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JOURNAL

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HUMANITIES
Volume 8, Number 10

Anarchist Punks Resisting Gentrification: Countercultural Contestations of Space in the New Berlin
David Drissel

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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE HUMANITIES http://www.Humanities-Journal.com First published in 2011 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing LLC www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. 2011 (individual papers), the author(s) 2011 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com>. ISSN: 1447-9508 Publisher Site: http://www.Humanities-Journal.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE HUMANITIES is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/

Anarchist Punks Resisting Gentrification: Countercultural Contestations of Space in the New Berlin
David Drissel, Iowa Central Community College, IA, USA
Abstract: Although more than two decades have elapsed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, significant socio-spatial distinctions continue to exist in Berlin. Reports indicate that a psychological-cultural wall in the head has replaced the geopolitical Berlin Wall. Stereotypical portrayals of East and West Germans, known as Ossis and Wessis respectively, remain prevalent. Exacerbating Berlins informal spatial schism has been the movement of relatively affluent Wessis into eastern boroughs. In particular, numerous yuppies have relocated for the purpose of renovating old tenement houses, thus raising property values in the process. Consequently, thousands of low- and middle-income families have been displaced from their homes and neighborhoods. In response to gentrification, far-left political activists have organized street protests and other types of direct action. In particular, young anarchists and punks (or simply anarcho-punks) have become the shock troops of the antigentrification movement, often resorting to acts of civil disobedience, rioting, and property destruction. This paper examines the relatively recent phenomenon of gentrification and related socio-spatial changes in various Berlin neighborhoods, primarily from the vantage point of anarcho-punks. The influence of informal socio-spatial schisms in the present era, resulting in part from Berlins past territorial segmentation, is considered in this context. Keywords: Gentrification, Anarcho-punks, Punk Rock, Berlin Wall, German Reunification, Berlin Youth, Urban Space, Countercultures, Wall in the Head, Ossis, Wessis, Yuppies, Anti-gentrification Movement, Socio-spatial, Kreuzberg

Introduction

G
1

ERMAN TEENS AND young adults living in Berlin belong to a distinct generation, one that has developed within the post-Cold War environment of a reunited city.1 Unlike their parents generation, most Berlin young people have never experienced the bifurcated urban environment that existed under the shadow of the infamous Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer).2 Rather, Berlin youth have grown up in a transitional urban milieu resulting from Berlins re-consolidated system of government and reintegrated market economy. Despite the fact that more than two decades have elapsed since the Berlin Walls fall and German reunification, significant socio-spatial distinctions continue to exist in Berlin.
Berlin was divided into two de facto cities from 1949 to 1989. During this period, Soviet forces dominated the eastern half, while the western sector was a virtual capitalist island surrounded by hostile communist territory. East Berlin was the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), founded as a Marxist-Leninist state in 1949. West Berlin became an integral part of the pro-western, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). 2 The Berlin Wall was erected by the GDR in 1961. This mammoth 26-mile long structure encapsulated the entire western half of the city, designed to prevent any illicit migration or unapproved travel from the East to the West. Dubbed by the GDR as the anti-fascist protective rampart, the Wall came to symbolize the metaphorical Iron Curtain that divided Europe into two antagonistic alliances. After a series of massive protests in East Berlin and other GDR cities, the Berlin Wall finally fell on November 9, 1989. The International Journal of the Humanities Volume 8, Number 10, 2011, http://www.Humanities-Journal.com, ISSN 1447-9508
Common Ground, David Drissel, All Rights Reserved, Permissions: cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com

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Numerous reports indicate that a psychological-cultural wall in the head (Mauer im Kopf) has replaced the geopolitical Berlin Wall (Burns, 1999; Graff, 2000; Kahn, 2000; Fischer et al., 2007). Though the physical barricades have fallen, stereotypical portrayals of East and West Germans, known as Ossis and Wessis respectively, remain prevalent (Glaeser, 2000; Bigg 2009). During the past several years, Berlins informal spatial schism has been exacerbated by relatively affluent yuppies (young upwardly mobile professionals) moving into various innercity boroughs. In particular, many Wessis have relocated for the express purpose of renovating old tenement houses in the former East Berlin, thus raising property values in the process. In addition, various western investors and companies have privatized former state enterprises or reclaimed and redeveloped lost properties that had been nationalized by the communists previously. Many of these post-reunification gentrification and revanchist development projects have been implemented in traditional working-class neighborhoods, resulting in rents skyrocketing to unaffordable levels for countless long-term residents and shopkeepers. Consequently, thousands of low- and middle-income families have been displaced from their homes and neighborhoods (Mayer, 2006). In response to gentrification and related social problems in various Berlin neighborhoods, far-left political activists have organized street protests and other types of direct action. In particular, young people identifying as anarchists and punks (or simply anarcho-punks) have become the shock troops of the anti-gentrification movement, often resorting to unconventional tactics of civil disobedience, rioting, and property destruction. Most provocatively, unidentified arsonists with reputed ties to anarchist groups have torched hundreds of expensive automobiles in newly gentrified (or gentrifying) neighborhoods (Connolly, 2010; Moore, 2010). Tellingly, a majority of the riots and arson attacks have occurred on the streets of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, the longtime bohemian enclave and anarcho-punk epicenter of Berlin, which has been experiencing creeping gentrification in recent years (Waleczek, 2009). Due to the radically militant ideological stances and highly irregular resistance tactics of anarcho-punks in Berlin and elsewhere, the term counterculture seems to be an apt sociological descriptor, rather than the more generic concept of subculture. By definition, a counterculture is an identity-laden group, which embraces values and norms of behavior that directly contradict those of the cultural mainstream.3 In contrast, the values and norms of an archetypal youth subculture are clearly distinct from the status quo, though not nearly as overtly oppositional to social and political institutions as those of a counterculture. The relatively recent phenomenon of gentrification and related socio-spatial changes in inner-city Berlin neighborhoods, as perceived primarily from the vantage point of anarchopunks, is the focus of this research project. How has the post-reunification transition of Berlins living spaces and economic infrastructure, including the gentrification of many lowincome neighborhoods, affected indigenous youthful residents and their perceptions of yuppie newcomers? What role has the wall in the head played in fueling opposition to gentrification, particularly among self-identified punks? How has the anti-gentrification backlash been influenced by the anarcho-punk scene in Berlin? Such questions are addressed by focusing on in-group/out-group attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs expressed by Berlin

My definition draws extensively from the ideas of Theodore Roszak, author of The Making of a Counter Culture (1968).

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teens and young adults identifying with punk and/or anarchism, the vast majority of whom were born after the Walls fall. This research project is based on ethnographic observations and open-ended interviews of Berlin punks and other youths (ages 16 to 26) that I conducted in town squares, street corners, nightclubs, and other urban spaces during a two-week visit to Berlin in July 2004. I also engaged in follow-up interviews with several respondents that I had met previously in Berlin, primarily through the use of e-mail and MySpace messages during the months of December 2008 and January-February 2009. In examining my data, I did not utilize any statistical methods but rather chose to develop a purely qualitative approach, in which I analyzed comments from my thirty-five respondents. In order to insure confidentiality, I have used pseudonyms for all respondents. In this paper, I first examine several of the major sociological theories of urban space, including youth-based territoriality and related forms of collective resistance to gentrification. Then I briefly trace the American-British origins of anarcho-punk and the countercultures subsequent development in West and East Berlin during the later stages of the Cold War. Next, I describe various socio-spatial changes that have emerged in Berlin since German reunification, focusing on the impact of the wall in the head and gentrification. I then recount my own experiences in exploring the contemporary socio-spatial contours of the city and include selected excerpts of interviews that I conducted with my youthful respondents, along with observations of social spaces and activities related to the anarcho-punk counterculture and the anti-gentrification movement. I conclude with an analysis of my respondents comments and a discussion of my findings.

