Where has the world revolution gone?

I live in a quarter of Berlin which is known for the Revolutionary 1st of May. In the 1980’s that was a demonstration where political activists would throw Molotov Cocktails at police men. In the 1990’s that was a party where bored high school kids from small town Germany threw rocks at police men. In the new millennium, it has become an event where kids with migration background throw empty beer cans at police men and grab that with their mobiles.

Nevertheless, the revolutionary forces keep trying: The first year that I lived in Berlin there was a huge poster in my street which read in German and Turkish: “1st of May, 4 pm. The world revolution starts here.”
I laughed about it. But in a way, I felt proud that the world revolution would start here in my street. I would be a witness to history, maybe I would be even part of it. But then I realized, what that meant: because people feared riots, the bank and the supermarket in my neighbourhood were closed and boarded up, even a week before the 1st of May. They even shut down the two metro lines which run through my quarter, trying to isolate the revolutionary forces.

When I had to walk 20 minutes to the next bank that wasn’t boarded up, to get cash in order to buy food in a supermarket 15 minutes walking distance, I decided that it was not so great after all to have a revolution starting in your own neighbourhood. Why can’t they start on a field somewhere in rural Brandenburg? All supermarkets and banks have been shut down over there anyway.

The day of the revolution I had a hang-over. And all that happened in my street was that a death metal band was playing right in front of my house. Thank you very much! That was not the revolution that I had imagined. There was no excitement or electricity in the air. Only drunk kids with long hair banging their heads to bad cover versions of Metallica that were making my head explode. If that was the World Revolution, it might as well happen without me.

A week later a saw a poster, which read: “8th of May, 2 pm, great demonstration at Görlitzer Bahnhof, the World Revolution starts here.” So, the grand revolution had advanced one metro station in a week. Amazing speed. Maybe by now it has advanced up to the fields of rural Brandenburg, but most likely it got stuck at the final metro station still waiting for a bus.