EXBERLINER Issue 163, September 2017

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ELECTION 2017 Die Urbane Freestyle democracy Members: 293 hip hoppers in Berlin, 2630 Facebook followers. Slogan: Wir sind DU (We are You) Claim to fame: Co-founder Hillebrand starred in a “hip hopera” adaptation of Wagner’s Ring cycle. About 20 people are sitting in Gleisdreieck park, most of them in trainers and baseball caps. They’re here for a “cypher”, an old-school term for an informal freestyle jam among rappers. But instead of bouncing rhymes off each other, they’re discussing campaign strategy. “Hip hop values” might seem a questionable base for forming a party. But the members of Die Urbane see in the genre – particularly its 1970s-80s, pre-gangsta version – a potential to unite and inspire those who’ve previously been on the political sidelines. The message they take away from it is less “Fuck bitches, get money” and more, in the words of member Irmgard Bauer (aka DJ Freshfluke), “‘Each one teach one’ and tolerance of minorities”. This isn’t just lip service: half of the “cypher” participants are female, and nearly half are non-white. One of them is Raphael Hillebrand, an Afro-German dancer and choreographer who, along with nine others, cofounded the party in May. Hillebrand is keen to point out that Die Urbane is “not just a group of hip hop freaks”. He mentions members such as Bernd Feuchtner, a former opera director, and the party’s direct candidate for Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Dr. Frithjof Zerger, who stands out at the “cypher” in his crisp attire. A sociologist who has worked with the Interior Ministry on migration issues, Zerger confesses he’s “not that deep into the hip hop movement”, but was drawn in after Hillebrand explained his plan to democratise politics the same way hip hop instigated “the democratisation of art”. In between quotes from Nas, Indian rapper Brodha V and German group Advanced Chemistry, Die Urbane’s 31-page programme is surprisingly sophisticated, addressing not only what you’d expect (policies on music sampling, marijuana legalisation) but also sustainable development, basic income, solar energy and education funding. It’s cobbled together from everyone’s suggestions, and open for all members to edit, an approach that means to show that the party’s main slogan – “Wir sind DU” – should be more than just an acronym. — AC Die Piraten Righting the ship Martin Haase doesn’t see the Pirates as having fallen from grace. “There was a huge wave of interest, but it’s calmed down, the same as it would for any other new party,” says the genial 54-year-old linguistics professor, member of the Chaos Computer Club and Berlin list leader for Die Piraten in this year’s elections. “The hype is over.” This is something of an understatement. Haase joined the then-fledgling international movement in 2009, after the Bundestag passed the Zugangserschwerungsgesetz, a controversial law intended to block child pornography but which Haase and other critics pointed out as a government attempt to rule over and potentially censor the internet. “The SPD called a meeting with the ‘people of the internet’, but didn’t listen to any objections,” he says. The law was repealed a year later, but the seeds for an internet-fuelled democratic revolution were sown. Buoyed by their platform of internet privacy, transparent (“liquid”) democracy and a universal basic income, the Pirates entered parliament in every single German state between 2010 and 2012, earning 8.9 percent of the vote in Berlin. They were everywhere. And then... nothing. After a year characterised by a lot of infighting, accusations of sexism (less than 15 percent of members were women) and little accomplishment, the Pirates scored just 2.2 percent of the vote in the 2013 federal elections. Since then, membership has plummeted to just over 11,000 members from a high of 35,000, and the party’s share of the Berlin vote has shrunk to 1.7 percent. In Kreuzberg, they’ve resorted to sharing an office with Die PARTEI (page 7). Haase, who produces a Pirate podcast in his spare time, is optimistic about the party’s future, despite a reputation further marred by Berlin assembly member Gerwald Claus-Brunner’s grisly murdersuicide after the 2016 elections. This year sees a “rebranding”, with a switch from orange to purple posters (newly available to German Pirates after the Violetten party dropped out of the race) to match the Pirates’ international colour scheme. Slogans call out Angela