Contestations of Urban Space


Space is a social construction that shapes social action and guides behavior, including the practices and activities of everyday life (Gotham, 2003, p. 723). Put simply, space is a practiced place (de Certeau, 1984, p. 117). The physical place of the street, for instance, becomes a space only when people are actually engaged in social practices such as walking, running, driving, or conversing on or near the street. Social theorists often emphasize the dynamic, stratified character of public space in cities, thus contending that power is spatially constructed and wielded through an economy of discourse. As Michel Foucault (1984) observes, Space is fundamental to any form of communal life; space is fundamental to any exercise of power (p. 252). Urban space is both visibly and invisibly partitioned, with frequent struggles waged between adversarial groups over segmented urban assets and territory, including various neighborhoods. Such a spatial ordering of the city is prone to hegemonic discourses of otherness and marginalization, as articulated by dominant urban actors (Sandercock, 2008, p. 222). Group members continually mark spatial boundaries and view any alterations in existing borders as politically divisive acts (Shirlow, 2006, p. 103). Aside from overtly confrontational forms of intra-urban conflict, adversarial groups tacitly negotiate to expand, delimit, or overturn spatial boundaries. Various groups act to ameliorate or even overcome socioeconomic constraints through the productive use of space (Gotham, 2003). Longstanding differences between adversarial groups are very important in this regard, as the positioning of a meaningful past infuses group consciousness with a narrative of continuity that effectively links past grievances to present-day circumstances (Neill, 2001, p. 5).

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However, such narratives tend to exaggerate differences between groups, while minimizing differences within groups. Particularly when compared to the in-group, other urban actors are depicted as monolithically impure, deviant, and dangerous (Sibley, 1995). This is especially the case if a substantial degree of social distance exists between groups, such as when neighborhoods are segregated or normal non-adversarial inter-group relations are extremely limited or nonexistent. According to the contact hypothesis, prejudice tends to flourish in such an insulated urban atmosphere, particularly when positive interactions between members of different groups are lacking. Studies have found that prejudice can be reduced through intergroup contact in egalitarian social settings when members of different groups share a common goal and are interdependent in achieving that goal. However, contact between different groups in social settings can actually increase levels of prejudice under certain circumstances, especially when such contact involves persons of unequal status in competition with one another (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew and Tropp, 2006). Major reconfigurations of urban space, such as the gentrification of low-income residential areas, tend to spark spatial contestations between antithetical social actors. Long-term residents frequently seek to preserve their neighborhood by organizing anti-gentrification campaigns, lobbying elected officials, and resorting to property destruction in extreme cases. Even the inner-city ghetto, once the reputedly otherworldly bastion of socio-cultural insularity, increasingly has found itself under siege by yuppies and related groups. As Lance Freeman observes in There Goes the Hood (2006), Walls that were formerly solid seem porous now, at least from the perspective of who is moving into the ghetto (p. 16). Gentrification is often inescapable once it has begun, as it tends to ripple across an entire neighborhood in successive waves. Long-term residents are adversely affected by skyrocketing rents, mortgages, and lease rates, which frequently prompt their out-migration (Hamnett, 2003). Often fueling gentrification is the rent gap, which refers to the gap between the actual capitalized ground rent (land value) of a plot of land given its present use and the potential ground rent that might be gleaned under a higher and better use (Smith, 1987, p. 462). Thus, when land is being underutilized in terms of potential rents, there are strong economic incentives for real estate developers, landlords, and other economic actors to close the rent gap by renovating the property. Paradoxically, the revitalization of inner-city landholdings tends to inflate expenses for traditional low-income residents, while generating rates that are easily affordable for newer, upscale tenants.

Youthful Terrains of Resistance


Empirical studies (e.g., Hendry et al., 1993; Pearce, 1996) have revealed that urban youth in particular tend to have strong emotional attachments to local spaces and places, which often serve as a major source of collective identity, group cohesion, and intergroup conflict. The neighborhood is especially important as an identity marker for youth, as localized spatial orientations tend to depict non-residents (and new residents) as suspicious or unwelcome outsiders. In many cases, various forms of harassment and even violence may be directed at non-residents who accidentally or purposively venture into a particular neighborhood. Such territoriality can be best understood as a spatial strategy to effect, influence, or control resources and people by controlling area (Sack, cited in Hesse et al., 1992, p. 172). Numerous demographic factors have been found to fuel spatial territoriality, including differences in status, social class, race, ethnicity, religion, subculture, and local street-gang affiliations;

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which tend to be strongest among young men living in low-income locales (Cohen, 1988). Thus, identifying with ones neighborhood can become a form of defensive street masculinity, especially when youths perceive of themselves as threatened or under assault by spatial outsiders or dominant majority groups (Watt and Stenson, 1998, p. 253). Young people frequently utilize public space to subvert and resist various hegemonic standards of behavior; despite periodic attempts by adult regulatory regimes to control, marginalize, or even prohibit their presence in particular urban areas. Teenagers are frequently depicted as a potential threat to public order (Baumgarnter, 1988; Cahill, 1990), finding themselves subjected to police harassment, public and private surveillance, and temporal and spatial curfews in public spaces. Indeed, urban revitalization schemes in North American and European cities tend to involve the de facto privatization of public space; i.e., unofficially excluding undesirable others including loitering teens in general and minority youths in particular - from newly gentrified locales (Berman, 1986; Fyfe and Bannister, 1996). Nonetheless, the space of the street is frequently the only truly autonomous space that young people construct and inhabit without constant adult supervision. Thus, hanging around, and larking about, on the streets, in parks and in shopping malls, is one form of youth resistance (conscious and unconscious) to adult power (Valentine et al., 1998, p. 7). To paraphrase Paul Routledge (as cited in McGrellis, 2005), such terrains of resistance frequently pose major challenges to the sociopolitical status quo. The street is the stage of performance for many young people, who often adopt subcultural/countercultural identities within the public domain that are "contradictory and oppositional to the dominant culture (messy, dirty, loud, smoking, sexual) (Malone, 2002, p. 163).

Genesis of Anarcho-punk
The origins of punk rock can be traced back to the bohemian bowels of New York Citys urban milieu in the mid-1970s. Based on a stripped-down form of minimalist, dissonant music set to a furious pogo beat, punk rock germinated within the rancid walls of CBGBs a seedy Bowery dive-bar on Manhattans lower-east side; though punk quickly evolved into a full-fledged counterculture on the sardonic streets of London. The birth of punk was fueled in equal measure by youthful disillusionment with the corporate music industry and angry-opposition to the sociopolitical status quo. In England (punk) was begun by workingclass youths decrying a declining economy and rising unemployment, chiding the hypocrisy of the rich, and refuting the notion of reform, Dylan Clark (2003) observes. In America early punk was a middle-class youth movement, a reaction against the boredom of mainstream culture (p. 225). On both sides of the Atlantic, the emerging punk counterculture expressed a unique form of rage and antipathy towards everything suburban and bourgeois,4 thus establishing an alternative field of social relations that championed values such as non-conformity, equality, and authenticity. Along these lines, punks rejected the popular-corporate mythos of the rock star that performed in arena-style concerts; thus characterizing such a conception as overly pretentious and elitist. Punk bands would instead stage shows for their fellow punks in

For an overview of the history and philosophy of the punk rock subculture, see Boot and Salewicz (1996).

