[Ppnews] Mumia and Rosa Luxemburg Weekend in Berlin

Tue Jan 12 16:10:47 EST 2010

<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grossman120110.html>Rosa Luxemburg 
Weekend in Berlin

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grossman120110p.html
by Victor Grossman

It was the Rosa Luxemburg weekend again in Berlin, like every 
January, this time with an unusual highlight.  Despite the 
transportation delays caused by big snowstorms, two conferences and 
the traditional memorial march kept leftists from all over Germany 
and guests from other countries very busy.

The emotional peak occurred during the main 
<http://www.jungewelt.de/2010/01-11/057.php>conference on Saturday, 
organized by the newspaper <http://www.jungewelt.de/>junge Welt 
("Young World"), with speakers from Honduras, Cuba, France, and 
Canada and discussions on the recession, the role of unions in 
fighting back, and the campaign to withdraw German troops from 
Afghanistan, recently strengthened by a courageous statement by 
<http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/bundeswehrinafghanistan100.html>the 
woman who heads the Lutheran Church in Germany.
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/January_2010_demo_mumia_banner.JPG>
But it was lawyer <http://www.jungewelt.de/2010/01-13/050.php>Robert 
Bryan who warmed the hearts of the audience in the big hall, or 
rather his client Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose fight for life, recalling 
fights of previous generations for Sacco and Vanzetti or Angela 
Davis, was clearly known to the over a thousand people present.  A 
voice tape with Mumia has been featured at these annual conferences 
for many years.  But this time Bryan had arranged for Mumia to use 
his 15 minutes of telephone time to speak directly to the 
conference.  One journalist, 
<http://www.jungewelt.de/2010/01-13/050.php>Birgit Gaertner, 
described it this way:

Robert held his mobile to the microphone so that we all could hear 
him, and he could hear us.  Immediately there was tumultuous 
applause, minute after minute.  It was a breathtaking moment of 
overpowering feeling.  Robert told us that Mumia was in tears.  So 
was I.  And we realized that solidarity was not only important for 
legal or political battles but also, very personally, for him.

Mumia was allowed to speak with Robert for fifteen minutes.  Since he 
knew that so many were listening, he spoke of his daily life in 
prison and thanked everyone for the great support from Germany.  His 
fifteen minutes were soon used up, just a brief connection with the 
outside world, a small link with life, and then he had to plod back 
into his cell, shackled and handcuffed, alone again with the chaotic 
feelings undoubtedly stirred by the telephone call with 
Berlin.  Thinking about it brought new tears to my eyes.

A smaller conference on the same day brought together anti-fascist 
groups from all over the country to discuss how best to combat 
neo-Nazis who march every weekend through dozens of German cities and 
continue violent attacks on people who look foreign or look like 
leftists.  A big Nazi march is planned again for February 13th in 
Dresden, the 65th anniversary of the destruction of that city in 
World War Two.  In an attempt to win popular support based on this 
still emotionally charged event, they try to misuse it as a balance, 
"Dresden's Auschwitz."  The city police are again expected to protect 
the Nazi march as "legally permitted," but the anti-fascists decided 
to try again to block its route under the slogan "non pasaran," "They 
shall not pass," recalled from the Spanish Civil War.  The Nazis 
expect up to 10,000 in a region where they are particularly 
strong.  The anti-fascists are  intent on outnumbering them.

On Sunday, after the conferences, the participants in the march were 
certainly more numerous.  The goal was the big memorial stone 
dedicated to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the great, very 
beloved socialists who fought to end World War One and then helped 
found a Communist Party just two weeks before they were 
murdered.  Between 3,000 and 10,000, depending on who was counting, 
chose the longer route through the wide Karl Marx Allee, defying 
bitter cold and snow-filled streets.  They formed a colorful bouquet 
of leftist groups, some from <http://die-linke.de/>Die Linke (The 
Left) party, others from the Communist Party or others of many views 
and directions, mostly ultra-left, Maoists, groups still waving flags 
of the German Democratic Republic and its youth organization, one 
Turkish group with a banner showing Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Lenin 
as well as Stalin and Mao.  There were also Greek Communists, Basque 
supporters, Kurdish groups.  The banners competed in color and size, 
but all the very varied groups walked peacefully together through the 
snow.  Six blocks before the 
<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentralfriedhof_Friedrichsfelde>Cemetery 
of Socialists, their final goal, they mingled with the big crowds 
which had preferred to take the subway this far.  After passing the 
many booths with their books, manifestos, petitions, or simply 
sausages or soup, they walked around the big stone monument with the 
words "The dead call to us" and placed red carnations there in the 
snow.  The estimated number, all told, was about 40,000, less than 
the previous year, due to the weather, but enough to impress greatly 
the American and Norwegian participants I spoke to.  It was a big 
crowd who defied snow and ice; the "old faithful" were there as ever, 
but there were even more young people.

For those in Die Linke, undoubtedly a majority of the main "subway" 
crowd, it was a crucial for showing their feelings.  The party, which 
won a big victory in the September elections, has been upset by 
charges and countercharges involving various leading personalities, 
made possible by the absence due to illness of the key leader Oskar 
Lafontaine.  The major media have been busy trying to heat up a 
quarrel between small but growing party organizations in Western 
Germany, most of them close to Lafontaine, and party leaders in 
Eastern Germany, whose support by 20 to 30 percent of the population 
has made it possible to join coalition governments in Berlin, 
Brandenburg, with good chances next year for two more.  This strategy 
is one of the controversial issues involved.  A party meeting on the 
Monday after the demonstration featured an attempt to sort out the 
differences, a vital need if the party is to make headway in the May 
elections in North Rhine/Westphalia, the largest state in Germany in 
terms of population, and a key in political directions for both the 
government and the opposition.

The demonstration of 40,000 left-wingers on Sunday, still devoted to 
the hopes and dreams of Karl and Rosa, should and may perhaps have 
acted as a signal.  Nearly everyone expects the right-wing central 
government of Angela Merkel, once the May elections are over, to tear 
gaping new holes in the raggedy German "social net," and to expand 
abroad wherever possible.  Strong opposition by all on the left will 
then be desperately urgent.

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<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grossman031105.html>Victor 
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grossman141005.html>Grossman, 
American journalist and author, is a resident of East Berlin for many 
years. He is the author of 
<http://www.umass.edu/umpress/FW02/grossman.html>Crossing the River: 
A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany 
(University of Massachusetts Press, 2003).

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