, or the helpless act of a young man who tossed a chair into the air without hitting anybody. Generally, the demonstrators remained peaceful, even when attacked. No, THE REACTION WAS GENERALLY SPEAKING NOT AN IMMEDIATE  EXPLOSION OF REACTIVE VIOLENCE ON THE PART OF THE PROTESTING POPULATION –  IT WAS AND STILL IS A REFLECTIVE ACT   THAT PRODUCES AN ENORMOUS DISTANCE BETWEEN THEM AND “THE ELECTED SERVANTS OF THE PEOPLE” WHO ACTED AND STILL ACT LIKE FEUDAL LORDS.

The subconsciously present irritation, frustration, disillusionment and anger that has built up over the years has come out into the open, and now there is clarity. And now it is no longer a single issue movement, because no matter how it is resolved (AND THE PROTESTERS ARE CONVINCED THAT THEY WILL WIN, in the end), the readiness to act like children, to be quiet and gullible, and to let manipulative politicians have their way IS GONE: they DEMAND democracy; REAL DEMOCRACY. THEY ARE FED UP WITH BEING LIED TO. THEY ARE APPEARING IN FRONT OF PARLIAMENT, TOSSING SHOES AGAINST ITS WALLS, SHOUTING “LIARS, LIARS!!!” 

WHAT IS EVEN MORE REMARKABLE, IS THIS: THE ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT SENTIMENT IS “CATCHING”, PEOPLE IN THE REST OF THE COUNTRY ARE TAKING NOTE. They have seen the images of elderly people bleeding, of children attacked by the police. They have heard the voices of the politicians who said that people who cry foul when they are subjected to the jet of water of water canons are simply “pampered” OR who falsely blamed the fact that almost 400 people were wounded in Stuttgart on Sept. 30, on demonstrators engaging in violence (to which, it was insinuated, the police ‘REACTED’). 
IT WAS ALL SO SHABBY, such a patent lie, such arrogance – and people elsewhere in the country remember now HOW THEY ARE TREATED AND HAVE BEEN TREATED ARROGANTLY, HOW THEY ARE LIED TO AND HAVE BEEN LIED TO. AND RATHER THAN RE-ENFORCING ABSTENTIONISM, it kindles a desire to be heard, to become active, to make the country fairer, les anti-social, more democratic. 

IT IS AN UNFORESEEN EFFECT OF THE STUTTGART PROTEST MOVEMENT THAT NOBODY FORESAW.

The promised list is given now. It is merely an attempt to give an initial overview. The list can be expanded and refined.
 
 

EXCLUDED YOUNGSTERS, LEGITIMATE YOUTH PROTEST
The scandalous levels of unemployment observable in much of the world and certainly all over Europe are a problem in Germany, too. The problem is acerbated by a perverse educational system that in effect defends the “privilege of better education” reserved for  the better-off at the expense of kids from low-income immigrant families and generally, working class kids: It is an antiquated, slyly class-conscious education system that for long reproduced and today increasingly sharpens the inequalities of Germany’s class society and that the advocates of a “more modern capitalism” question in their own way because, in their view, it is tantamount to “quandering human resources”.
But many wide awake young people neither desire to be condemned to extreme poverty and starving diets nor to be exploited more effectively thanks to a “modernized, flexible” education that takes into account the changing needs of capital in a more effective way.
There is a thirst for freedom in the air.
A revolt against hopelessness.
 

THE WOMAN’S LIB MOVEMENT
It started in the 1960, it was active and it was wonderful in the 70s, it became pragmatic and registered some gains which was good. But to the extent that young and more importantly, middle-aged middle-class and upper-class women profited from it, it also can be said to have ignored working class and poor immigrant women. It is very much in need of rejuvenation in this country. And like all single-issue movements, it is in need of coalitions, of friends. Equal pay for equal work has not been achieved. AMONG THOSE SUFFERING MOST FROM WELFARE REFORM, WE MUST COUNT ONE AND A HALF MILLION SINGLE MOTHERS AND TWO TO THREE MILLION CHILDREN. Those who grant them a starving diet today, are CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC FEMALE CABINET MEMBERS WHO BUILT THEIR CAREERS THANKS TO THE FACT THAT THE WOMAN’S LIB MOVEMENT OPENED CAREER OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEM:  FORMAL OR DE-FACTO QUOTAS FOR WOMEN IN THE CDU, JUST AS IN OTHER MAJOR PARTIES, WERE AN IMPORTANT FACTOR THAT MADE THEIR CAREER POSSIBLE.
 