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relatively undersized, but highly interactive, venues. Moreover, musical proficiency was not considered to be a prerequisite for starting a band. As Matt Davies (2005) observes: Punks strove to eliminate the distinctions between performers and audience, and did so by a radical form of egalitarianism: anyone could be a punk, and any punk could play in a band or, if they preferred, to publish a zine, to organize shows, or to produce or distribute records. A punk scene is of punks, for punks, by punks (p. 126). Allusions to anarchism have been prevalent in the song lyrics, poster art, graffiti, and other discursive artifacts of punk from the very beginning, particularly in the U.K. Seminal British punk bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Gang of Four, the Damned, and the Exploited employed various anarchist, Marxist, and nihilist themes and imagery to emphasize the alleged decadence and degeneration of British society. Such an iconoclastic discourse was destabilizing to popular culture in 1970s, particularly since it was magnified by punks lyrical utilization of controversial expletives such as fuck and cunt (Laing, 1997, p. 413). However, much of the early political commentary of punk was actually simulated anarchy or performances of anarchy designed primarily to shock mainstream society (Clark, 2003, p. 233). In large measure, early punk caricatured anarchism as mere destruction or chaos, rather than presenting a coherent anti-authoritarian ideology of voluntary cooperation and organized opposition to the hierarchies of oppression. Tellingly, there were several lesser-known British punk bands of the 1970s and early eighties such as Crass, Flux of Pink Indians, Conflict, and Discharge that actively promoted anarchism as a viable political ideology and genuine resistance movement.5 Such bands advocated direct action tactics, which included spray-painting anarchist-inspired graffiti messages, occupying abandoned buildings, dumpster diving for food, and organizing political demonstrations and even riots when deemed necessary. They also promoted the anarchist-influenced ethos of DIY (do-it-yourself), which stood in sharp opposition to monopolistic-corporate control of the record industry. Spurning the idea of passively consuming homogenized musical-commodities, anarcho-punk pioneers touted DIY as an alternative means of cultural production, emphasizing the formation of independent record labels. As Daniel Sinker (2001), founder of the magazine Punk Planet, observes, Punk said that anyone could take part in fact, anyone should take part (p. 9). Several North American hardcore punk bands of the 1980s including the Dead Kennedys, D.O.A., and Black Flag further disseminated the DIY ethos and related anarcho-punk ideals to a global audience. Hardcore effectively redefined musical success in non-economic and non-commercial terms within a close-knit social network of dedicated youth-based crews and scenes. Akin to tribal syndicalism, hardcore represented a community-based culture like a commune or an armed fortress (Blush, 2001, p. 275). As Mark Stern of the Los Angeles-based band Youth Brigade observes in reference to the hardcore scene: We were about doing it yourself, thinking for yourself, believing that no matter how fucked up the world is and how fucked up the situation around you, that you can make a difference and affect change and inspire people (quoted in Blush, p. 275).

See Rimbaud (1999) for more information about the early British anarcho-punk scene.

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Clearly, at the time of its nascent underground development in the 1970s and eighties, punk would best be described as a youth counterculture (and underground genre of rock music). However, over the years punk has evolved into more of a youth subculture, featuring mostly nonthreatening forms of rebellion through music, argot, and style. American punk even went pop in the 1990s, with bands such as Green Day, Good Charlotte, and Blink-182. On the other hand, anarcho-punks have continued to promote a militant countercultural ideology that professes to oppose the bourgeois-capitalist system. Revealingly, punks who allegedly fail to embrace or exemplify the DIY ethos and related ideals are often labeled posers by anarcho-punks. Thus, anarcho-punk represents a contemporary countercultural faction within the subculture of punk, though this distinction is to some extent subjective.

Anarcho-punks in West Berlin


The origins of anarcho-punk in West Berlin date back to the early 1970s even before punk rock was established as a distinct musical genre. Most notably, the West German-language proto-punk band, Ton Steine Scherben (Clay Stones Shards), actively promoted left wing anarchism and anti-capitalism in their music. Hailing from West Berlin, the band was instrumental in encouraging local youths to establish communal squats (i.e., previously abandoned houses occupied by non-proprietary, collective-style residents). In West Berlin and other cities, squatting became increasingly common and was known as instandbesetzen, which is a portmanteau of instandsetzen (renovating) and besetzen (occupying). During the seventies, such West German squats facilitated the creation of a self-confident urban counterculture with its own infrastructure of newspapers, self-managed collectives and housing cooperatives, feminist groups, and so on, which was prepared to intervene in local and broader politics (Mayer, 1993). Due to its occupied status during the Cold War, West Berlin maintained a special exemption for military service that was mandatory for young men in the rest of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Consequently, the city became a social magnet for anti-authoritarian, bohemian youth. In particular, Kreuzberg was transformed into the most popular borough in West Berlin for communal squats, since it was located on the internal periphery of the city (directly adjoining the Berlin Wall) and included many derelict buildings and barren tracks of land, which attracted youthful squatters from all over West Germany. By the late 1970s, the fledgling Berlin punk scene had found a home in Kreuzberg at the legendary SO36 Club, which was named for the districts postal code. Inspired by British anarcho-punk and American hardcore, numerous West German punk bands with radical-left anarchist influences performed at S036. Labeled Deutschpunk, bands such as Slime (from Hamburg), Canalterror (from Bonn) and Vorkriegsjugend (from West Berlin) fomented direct action and even violence against the police in their lyrics. These and other artists recorded at West Berlins Aggressive Rockproduktionen (Rock Productions), an independent recording studio established in 1980, specializing in anarcho-punk. Accordingly, Kreuzberg became the unofficial German mecca of the anarcho-punk counterculture. The district developed its own distinctive Kiezkultur (neighborhood culture) that was based on a multicultural environment, a DIY ethos, and a collectivist communal orientation. As a result, anti-government rebellions and riots began occurring in the early 1980s, often sparked by May Day commemorations and reactions to unpopular government initiatives and urban renewal campaigns in Kreuzberg. German left-wing anarchists, many 25

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of whom identified with the Autonome (autonomous) movement,6 often instigated such riots (Leach, 2009). Dubbed der Schwarze Block (the Black Bloc) by the German media, due to their heavy black attire, such militant anarchists frequently constructed barricades and threw stones and firebombs at police. Punk and left wing politics formally comingled with the founding of the Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany (APPG) in 1981, which was established by two 17-year old Hanover punks. Adopting the name pogo for the popular punk dance, the APPG claimed to represent the Pbel (mob) and other social parasites. Subsequently, the APPG encouraged and facilitated the participation of West Berlin punks in demonstrations and riots against police. Over the years, punks became increasingly involved in the transnational squat movement, which directly affected many major West European cities. Seeking to counteract governmentsponsored urban renewal projects and police attempts to evict illegal residents from derelict properties in Kreuzberg and other areas of West Berlin, squat activists and their anarchopunk allies organized politically and won important victories in the 1980s; thus resulting in major government reforms that legalized the status of many squats and provided public funding for low-income housing repairs (Karapin, 2007).

Anarcho-punks in East Berlin


In sharp contrast to the overt anarcho-punk counterculture of West Berlin, young punks in East Berlin were less obviously political since they faced more direct and omnipresent forms of government repression. Whereas West Berlin youth were relatively free to experiment with various provocative fashion styles and rebellious (though non-violent) personas in public spaces; the collective identities, lifestyles, attire, and social spaces of teenagers in East Berlin were subject to coercive regulations enforced by school officials and Stasi officers (state security police). Thus, the everyday lives of young people varied considerably in East and West Berlin, given the relatively strong emphasis on mass conformity to the states official values and standards of behavior in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Parenthetically, young people in the GDR and other Soviet-bloc countries of the Cold War era were portrayed as potential victims of western influence, from which they needed rigorous state protection (Mahrad, 1977, p. 198). Even so, rebellious East German youths utilized particular urban spaces tacitly as sites of resistance, in opposition to communist hegemony (Smith, 1998, p. 291). For example, rock concerts, group discussions, and other ostensibly apolitical events were frequently held in the relatively free space (Freiraum) of East Berlins churches. Maintaining an uneasy truce with the GDR state, established churches were allowed to sponsor unsanctioned, youth-based spiritual and educational activities on church property, which focused frequently on environmental and pacifist concerns. Notably, blues masses in East German churches featured musical performances and unregulated deliberations on social and political issues that would have been banned by the state otherwise (Smith, 1998). Though the first blues mass was held in July 1979 and attracted around three hundred spectators, the average crowd numbered approximately 10,000 people by the time the GDR regime finally squashed such events in 1986 (Bigg, 2009).
6

The far-left autonomous movement originated in Italy in the 1960s, effectively combining Marxism with anarchism. The movement is based on the idea of autonomy, as in being free from societys repressive rules of behavior.

