Hamburg and Demonstrations

[mothwing]

Yay, finally managed to reach my doctor: whatever it is, it's not the thyroid glands, they are perfectly alright. Yay. But he enthusiastically enumerated other tests he'll do to find out what's wrong. Ah, well. Next week.

On Thursday, there'll be a demonstration against the tuition fees. Another demonstration. Not effective, maybe, since Hamburg is too used to demonstrations. Well, better then strikes, I guess.

Usually, if there is nothing big going on, a demonstration consists of around 50 students more or less ambling along, going for a walk in the city, blocking main roads and crossroads. Everybody who doesn't have anything else to do comes along and brings their own issue they'd like to protest against and they walk from the university to the townhall - only that when they finally reach it, there are only half of them left, the rest has gone home or shopping. Or they are protesting peacefully and on their own in restaurants all along the way.

If the students are in a particularly good mood, they bang plastic bottles together or shout things at the policemen who jog along.
The police. There is always massive police presence - more or less everything the police training college has to offer. So there are the students, occasionally hissing at the policemen and shouting insults, and on the other side white-faced, fearful-looking young policemen, jogging along, no older than we are. They apparently are shown videos about the violent demonstrations of the late sixties and the early seventies in that school, no wonder that they are not exactly fond of demonstrators and are a bit twitchy. Not good if there are also water cannons.

So whenever there is a demonstration (aka: every semester. Its Hamburg.), they are standing there, with riot shields, helmets and police batons, in case there is any violence.
There has not been any violence since a demonstration against the fees organised by students from all grammar schools in Hamburg and the university a year or so ago. Some  bored student must have thrown something at a policeman - they never found out what happened -and after that, they fired the water cannons and hit students from grammar schools and university alike, but most people who were wet in the end were apparently in their early teens. At least those from the school my brother goes to.

A few month before that, at the beginning of my first semester, I was really shocked to arrive at the University only to see hundreds of policemen near Campus - there was everything, three water cannons, a dozen police cars, special busses, motorbikes, even two black Marias. Every entrance of the university was sealed with policemen in riot shields, helmets and batons to stop potentially dangerous demonstrators from barricading themselves on Campus. And for what? Two hippies in caravans were protesting against the planned closure of one of their settlements. TWO! They were talking through loudspeakers and offering cookies to bystanders.

The young policemen where sweating under their helmets and looking as tense as ever... and the students did not care at all. That was the ons of the most curious things I have ever seen. There was this wall of riot shields... and the students on the other side, chatting about lectures and the food in the cafeteria. When I went to the prerequisite first demonstration in first semester a few days later I was surprised to see that the students who organised the demonstration and the police officers who were in charge were on first-name terms, but also to see the white faces behind the riot helmets. Humans are very weird. The demonstration itself consisted of around 70 people taking a walk in the sunshine, some of them carrying banners and occasionally blowing a whistle or blocking a crossroad. Nothing particularly threatening. And yet, the policemen were rather tense.

It'll be more serious this time, though. It's not only our lazy, de-motivated students who demonstrate with the energy of a group of pensioners going for a walk, but this time, it is bigger, because it's not only the University of Hamburg, but also quite a number schools of the city if they can organise it, and students from all universities of the north who come.

My brother is going as well, and I don't like that idea at all. It may very well get ... well, not really violent, maybe, but rough, and if they are already so tense if there is nothing to be tense about, how will they react to this? Last time most schools in Hamburg took part in a demonstration and my brother apparently was the only one of his friends who was not hit by the water cannons.
The last thing I want is a clash between enraged members of the student union and tense policemen with my brother and his friends sandwiched in the middle. I'll try to arrange to meet them somewhere if they really go.