THE PEACE MOVEMENT
As in other countries, the peace movement in Germany was a reaction to the Cold War.
A considerable number of Germans, even though a minority at the time, reacted in the 1950s against a German rearmament. The fact that Nazi Germany had started a war that took the lives of about 60 million human beings was a good reason never to take up arms again.
In the 1970s and 80s the peace movement grew significantly. When the so-called Socialist camp collapsed in Eastern and Central Europe, the peace movement waned.
It is only in reaction to the externally fanned Yugoslav civil war, the NATO intervention in the Kosovo conflict, the two wars against Iraq and the war against the population of Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, that the peace movement has gathered some strength again.
Too many former supporters still think that peace is secure since 1989.  Too many are forgetful of the fact that nuclear arsenals of the big nuclear powers still exist and that these enormously destructive nuclear weapon stockpiles are being modernized, instead of being abolished.
But the movement slowly grows again.
 

THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT
Regional resistance against nuclear power plants (notably Wyhl in South West Germany ! Brokdorf,  and Krümmel in the Hamburg area !)  and against sites selected to store radioactive ‘nuclear waste’ permanently (Wackersdorf ! – more recently, Asse, Ahaus are also getting attention) gave rise to an anti-nuclear movement that was no longer exclusively focused on nuclear weapons. The anti-nuclear movement as well as ecologist concerns were at the root of the Green Party when it was founded as an anti-establishment party, close to the grass-roots.
These ties between GREENS and the grass roots movements started to be questioned at the grass roots level when the party turned “pragmatic” and opportunistic, as a junior partner in a coalitionnwith the Social Democrats that veered to the right under Chancellor Gerhard SCHROEDER.
The agreement (so-called consensus; “Atomkonsenses”) that the Schroeder administration reached with nuclear industry when the Green Party was a coalition partner of the Social Democrats included an obligation of industry to shut down old power plants after a determined number of years. This obligation incurred by nuclear industry at the time has been questioned by it more recently, but it is also rejected  by banks and industry in general ever since the Schroeder administration was replaced by the Merkel administration.
Obviously, not to shut down old, unsafe plants immediately was a mistake and the so-called consensus was just a tactical game that the Social Democratic leaders were all too ready to play; the subequent government has practically thrown “the consensus” that had been “reached”  into the wastepaper basket. 
The effect is that a public which is skeptical and increasingly aware of the risks of nuclear power feels cheated. The distrust is increasing. There is a sense of being conned by politicians allied with big industry and the banks while breaking every promise they make during election periods.

This year, about 100,000 people demonstrated in Berlin against nuclear power plants. There never was such a big demonstration before in Berlin, by supporters of this cause. Likewise, we saw a 50,000 anti-nuclear protesters  in Munich, an expensive city with a liberal Social Democratic mayor which was never in the headlines because of big demonstrations in the last few decades. 
 

THE “MONDAY DEMONSTRATIONS” IN LEIPZIG
Welfare reform, inspired by CLINTONITE RECIPES, has meant starving diets for 6 to 9 million people in Germany. A refusal to introduce an over the board minimum wage in thi country has made wage-subsidies to the working poor a necessity, and even when working, these people exist on a level of income so low that it is a real scandal.  Something like this was never was witnessed before the SCHROEDER administration introduced the so-called HARTZ IV REFORMS.
Especially in the EASTERN PART OF GERMANY, the former GDR that was de-industrialized after its annexation by the West German government, levels of unemployment are very high and extreme poverty is now widespread. Those without a job are far worse off than they ever were in the old GDR.
As a consequence, MASS DEMONSTRATIONS took place for some time every Monday in the city of Leipzig, a city which also saw the demonstrations which toppled the ossified GDR leadership.
Today, it is the classe politique formed in WEST GERMANY that appears as ossified to an  increasing part of the  population
What is regrettable is, that DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST WELFARE REFORM – EVEN THOUGH SPREADING TO THE RUHR DISTRICT AND TO BERLIN- RECEIBED NO SUPPORT FROM OTHER SEGMENTS OF THE POPULATION AT THE TIME. Isolated, they withered away, even though the discontent is still very much alive.
 