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Reportedly, the first-ever East German punk rock show was held inside East Berlins Yugoslav embassy in March 1981, which included approximately one hundred young punks in attendance. Representing the maverick (non-Warsaw Pact) communist government of Yugoslavia, this particular embassy became something of a liberal oasis within a police state (Mohr, 2009). According to a GDR report from 1981, there were approximately one thousand punks and 10,000 sympathizers nationwide at that time. The GDRs punk scene gained additional notoriety due to West Berlins Aggressive Rockproduktionen studio, which released GDR From Below, a compilation album of East German punk songs, in 1983. Soon after these events, communist authorities began a massive crackdown on punk rockers. Many punks in East Berlin and other cities found themselves arrested, fined, beaten, and sometimes jailed for their unaesthetic appearance (Smith, 1998, p. 292). In fact, punks experienced arbitrary detainment, brutal police beatings, and invasive searches of apartments and other spaces where they congregated (Mohr, 2009). However, East German punks and other bohemian youths actively created their own alternative spaces in various communal squats, which were located mainly in older East Berlin inner-city neighborhoods such as Friedrichshain, Mitte, and Prenzlauer Berg. Such squatting was allowed under East German law if a particular house had been vacated by the previous tenets for a minimum of three months. Therefore, countercultural spaces of youth in squats and similar venues offered an opportunity for contact between people and a sense of common cause, acting to undermine the effect of the Stasi (Smith, 1998, p. 296). In spite of the highly conformist atmosphere for youth in the GDR, a pro-western civil rights movement emerged in the late 1980s that gradually gained strength. In geopolitical terms, the movement was tacitly encouraged by pledges of noninterference in the GDRs political development by then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Youthful dissidents often cited Gorbachevs reform-oriented approach to socialism - dubbed perestroika (restructuring) - as a de facto repudiation of the GDRs neo-Stalinist system. Strongly supported by punks and other radical youths, the civil rights movement eventually sparked widespread political protests that culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

Post-Reunification Social Fissures


The official reunification of Germany (and Berlin) in October 1990 dramatically altered the geopolitical-spatial status quo. In epochal terms, Germans began referring to this transitional period as the Wendezeit (the time of the turning). The incredibly swift pace of political reunification had reflected the widespread presupposition of an essential unity of the German people (Glaeser, 2000, p. 2). Streaming by the thousands through what was left of the Berlin Wall, East Berliners appeared eager to experience the freedom, abundance, opulence, sensuality, and crass commercialism of a seemingly utopian West Berlin (Veenis, 1999, p. 86). In particular, young people embraced reunification; especially in relation to leisure, entertainment, new consumption patterns and the extent of foreign travel (Smith, 1998, p. 297). However, the tearfully jubilant euphoria of reunification proved to be short-lived. Indeed, the reunification process was decidedly lopsided, with the GDR absorbed politically by the hegemonic FRG. The social-psychological burden of transition clearly was placed on the backs of easterners, who were expected to adopt the Wests political and economic system very swiftly. In effect, West-shock occurred for many in the East, who were unprepared

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for the onslaught of a highly competitive market economy (Fischer et al., 2007). Western investors quickly privatized or closed many enterprises in the former East Berlin, thus causing unemployment rates to skyrocket and anti-western resentment to percolate. Suddenly, East Berliners had to abandon virtually their entire daily routine and embrace revised, western-imposed versions of everything from street signs and billboards to phone booths, youth organizations, school textbooks, and university curricula (Moran, 2004; Smith, 1998). In effect, former GDR citizens had been involuntarily relocated not geographically, but culturally and politically (Kahn, 2000). Soon after reunification, the former East Germany became depicted in popular discourse as less civilized and outmoded compared to the more modern western part of the country.7 It quickly became apparent that the negative impact of reunification was in general much stronger for the nations new minority group, the former East Germans (dubbed Ossis), than for westerners (Wessis) (Fischer et al., 2007, p. 165). By the early 1990s, Ossis increasingly occupied a lower status position than Wessis across a wide range of indicators, including social standing, career opportunities, relative income, and levels of wealth (Wagner, 1999). In addition, the systematic de-industrialization of east-central Berlin prompted many easterners to migrate to the citys outskirts or leave the city altogether, in a desperate quest for employment (Stahl, 2008). In the new united Germany, Berliners of both sides soon claimed that they could easily distinguish between Wessis and Ossis. Signifiers such as certain types of clothing, posture, dialect, and even the words used in everyday conversation reputedly expressed a space-based collective identity. As the dominant group in the newly united Berlin, Wessis often portrayed Ossis in a decidedly negative light. They are not like us was a common Wessi refrain about Ossis, who were often stereotyped as backward and provincial in contradistinction to the reputedly more advanced and sophisticated Wessis. In West German popular discourse, the other Germans were whining easterners (Jammer Ossis). Such stereotypes often focused on the alleged weak work ethic and ineptitude of Ossis, with the former GDRs lack of incentives usually blamed (Glaeser, 2000; Kahn, 2000). In turn, many Ossis portrayed Wessis as arrogant know it alls (Besserwessis) who allegedly acted as though they were intellectually and morally superior to their eastern counterparts. In sociopolitical terms, Ossis often claimed that Wessis treated them unfairly as if they were second-class citizens (Ozment, 2004, p. 313). In the workplace environment, many Ossis complained that Wessis lack commitment and discipline (Glaeser, 2000, pp. 193194) and are overly egocentric (Burns, 1999). Ossis disparaged the hyper-individualistic, narcissistic elbow society of the Wessis in particular, which discounted the value of teamwork and collective responsibility at the workplace (Burns, 1999). In sum, Berliners continued to remain sharply divided socio-spatially, even though political reunification had occurred.

Gentrification in the New Berlin


The post-reunification migration of relatively prosperous Wessis into several of the former East Berlins traditional working-class districts further exacerbated socio-spatial tensions.

See Moran (2004), Glaeser (2000), and Hrschelmann (2001).

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Similar to the global model,8 many of the original gentrifying pioneers in the newly reunited Berlin were college students, artists, and other highly-educated, non-affluent members of the creative class seeking cheap rents and an idealized bourgeois-bohemian urban environment. However, due to the unique circumstances of eastern Berlins post-communist bonanza of artificially inexpensive properties, relatively wealthy investors quickly made inroads into working-class neighborhoods, resulting in thousands of low- and middle-income Ossis being displaced from their homes, shops, businesses, and neighborhoods (Mayer, 2006). Consequently, new islands of wealth have been created in many frontier-style Wild East neighborhoods, resulting in significant population exchanges. For instance, approximately 70,000 new residents entered the (former East) Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg between 1991 and 1997, while around 65,000 left during the same period. The new residents tended to be younger, better educated, and form more single households than those who left (Mayer, 2006). Tellingly, the district has lost approximately 60 percent of its original inhabitants since 1990, due to out-migration. Within the span of less than twenty years, Prenzlauer Berg has been transformed from a workers district into an affluent quarter (Connolly, 2010). Such gentrification-style economic restructuring in Berlin is a localized manifestation of neo-liberal globalization and its hegemonic processes of uneven development, which has had a deleterious impact on working class communities within various post-communist societies (Smith, 1996). Indeed, the massive exodus of Ossis from traditional working class neighborhoods is a direct manifestation of the post-reunification transition from state-socialism to capitalism. Having paid fixed rental rates that were heavily subsidized by the communist state for decades, Ossis were unaccustomed to negotiating leases with individual landlords. Though the Berlin city government had instituted rent controls for relatively impoverished neighborhoods in the immediate post-reunification era, such regulations were easily circumvented and weakened by various legal loopholes utilized by innovative and unscrupulous landlords. By the late 1990s, city officials had mostly abandoned the enforcement of rent control mechanisms and instead embraced policies favoring homeowners over renters (Mayer, 2006). Thus, ever-higher rental fees were a byproduct of the gradual retreat of the state, which facilitated major spatial dislocations for disadvantaged residents and the relatively rapid deterioration of traditional neighborhood social structures (Holm, 2006). Numerous nondescript, multi-occupant tenement buildings and storefronts in Prenzlauer Berg, Mitte, and other eastern Berlin boroughs have undergone massive renovation by entrepreneurs and firms in recent years, which has led to the proliferation of single-ownership townhouses, luxurious apartments, trendy cafes, and cosmopolitan boutiques, catering to an upscale clientele. Such international earmarks of gentrification, based on the infrastructure of conspicuous consumption, have become ubiquitous in Berlins new frontier (Holm, 2006). In social-conflict terms, yuppies and other non-native elites have effectively colonized blue-collar, family-based neighborhoods (Atkinson and Bridge, 2005). Due to the increasingly visible role of yuppies, Germans have begun referring to gentrification as Yuppisierung. Echoing southern criticism of northern-sponsored reconstruction and attendant carpetbaggers in the aftermath of the American Civil War, many Ossis view Yuppisierung by Wessis as unwelcome, post-unification pillage (Ozment, 2004, p. 312).
8