Merkel’s internet ignorance (“Look forward to Neuland”, a reference to her remarks about the web in 2013) and surveillance policies (“Mutti doesn’t have to know everything”). Over half of this year’s candidates are female. “And by the way, we’re the only party with both gay and lesbian leading candidates in Berlin,” Haase adds, referring to himself and fellow candidate Ute Laack. The party’s vision for a “society of the future”, however, remains the same as it was in 2011, focusing on government transparency, freedom of information and citizen participation through the internet alongside more quixotic proposals like legalising sibling marriage. Will their new international approach be enough to get Berliners back on board? — Annie Kiyonaga/Rene Blixer Members: 11,214 active hacktivists (547 in Berlin); 79,194 Facebook followers. Slogan: Freu dich aufs Neuland (Look Forward to ‘Unknown Territory’) Electoral success: 1.7 percent in 2016 Berlin elections. Claim to fame: Only party to have the legalisation of marriage between siblings on its platform. 10 EXBERLINER 163
Members: 240 pre- and postmillenial go-getters (38 in Berlin), 8601 Facebook followers. Slogan: Politik. Anders. Machen. (Do. Politics. Differently.) Claim to fame: First party with a quota for “discriminated” groups (LGBTQ, ethnic minorities and the disabled) among top positions. Demokratie in Bewegung En Marche, Germany! ELECTION 2017 Anne Isakowitsch has never liked other people telling her what to do. She hated athletics at school because it felt like a military exercise. When she was 16, she packed her bags and moved from her hometown Berlin to attend school in England, away from her “controlling” parents. And now that she’s 32, having finished her master’s at LSE and scored a job at a consumer watchdog platform back in Berlin, she co-founded Demokratie in Bewegung (Democracy in Movement; DiB), a brand new party that wants to make democracy about more than casting a ballot every four years. She first heard about the idea to found a new party from a friend over drinks on Boxing Day. Brexit, Trump and the AfD had shown Isakowitsch how powerful hate could be, and how few answers the established parties had. And she wanted to fight back. “I’m always looking for something I can burn for,” she says. Like when she helped develop a Facebook chatbot called SOSWeihnachten that sent people facts to counter AfD-voting relatives’ arguments around the Christmas table. For DiB, she helped start an online petition to gather the 100,000 signatures necessary to found the party. They reached that number in late April, five minutes before the deadline. DiB purports to be neither left nor right, just open. Everyone, even nonmembers, can throw in policy suggestions, which the party discusses and votes for online. On the other hand, prospective members have to go through a 30-minute interview to ensure they align with the party’s core values, which include such lefty evergreens as social justice and diversity of all kinds. They have already agreed on a €12 minimum wage, a 50 percent female quota for top-level jobs (DiB’s members are 37 percent female) and an open register for lobby organisations. DiB has also given itself a 25 percent diversity quota, meaning one-quarter of top positions must be filled by those who’ve been “discriminated against” because of their ethnicity, sexual identity or disability. At a Friday evening meeting over non-alcoholic drinks at Café MaDame in Kreuzberg, a handful of tired-looking yet eager DiB members rush through their agenda, punching the latest updates into a MacBook while dropping references to Bernie Sanders’ election campaign. It’s whirlwind politics that lives off its members’ enthusiasm. Isakowitsch herself has been putting in 30-40 hours a week alongside her full-time job, caring for her two-year-old son and drumming in her band, Bathtub Theory. Who knows how far their commitment and elbow grease will carry these idealistic high-achievers? Their party is still a work in progress, but so was En Marche!, the party of Emmanuel Macron, not too many months ago. DiB has likened itself to that French start-up movement that unexpectedly swept to power, but their direct democracy approach might make it hard for a similarly powerful leader to emerge. If all animals are equal, can there be some more equal than others? DiB will have to find out for itself. — MRK “ V-Partei Radically green Are you a vegan?” is one of the first questions you’ll be asked as a fresh face at a V-Partei meeting. Don’t