STUTTGART: THE  PETERLOO OF UNCHECKED RULE BY THE “ELITES”?
This fall, it is the scope and the rapid expansion of protest in STUTTGART that rocks the country. PEOPLE ALL OVER GERMANY TAKE NOTE. It is as if they share the feelings and also quite a few of the key grievances of the South-West German protesters. ABOVE ALL, THE FEELING OF BEING LIED TO AND BEING CHEATED BY THE CLASSE POLITIQUE. THE FEELING THAT EVEN THOUGH WE CAN VOTE, WE THE PEOPLE EXERCISE NO CONTROL OVER OUR OWN AFFAIRS: THE RES PUBLICA THAT WE SHOULD DEBATE & DECIDE FREELY AND CONSCIOUSLY, HAS BEEN “PRIVATIZED” AND IT IS NOW A MATTER OF WHEELING-DEALING BETWEEN BIG MONEY, BIG INDUSTRY AND THE BIG SHOTS INSIDE THE POLITICAL CASTE. 

IT IS MORE AND MORE APPARENT THAT THE BUNKER MENTALITY OF THE “CLASSE POLITIQUE” IS FANNING POPULAR DISCONTENT AND RESISTANCE

PEOPLE WHO ARE DEMOCRATS DEEP DOWN IN THEIR HEART STRT TO QUESTION “REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY” AS IT IS:  SOMETHING SEEMS TO BE AWFULLY WRONG WHEN M.P.s LISTEN TO BIG BUSINESS MORE THAN TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS.  SO MORE AND MORE PEOPLE TELL THEMSELVES:  “WHO ‘REPRESENTS’ THE COMMON PEOPLE IF NOT THEY THEMSELVES?” 

THE QUESTION THAT IS “IN THE AIR” IS THIS:
WILL WE NEED MORE GRASS-ROOTS DEMOCRACY? 
 

Z mag
 
 
 

Zcommunications
 
 
 

IPS news
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

L'Express
on Stuttgart

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NY Times
on Stuttgart

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Financial Times
on Stuttgart

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AFP
Agence France Press on Stuttgart

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Telepolis

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HOW A SIT-IN BY
PUPILS WAS DISSOLVED
Der SPIEGEL
PHOTOS

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ALTERNATIVE
YOUTH CENTERS
AND CENTERS OF
CULTURE

AJZ Bielefeld

FlaFla Herford

MOLODOI Strasbourg

Rote Flora, HH

KØPI 137, Berlin

JuzI-Goettingen

SubstAnZ Osnabrueck
 
 
 
 
 

WOMEN'S LIB

genderblog

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DIE LINKE (Austria)
on CLARA ZETKIN [please check back-up copy]

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Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
on FEMINISM [please check back-up copy]

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THE GERMAN
PEACE MOVEMENT
 

www.atomwaffenfrei.de

www.friedensbewegung.de

www.friedenskooperative.de

Berliner
Fíedenskoordiantion

Friedensnetzwerk

Soziale Verteidigung

BuKo Bremen

BIFA München

Friedensforum Essen
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE ANTI-NUCLEAR
MOVEMENT 
 

www.castor.de
 

civil resistance in Luechow-Dannenberg

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Green party against
GORLEBEN nuclear
waste disposal site

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www.publik-forum.de
 

ANTI ATOM BAYERN

ANTI ATOM BAYERN
back-up copy on Munich demo
 

BR-online on Munich demo

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www.ausgestahlt.de
on BERLIN demo

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BUNDESWEITE
MONTAGSDEMO
 

Montagsdemonstrationen

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The protests in
STUTTGART
in Sept./Oct. 2010

K21

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Leben in Stuttgart

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Lobby Control

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pro-Stuttgart 21-lobby

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Volksgesetzgebung jetzt
 

Demokratie-initiative 21
 

Mehr Demokratie
 
 
 
 

documenta eleven:
democracy
as a permanent,
unfinished
process