See Freeman (2005).

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In reaction to such socio-spatial changes in working class neighborhoods, leftist radical groups have held street demonstrations to protest the spatial displacement of residents by western development schemes. Tellingly, a political protest was held in June 2008 under the banner, Fuck Yuppies, as part of Action Days for Autonomous Free Spaces. Patrick Technau, a 24-year old college student from eastern Berlin and one of the organizers of the demonstrations, claimed to be on the verge of being driven from his life-long neighborhood in Prenzlauer Berg, due to escalating rent payments resulting from Yuppisierung. This is probably the only house on this street that hasnt been renovated yet, he said, pointing to a nearby apartment building (Kirchner, 2009). Various hardcore-punk bands from Berlin (e.g., Situations, Insuiciety) performed in the Action Days mega-concert held at nearby Mauerpark.9 More recently, businesses located in the area have been targeted for demonstrations and even attacked by leftist militants. For example, a group of approximately one hundred black-clad anarchists vandalized the Berlin headquarters of the German software giant SAP, located in Mitte, late at night in April 2009.10 Importantly, several contemporary Deutschpunk bands have recorded songs and circulated CDs that are directly critical of gentrification. For instance, the Berlin-based punk band Kotzreiz entitled its August 2010 debut album Du machst dies Stadt Kaput (Youre Destroying the City), in an obvious critique of Yuppisierung. The album cover features an artistic depiction of a monstrous-looking construction worker standing in front of a crumbling building that is in the process of being demolished by large equipment. The skull-headed worker is clad in a t-shirt that proclaims in English: Gentrification. Appearing to be laughing maniacally, the sledgehammer-wielding hardhat employee is surrounded by fallen debris from various buildings. In essence, the album cover is depicting low-income neighborhoods under siege by seemingly alien capitalist-predators intent on destroying Berlins way of life.

Berlin Youth in Shared Spaces


While visiting Berlin, I was particularly interested in finding shared public spaces and places where Ossi and Wessi youths congregate on a regular basis and are relatively detached from official supervision. One such place is Breitscheidplatz, which is one of the largest and most important public squares in the former West Berlin. The square includes a large open courtyard that often has a carnival-like atmosphere. During daytime hours, the courtyard features mimes and other street-theatre performers, orchestral concerts, folk and pop music acts, breakdancing troupes, artistic displays, and numerous other attractions. The Breitscheidplatz is located next to one of the citys major commercial thoroughfares, the treelined Kurfrstendamm (popularly known as the KuDamm). Located on the plaza is the Europa Center business and shopping complex, which attracts numerous tourists and local residents from all over Berlin. The Europa Centers high-rise tower is visible for miles, due to the large Mercedes-Benz commercial symbol perched obtrusively on the rooftop, which is emblematic of capitalisms triumph over communism.
9

For the June 2008 agenda of Action Days for Autonomous Free Spaces (including various musical performances, workshops, and marches) see http://www.koepi137.net/actiondays/index2.html 10 See Spiegel Online International, Attack from the Left? Automobile Arson a Trend in Berlin (April 9, 2009) at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,618443,00.html

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I observed hundreds of young people sitting around or standing in groups on the Breitscheidplatz courtyard everyday, in spite of the oppressive heat of summer. I engaged in interview-style conversations with several teens and young adults from both sides of the former Wall. Barrett, an 18-year old clad in a bright red tank top, told me that he is proud to be an Ossi. Sometimes West Berliners call us names and all, he said, but we were just raised differently. Living in the eastern borough of Prenzlauer Berg, Barrett expressed concern about the relatively recent encroachment of Wessis into his Kiez (neighborhood). My parents are thinking about moving to a different part of Berlin or even out of the city, since rents have become so expensive over the past few years, he said. Its mainly the fault of wealthy people from the West. Roth, 17-years old and one of Barretts Ossi friends, agrees, noting, Ossis dont have as much money as Wessis, but thats OK. All Wessis think about is money and getting more money. Employed part time as a bellhop for a nearby hotel, Roth complains that Ossis often work in lower paying jobs due to discriminatory practices. Though neither Barrett nor Roth admit to having any close friends who are Wessis, they interact with westerners on the courtyard quite frequently. For instance, Mallory, a 16-year old Wessi, was talking with Barrett and Roth when I first approached. She admits to having had a better more luxurious - life than most Ossis, noting that Berlin remains divided in many ways. Some Wessis act like theyre better than Ossis, she laments, but I dont agree. We are all the same, really. Were all Berliners. In conducting my research in various parts of the city, I sought to determine if there are any strong feelings of resentment or hostility existing between Ossi and Wessi youth in general. I often asked respondents how they perceive people originally from the other side of the country; and in particular, how they view the spatial-urban other in Berlin. I quickly discovered that most respondents acknowledge that various stereotypes are still quite prevalent, even among young people. Rory, a 21-year old college student and punk/alternative rock aficionado that grew up in the former West Berlin, explains that many Wessis believe that they have an unfair financial burden due to the additional social welfare costs of absorbing East Germany into the country. Moreover, he asserts that the wall in the head affects all kinds of personal relationships. As he states: Many East German companies went bankrupt after reunification and the costs of the non-economic system of the poor East Germans was paid for by the West German government. The West Germans had to pay for them and that was the reason for the aggression between East and West. This aggression still exists to some extent. Nowadays people know there is no wall, but still if somebody is called Ossi, it is no positive compliment. If some people are starting a friendship, after a while they are asking each other, are you from the East or West? Several Wessi youths with whom I spoke claim that the stereotyping of West and East Berliners is not only prevalent, but also largely accurate. Anton, an 18-year old student who lives in the former West Berlin, asserts that Ossis typically are ungrateful for westernsubsidized social welfare programs and development projects that largely benefit the former East Germany. Most Ossis are satisfied to live in rundown tenement buildings, and not appreciative of the reconstruction of their neighborhoods by westerners, he claims. This may be a stereotype, but its based on fact. Martin, a 25-year-old assistant manager of a

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local tourist bureau, largely agrees with Antons assessment, providing his own socio-historical spin on the stereotyping of Ossis: Such stereotypes are often true. It just started after the fall of the Wall and developed during the past several years. As a Wessi, I realized that from the very beginning. Today, there are still differences in clothing, general appearance, language and even ways of thinking between both parties. Ossis tend to be more backwards in their thinking.

