My Berlin – Rudi Dutschke (April 2008)
Stumbling out of Mema with four climate-destroying plastic bags I became the latest, possibly the last, victim of Rudi Dutschke.
Perhaps my brain is addled by age, perhaps I simply need stronger glasses, whatever the reason I somehow managed to tread on the
Rain-soaked flowers at the Ku’damm memorial stone for Dutschke, slip on the wet concrete and wrench my shoulder while trying to restore my balance. Why I can’t fall, like normal people, on a wet bathroom floor or while running for the bus, is baffling.
Until now I have had nothing personal against Dutschke. True, the stone – marking, of course, the place where he was shot in April 1968 – is a bit of mystery. I mean, the man did not die until 1979, right? Eleven years later. It seems to me you mark the birthplace of someone of historical importance, the place where he wrote his definitive book or delivered an extra-ordinary speech, the house or battlefield where he died. And that’s it. Unless he is a national hero, a national martyr. Is Dutschke really that? If he is then it would make more sense to name Schönefeld after him – Rudi Dutschke International Airport – rather than a paving stone near Mema. Then, at least, you could force Bavarians to fly from Franz Joseph Strauß to Rudi Dutschke.
The reason I was distracted on the Ku’damm was a small argument at the Mema cash till. A woman could not believe her bill. It had come to 40 euros and she hadn’t even bought the Heidelbeeren flown in from Italy nor the Brombeeren flown in from Mexico. No, she had simply bought a lambchop for dinner, some vegetables, milk for her cornflakes, two rolls of toilet paper. “Nie im Leben hab’ ich so viel für Brot bezahlt!“ she said and looked briefly as if a tear might roll down the powdered crevices of her cheeks. I wondered, briefly, if strictly speaking this was true – the price of bread, relative to income, must have been higher in the 1970s? – but this was no moment for a history lesson. What does seem to be happening is that global events are catching up with Berliners. Food riots are breaking out everywhere, in Egypt, Uruguay, Haiti. A dozen countries are restricting rice exports to head off trouble at home. Something seems to be going badly wrong. Bread really is becoming expensive – yet the rise in Getreide prices can only play a small part in this.
If I have read my Dutschke texts correctly, he would be pleased with this Zuspitzung. In his days the big global issues were overpopulation, famine and capitalist America’s evil attempts to coca-colaise its neo-colonial empire. Outside the Asta, these were marginal issues for most Berliners. Now, thanks to the internet and a different media landscape, Berliners are much more aware of global inter-connections. Georg Milbradt resigns because of the lending policies of American banks? Unthinkable in any other era of German history. Dutschke would have seen this as a pre-revolutionary situation, would have been urging Stadtguerillas to bring the unrest in the developing world to the gates of Siemens and other multi-nationals.
Study the notice-board, the Kleinanzeigen in Mema: “26er Damenrad 40 Euro Festpreis”; “Verkaufe wegen Auswanderung Hundesofa (braun) 30 Euro”; “Philips Mikrofon ca. 60 Jahre alt, Funktionsführung, 60 Euro“. These are calls for help from a middle class that – having felt only the slightest of benefits from the economic upswing – is clearing the decks for bad times ahead.
Now, walk across the Ku’damm, 100 metres down the Karlsruher Straße to Aspria, a fitness club favoured by celebrities. Read the notice-board there: “Drei Karten für Abbado”; “Mahagoni-Tisch (1850), 500 Euro”; “Wohnung in New York, günstig”; “Ferienhaus auf Sardinien zu verkaufen”. The income bracket is grander but the note of creeping panic is the same. The global crisis is moving closer, lapping at out feet.
The conclusion for Dutschke would be this: the poor and the rich are beginning to feel the strain, to lose faith in the capitalist order. The rich will try to defend this dying system with force; the poor, recognising its brotherhood with the poor of Asia and southern America, must prepare for the fight.
But, wait, here is something strange: there is no sign, anywhere in the west, of a revolution about to explode. Could it be, do you think, that Dutschke was wrong? That almost nothing written (or spoken on the barricades) by Dutschke was of lasting value? That the Gedenktafel on the Ku’damm honours a pleasant, sometimes hysterical student who, had he not been shot, would have been forgotten by now? Not a hero, but a footnote.
If Dutschke had lived he would be 68 years old and my bet is he would no longer be preaching global revolution, nor even voting for Oskar Lafontaine. He would be pinning up his ad on the Aspria notice-board: four bedroom summer house in Florida for sale.
Still, sorry about messing up your flowers Rudi! (My shoulder still hurts)