fear a lecture if you confess a weakness for meat, though. “Vegan” and “Vegetarian” might make up two of the three Vs implied in the party’s offical name, V-Partei 3 , but it’s the third that’s most decisive: “Veränderung” (change). For the V-Partei, it’s not just about revolutionising our dietary habits, but the world! The party was founded in Munich in April 2016 with one ambitious plan, the Agraragenda 2030: turn Germany into a bio-vegan society in merely 13 years. This includes a complete phasing out of animal-based products (from meat to milk), orientation towards small-scale, permaculture farming, a fairer EU farming subsidy system and a fundamental increase in green energy sources. In short, Germany should be leading the way to a new stage of human development, devoid of any form of animal or environmental exploitation as a way to move towards a balanced social order and a healthy planet. Berlin candidate Angela Küster doesn’t think it’s unrealistic. “What’s unrealistic is the business and agricultural models that are currently slowly destroying our planet,” says the 52-yearold doctor in political science. She and six others are discussing postering strategy over broccoli burgers and tofu noodle soup at Koffie Engel in Neukölln, the vegan café they’ve chosen for this month’s meeting. Far from a bunch of radicals screaming “Meat is murder!”, the V-Partei members are a friendly gang of middle-class, middle-aged, mild-spoken Berliners. Küster in particular shares namesake Merkel’s stoic demeanour. But ask her about V-Partei’s motto, the slightly banal “We love life”, and the similarities between the two Angelas evaporate. “It’s our response to the system. Politics, farming, businesses. It’s become a death machine,” Küster says. She’d never thought about entering politics before, but the V- Partei’s idealism spoke to her. “People in the party are concerned about actual, radical change, not about becoming career politicians,” she says of her reason to form the party’s Berlin department in January. At just over a year old, the V-Partei has already reached the same membership as the 24-year-old Tierschutzpartei, the party to which it’s most commonly compared. But rather than campaign for animal welfare, V-Partei wants to use its vegan visions as a vehicle for true transformation, away from the ‘political realism’ of big-party coalitions. “We’ve reached a point where idealism has become the only realistic path,” Küster concludes. In that way, the V-Partei might well be the new Fundis of the German green movement... — Aske Hald Knudstrup Members: 1300 mildmannered meatless eaters (60 in Berlin); 15,422 Facebook followers. Slogan: Wir lieben das Leben (We Love Life) Claim to fame: Munich members include 89-year-old retired actress Barbara Rütting and Axel “Ironfinger” Ritt, guitarist of the heavy metal band Grave Digger. SEPTEMBER 2017 11
Page 1 and 2: Berlin in English since 2002 163
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS Exberliner 163 -September
Page 5 and 6: Berlin in English since 2002 €3.9
Page 7 and 8: BEST OF BERLIN — September 2017 B
Page 9 and 10: ELECTION 2017 Find your own Alterna
Page 11: ELECTION 2017 Bergpartei Slow anarc
Page 15 and 16: ELECTION 2017 “It just works diff
Page 17 and 18: ELECTION 2017 Left: An SPD voluntee
Page 19 and 20: ELECTION 2017 And, even if they’r
Page 21 and 22: ELECTION 2017 “Schiller and Goeth
Page 23 and 24: ELECTION 2017 contract I’m paying
Page 25 and 26: WHAT’S ON — International Liter
Page 27 and 28: WHAT’S ON — International Liter
Page 29 and 30: WHAT’S ON — Russian Cosmism Fou
Page 31 and 32: WHAT’S ON — Al Gore but I would
Page 33 and 34: WHAT’S ON — Film Reviews punch,
Page 35 and 36: Preview Hounds of Love WHAT’S ON
Page 37 and 38: WHAT’S ON — Music Album release
Page 39 and 40: wonderful experience of actually se
Page 41 and 42: WHAT’S ON — Art ing (6-10pm), a
Page 43 and 44: WHAT’S ON — Art tions with Jero
Page 45 and 46: WHAT’S ON — Stage Interview “
Page 47 and 48: 6 QUESTIONS You once said breakdanc
Page 49 and 50: WHAT’S ON Through Sep 17. Starts
Page 51 and 52: ADVERTORIAL — The Berlin Guide U-
Page 53 and 54: ADVERTISING — The Language School
Page 55 and 56: COLUMN— The Gay Berliner Married
Page 57 and 58: REGULARS François Poilâne The 24-
Page 59 and 60: REGULARS APP TEST App to school Sum
Page 61 and 62: COLUMN — Ask Hans-Torsten Bills,
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EXBERLINER Issue 163, September 2017

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