Berlins New Battle Zone


Within the past several years, the primary battle zone involving gentrification has gradually shifted from Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte to the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, which has experienced escalating incidents of vandalism and arson. Kreuzberg merged with the adjoining neighborhood of Friedrichshain in 2001, forming a very eclectic habitat that includes Turkish migrant families,11 anarchists, punks, hippies, metal heads, gay men and lesbians, and other marginal groups. Before the Walls fall, Friedrichshain had been on the eastern side and Kreuzberg on the west. In fact, the longest section of the Berlin Wall still in existence - the mural-laden Eastside Gallery - runs through the heart of this consolidated district. Several of my youthful respondents claimed that Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg is the hippest district of Berlin, which includes a variety of communal squats and alternative music venues. The annual May Day demonstrations and riots involving anarchists, punks, and various leftwing militants take place here, which tends to enhance the districts legendary radical mystique.12 Conversely, many German media sources and conservative politicians have depicted the district in highly negative terms, often describing it as a dangerous no-go area that is fraught with high rates of crime, drug abuse, and other delinquent behaviors. Such observers frequently describe Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg as having a large number of chronically unemployed people and foreigners on welfare (Mayer, 2006). Compared to Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has experienced a somewhat slower rate of gentrification in the post-reunification era. During the past two decades, the rapid deindustrialization of the district has resulted in a glut of abandoned buildings, many of which have been filled by gentrifying pioneers (e.g. college students and young artists). However, yuppie-style gentrification has been occurring in increasingly larger swathes of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and nearby Neuklln, much to the chagrin of longtime low-income residents.13 Not surprisingly, the relatively low rents, underdeveloped properties, legendary club culture, and the authentic bohemian atmosphere of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg have attracted yuppie-colonists. The anti-gentrification group, "United We Stay," has claimed that "30,000 people face the risk of not being able to afford living" in FriedrichshainKreuzberg due to rent inflation.14
11

Berlins Turkish population is heavily concentrated in Kreuzberg, which is known locally as Little Istanbul. Negative depictions of Turkish youth are commonplace throughout German society and particularly in Berlin, including stereotypes describing them as unskilled or semi-skilled (Petzen, 2004, p. 22) and essentially criminal elements (Soysal, 2001, p. 9). 12 For a description of a recent riot involving over 2,500 anarchists and punks on May Day 2009, see http://www.dwworld.de/dw/article/0,,4225144,00.html. The May Day riots included youths tossing firebombs and stones at police. 13 For more information about the expanding wave of gentrification in Berlin, see http://www.dwworld.de/dw/article/0,,3427742,00.html 14 Cited in The Local: Germanys News in English at http://www.thelocal.de/society/20090409-18561.html

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One major source of frustration is the apparent lack of governmental consultation with local residents prior to the approval of new urban renewal projects in FriedrichshainKreuzberg and other districts. For example, city authorities have announced plans to transform the deactivated Tempelhof airport - adjoining Kreuzberg - into a luxury apartment complex, while opponents would vastly prefer a park instead. We have no voice in the way the city is changing, states Jan, a 26-year old graphic designer and left-wing activist in Kreuzberg. Until recently it was where I used to walk my dog and meet friends, he said in reference to the former airport. Now look theyre building glassy apartment blocks there for rich yuppies to move into (quoted in Connolly, 2010). Even SO36 Kreuzbergs landmark punk nightclub is in imminent danger of closure due to disputes over escalating rents and complaints about noise from newer residents (Emms, 2009). Responding to such developments, massive sit-ins at the Tempelhof airport and similarly hotly contested locations have been held in recent months. Over five thousand demonstrators attempted to occupy Tempelhof in June 2009, resulting in clashes with the municipal authorities including the use of pepper spray against protestors by police.15 In addition, antigentrification activists in Kreuzberg have advocated a militant uglification strategy that encourages long-time inhabitants to refrain from repairing roofs or even fixing broken windows, as a means to keep out unwanted residents (Connolly, 2010). One of the most confrontational anarchist groups, BMW (Bewegung fr Militanten Widerstand, or the Movement for Militant Resistance), has claimed responsibility for torching hundreds of expensive automobiles owned primarily by yuppies living in neighborhoods that are currently experiencing gentrification. Yuppie-owned or dominated nightclubs and German business firms have been targeted with stink bombs, paint bombs, stone throwing, and graffiti (Waleczek, 2009). Such sociopolitical acts of vandalism and arson have become progressively more common in recent years, touted by far-left activists as an appropriate form of collective action on behalf of the poor and working class, in active resistance to gentrification and the new bourgeoisie (Connolly, 2010). There is even a website, Burning Cars, that features a Berlin map with interactive locations in which pricey cars have been set ablaze in protest, with information that includes the exact date, automobile model, and street address, of each attack.16 The majority of recent anti-gentrification incidents involving arson have occurred in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, which has effectively turned the district into the primary terrain of resistance for anarcho-punks and related movement activists.

Perspectives of Anarcho-punks
While walking around Kreuzberg, I met Karla, a 17-year old Ossi student, who was sporting a DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) emblem and related communist graphics on her clothes. This is an example of what is popularly known as Ostalgie (i.e., nostalgia for the former East Germany), which is a pop-culture trend that has been gaining momentum for the past several years among Ossi youths in particular. Several young people with whom I spoke - including three Ossis and one Wessi - assert that it is cool to wear such clothes,
15

For more information about the Tempelhof airport protest, see http://www.demotix.com/news/berliners-attemptstorm-tempelhof-airport-protest 16 See the map at http://www.brennende-autos.de/

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even though many older folks (especially Wessis) say that they are bewildered, dismayed, and angered by anything remotely tied to the GDRs communist system. In many respects, Ostalgie 17 and related fashion styles represent a tacit form of rebellion against perceived Wessi-yuppie hegemony over the former East Germanys culture, economy, and property. As Karla, a self-identified anarcho-punk, states: Yuppies seem to be taking over and upsetting our way of life. I know many folks who say, Its not my neighborhood anymore. Lots of new people from other parts of Germany and other countries are moving to eastern districts. Most of them are schicki mickis (fashionable people). They are pushing out people whove been here for several years. Thats making many people very angry. Things are changing for the worse. Lara, a 23-year old anarchist-squatter, black-clad with long braided-hair and sapphire eyes, recalls that she had abandoned the comfy confines of her relatively affluent, middle-class home in an eastern German hamlet and journeyed to Kreuzberg five years ago to experience a more exciting life. Though she contends that Wessis in general tend to be less receptive to her free-spirited lifestyle, nine of her twenty-three squat-mates are from western Germany. Various communal events are held in the squats first floor living room on a regular basis, including artistic presentations, musical performances, special dinners and breakfasts, movies, and political meetings focusing on squatters rights and related anti-gentrification initiatives. In the non-privatized, open spaces of the squat,18 socio-cultural distinctions between Wessis and Ossis become largely irrelevant. As Lara observes: One of the things I really like about my neighborhood and squat is the variety of people. People from all over Europe and even the world are living here in Kreuzberg. This part of Berlin is very accepting of people like me, who dont want to be bothered by ideas about money or where youre from. We believe in affordable housing and are opposed to the expensive rents found in other neighborhoods. We oppose yuppies and their capitalist mentality. In the same vicinity, I talked to Tim, a 25-year old anarchist-graffitist who recently moved to Kreuzberg from his native eastern Berlin neighborhood, due to escalating rents. He expressed great pride in pointing out several of his elaborate, multicolored graphics including one piece bearing the iconic heading of Der Berliner Mauer (The Berlin Wall), positioned directly above a grumpy-looking Karl Marx grasping an aerosol can in one hand, seemingly poised to spray paint into the faces of unsuspecting passersby. Unemployed for over a year, Tim seemed visibly disheartened while discussing his personal life, yet enthusiastic when explaining why he writes on the walls of Berlin. As he states: Bombing the city with graffiti is my way of having my voice heard. Everyone who walks by cant help but see what Im thinking. Its difficult to secure a decent job these
17

See Moran (2004) for a detailed analysis of Ostalgie phenomenon. As he notes, many trendy young Wessis have embraced Ossi kitsch. 18 Since my interview with Lara was conducted, Berlins squats have been compelled to become low-rent house projects, due to recent changes in municipal laws. Berlins last rent-free squat, located in Mitte, was forced to close its doors in June 2010, after several days of protest and active resistance by local anarchists and squat movement proponents (Novak, 2010).

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days, especially when youre from the East. When Im back in my old neighborhood, I bomb even more, so that people see that were fed up with this gentrification shit. As I explored Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, I came across numerous graffiti slogans and graphics that directly questioned or opposed gentrification and capitalization. Such messages often were very explicit in their verbiage, including the English phrase Yuppies Fuck Off and German slogans such as Kein Spekulant (No Speculators) and Yuppies aufs Maul (Hit Yuppies in the Mouth). One notable graffiti slogan spray-painted on a tenement wall in a Friedrichshain neighborhood compares Berlins gentrification projects to South Africas past system of racial segregation, with the phrase: Yuppisierung ist Apartheid (Yuppie Gentrification is Separateness). Another graffiti piece has an illustration of a Mahatma Gandhi spray-painted with the English words, Truth is God. Gandhi appears to be staring at a U.S. dollar sign defaced with a red mark, above the phrase, Dont Believe the Hype. Such graffiti was designed apparently to be a strong critique of western capitalist values such as materialism, greed, and conspicuous consumption.

Anarcho-punk Spaces of Opposition


During my exploration of Kreuzberg, I visited a multistory squat and live music venue known as the Tommy-Weisbecker-Haus (or simply Tommyhaus). The building is named for a young anarchist-agitator who was shot and killed by West Berlin police in the early 1970s. Officially chartered in 1973 as a housing collective, the Tommyhaus was one of the first abandoned buildings to be squatted in Berlin. During the 1970s and eighties, the Tommyhaus was repeatedly raided by police due to its proximity to nearby municipal buildings and allegations of involvement by residents in the anarchist-terrorist organization Bewegung 2 Juni (Movement June 2).19 Known as the ground zero of anarchy in Berlin (Niklaus, 2009), the squat currently houses approximately forty residents mostly unemployed youth - who live in a communal environment. The first-floor caf of the squat, known as Line 1, features a wide variety of punk, hardcore, and metal acts from all over the world, performing on stage several nights per week. Bands headlining at the venue have included Rage Against the Machine (1996), Queens of the Stone Age (2006), No Respect (2006), and Chumbawamba (2007). The Tommyhaus is visible for several blocks away as it juts defiantly into the air, appearing to pulsate in an effervescent kaleidoscope of aerosol-painted neon colors. Most notably, the building has an impressive, vibrant facade covered with various anarchist-influenced murals and graffiti. One side of the squat features an outsized elongated snake coiling from the ground level to the top floor, while the squats exterior also has various smaller graphics, including the red-lettered anarchy (A) symbol and a depiction of the famous Marxist-Argentine revolutionary, Ernesto Che Guevara. Next to the front entrance, a painted-sign declares boldly in English, Fuck the Police.

19

Established in the early 1970s by young militant anarchists, Bewegung 2 Juni was named after the date in 1967 on which police killed Benno Ohnesorg a 26-year old German college student - during a peaceful demonstrationturned-riot. Bewegung 2 Juni mostly bombed property targets, but also engaged in occasional kidnappings of government officials. The group was loosely associated with the Red Army Faction (RAF) - a radical Marxist urban guerrilla terrorist group also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

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Upon entering the Tommyhaus, I observed that the vast majority of youths exhibited various forms of punk attire, including Mohawks, hair spikes, tattoos, multiple piercings, dog collars, wallet chains, and black bomber jackets brightly adorned with various bandbuttons and iconoclastic slogans. As the Dutch anarcho-hardcore band Antidote played on stage in the main music venue of Line 1, the mosh pit began to swell with numerous young men slamming their sweaty bodies back and forth in a spasmodic frenzy of fraternal fury, performing a violent-laden, yet mostly non-threatening, communal ritual. Thrashing about with arms flailing and noses flaring, several punks crashed repeatedly into one another, as the band performed the song, New Enemy. In the somewhat quieter bar area of the squat, I interviewed seven young punks in depth, including five originally from the former East Berlin and two from the western part of the city. Four of the Ossi punks are self-professed anarchists; one Wessi describes himself as a nihilist, while the remaining two punks refused to endorse any particular political ideology. Notably, all seven respondents said that they identify strongly with the anti-authoritarian ethos of DIY, contending that punk is much more than simply a subgenre of rock music. In this regard, my respondents described punk with various appellations such as an underground scene and an alternative movement. The concept of scene is particularly relevant, since my respondents tended to use the term to describe their distinctly localized yet transnational countercultural/subcultural identity as Berlin punks. Importantly, the metaphorical scene implies a dramaturgical performance, thus reflecting an emergent urban psychological orientation that of a person as an actor, self consciously presenting him - or herself in front of audiences (Irwin, 1977, p. 24). One of the first punks I interviewed was Abel - a 25-year old Ossi with a wry sense of humor, twinkling emerald eyes, and a steeply protruding crimson-tipped Mohawk. He explains that the city remains divided between Ossis and Wessis. Speaking in broken English, he observes that there are distinct dialects and slang terms utilized by East and West Berliners. Abel recalls that he witnessed the fall of Berlin Wall when he was only ten years of age, while accompanying his older brother. He adds that his brother had been involved for years in the punk underground of the former East Germany, which was often repressed by communist authorities. As the Wall crumbled before his stunned-eyes, Abel remembers peering for the first time into the glittering commercial expanse of the previously forbidden West Berlin. In the days and weeks following the Walls fall, he claims to have discovered that the typical Wessi is a know-it-all. However, in recent years he professes to have met numerous Wessis who share his anarchist views and punk rock musical tastes. Thus, as he concedes, I now realize that its unfair to say that Wessis are all the same. Joseph, a 17-year old Ossi sitting next to Abel at the bar, coiffed with spiked black hair and sporting a bomber jacket, complains that Wessis often treat easterners as if they are second class citizens. Nonetheless, he agrees with Abel that not all Wessis are snobs or yuppies, noting that intolerance can be found on both sides of Berlin. Like Abel, Joseph was born and raised in the former East Berlin and feels stigmatized and marginalized by his socio-spatial background in the post-reunification era. Ossis tend to be poorer and have fewer connections, he explains. Often they have no choice but to work at lower paying jobs and live in poorer neighborhoods. Marie, a 20-year old Ossi-punk adorned with dark mascara and black lipstick, chainsmoking rolled-cigarettes and nursing a beer on a nearby barstool, states bluntly that the East is much more brutal. This brutality is evident in everyday life, she declares, when the 36

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police treat Ossis much more harshly than Wessis and imprison them for relatively minor offenses. The police mess with us all the time, for no good reason, she states. Now, we find ourselves fighting to keep our squats and flats, with everything getting more expensive. Looking around, Abel remarks that just about everyone in the bar grew up in the East. Coincidentally, a couple of relatively well-groomed punks with expensive looking leather jackets walk in at that moment, to which Marie waves and notes matter-of-factly that they are Wessis. There is a strong difference between Ossis and Wessis, she asserts. But I have many Wessi friends who Ive met through the punk scene. Strom, a 16-year old Ossi youth sitting on the other side of the bar, wearing a black t-shirt adorned with a large red A (anarchy) symbol and an eye-catching button featuring a swastika that bears George W. Bushs visage, recalls that he became an anarchist when he was fourteen after discovering that capitalism does not work and only exploits people. As he states: This system only benefits those with privileges. The government oppresses many people, including both Ossis and Wessis. I was angry all the time when I was younger and hated Wessis. I later realized that only anarchism could change things for the better. We cant let brainless names like Ossi and Wessi keep us apart any longer Capitalism is the real threat. Its destroying our way of life. We have no choice but to fight back against yuppies and corporations. Lukas, one of the nicely dressed Wessi-punks that Marie had waved to earlier, explains that he had only recently moved to Kreuzberg in search of relatively inexpensive rents and a cool nightlife. When asked about the wall in the head, he reveals his status as both a college student and punk novice. I really like punk and the scene here in Kreuzberg is fucking amazing, he states, but Ossis tend to complain and whine way too much. However, Miles, a 24-year old Wessi anarchist that has been frequenting punk clubs in Kreuzberg for several years, largely disagrees with his friend Lukas assessment; stating: Where you are from shouldnt matter. It makes no sense to dislike someone just because of where they were born. After all, were all punks here. Ive talked with Ossis many times. You know, its time to forget the stupid divisions of the past. There are more serious issues, such as clubs being forced to close due to rents increasing. Something has to be done. We have to defend ourselves.

Findings and Discussion


Berlins contemporary anarcho-punk counterculture is the product of cultural syncretism, being strongly influenced not only by the American/British punk archetype, but also having proto-punk-anarchist German origins. Though German punk evolved in West Berlin by expressing an overt countercultural discourse in opposition to bourgeois-hegemonic values, it simultaneously developed in East Berlin by articulating a mostly covert countercultural discourse in opposition to neo-Stalinist-hegemonic values. In both cases, punk represented an oppositional ideology to the repressive status quo, thus creating an alternative field of cultural production, based on distinct principles, representations, and taste preferences. Soon after German reunification, the two halves of Berlins punk scene comingled directly for the

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first time, merging into a somewhat-coherent counterculture/movement that was framed in opposition to the forces of marketization and gentrification. In interviewing young people in Berlin, I discovered that self-described punks generally express more intense feelings of dissatisfaction with gentrification than other (non-punk) youths with whom I talked. For Berlin punks, gentrification tends to be an everyday reality as many have witnessed their families being dislocated, their friends evicted, their squats and clubs closed, or their own rents skyrocketing, as a consequence. Though Ossi punks tended to declare their opposition to gentrification in stronger terms than their Wessi counterparts, Berlin punks in general agree that gentrification is a very serious issue of concern. Ironically, at least a few of my Wessi punk respondents are college students living in lowincome neighborhoods undergoing redevelopment, thus acting as inadvertent pioneers for successive waves of yuppie-style gentrification. Most Berlin punks that I interviewed identify as anarchists or at the very least endorse the DIY ethos and related countercultural views. In contrast to other youthful respondents in Berlin, punks tended to frame gentrification in highly negative and dire terms, referring to neighborhood redevelopment processes as destructive, brutal, and upsetting, for instance. They also frequently used military-style terms to describe their opposition to gentrification, including fighting, fight back, defend, attack, and shocking people. They most often identified yuppies, the local government, and police, as the main enemies of their way of life not merely their political opponents. Such militant, agency-laden metaphors are illustrative of the ideological and practical imperatives that anarcho-punks utilize in order to justify not only acts of peaceful civil disobedience, but also the vandalism of luxury automobiles, buildings, and other gentrified property; thus framing their behavior as an appropriate form of protest against the encroaching bourgeois-capitalist system. Most of my punk respondents asserted that there are lingering socio-cultural distinctions between Ossis and Wessis, particularly when it comes to demeanor, appearance, and behavior. Significantly, Ossi punks in particular often conflated yuppies with Wessis, observing that westerners are implementing the vast majority of gentrification projects in Berlin. The cultural legacy of Berlins past bifurcation and subsequent economic transition continues to impinge most profoundly on easterners, as numerous respondents alleged that Ossis are especially prone to being negatively stereotyped, relegated to lower-paid jobs, harassed by police, and displaced from their homes and neighborhoods by gentrification schemes. However, an overwhelming majority of both Ossi and Wessi punks indicated that they had abandoned many of their stereotypical views of the spatial-urban other as a result of direct, positive forms of contact and interaction in punk clubs, squats, town squares, and other relatively neutral social spaces. Notably, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has a long history as the spatial-cultural epicenter of Berlins anarcho-punk scene. As the synthesis of two traditional working-class residential areas including one from each side of the former Berlin Wall - the district epitomizes the officially reunited Berlin. Over the years, the hegemonic framing of the district as a dilapidated ghetto has widened the gap between the ground rent of derelict properties and the potential ground rent derived from redeveloped properties, thus encouraging gentrification as a means of closing the rent gap. Accordingly, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has become the major terrain of resistance to gentrification in Berlin, pitting anarcho-punks and various far-left activists against yuppies and assorted agents of the municipal government.

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Conclusion: Codes of Spatial Performance


The contestation and negotiation of urban space in post-reunification Berlin is based primarily on what Pierre Bourdieu (as cited in Gotham, 2003) describes as codes of spatial performance, including social situations and dialogic interactions between adversarial actors on the urban stage. As he asserts, various fields are established and contested, with groups producing place-specific forms of identity, consciousness, and knowledge (p. 724). Meaningfully, the roles and activities of various actors within a given field are somewhat ordered and constrained by their distinctive habitus; i.e., a system of durable, transposable dispositions, that are structured, inculcated and generative (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 53). Simply put, the habitus is a sense of ones and others place and role in the world of ones lived environment (Hillier and Rooksby, 2008, p. 21). Within a particular urban field, subordinate groups will seek to resist the spatial order through habitus-based repertoires of rebellion and innovation; while dominant groups will actively defend their structural position with whatever power resources best exemplify their habitus (Bourdieu, 2008). Over the past few decades, the social structures of Berlins urban field have undergone dramatic, revolutionary changes; yet have also reproduced and magnified social inequalities that have their roots in the Cold War era. Though the physical fortifications of the Berlin Wall have fallen, new socio-spatial sources of intra-German conflict have emerged in their stead. In particular, the globalization of market forces has engendered new value contradictions and a heightened potential for anomic amorality among teenagers and young adults living in post-communist Berlin (Hagan et al, 1998). Social strains resulting from years of dichotomous classification schemes have affected many of the young people studied, even those who were born several years after the Berlin Walls official demise. Berlins dominant habitus, best exemplified by the so-called wall in the head, has shaped various perceptions, representations, sensibilities, and patterns of behavior, found among Berlin youth. The contemporary struggle between the dominant Wessis and the largely subordinate Ossis has generated new tensions and conflicts in Berlins urban field. In particular, the gentrification of low-income neighborhoods, disproportionately located in the former East Berlin, has widened the informal spatial schism. Thus, Berlins habitus has been empowering for many Wessis, yet oppressive for Ossis who have been relegated to a lowerstatus position within the field of social relations. Rather than living in fixed spatial stasis, many longtime residents have sought to utilize urban space effectively to resist gentrification and related urban development projects. Most notably, young anarchists often operating within the countercultural context of Berlins punk scene and related social movement organizations - have spearheaded the radical contestation of urban space, acting in direct opposition to yuppies and other reputed agents of gentrification. Accordingly, relatively new or expanded codes of spatial performance have emerged in Berlin, which frequently involve various non-traditional tactics such as squatting, protest marches, uglification, boycotts, vandalism, rioting, arson, and writing graffiti. Even the lyrics of contemporary German punk songs are sometimes framed in militant opposition to gentrification, thus encouraging the mobilization of prospective activists. As James Scott (1990) has observed, resistance often takes many forms, with overt acts of defiance sometimes less prudent or efficacious than more clandestine means. In some cases, the best course of action for subordinate groups is to resist domination covertly and anonymously. Such everyday forms of resistance are characterized by the presence of an alternative counter-

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discourse that is articulated largely offstage, i.e., beyond the normal spatial purview of officials (Lee, 2000, p. 45). Particularly relevant in the case of Berlin, youth subcultures and countercultures are most likely to emerge or become more active during periods of relatively rapid economic change in society, such as urbanization and capitalization. Such forces tend to weaken interpersonal communal ties and the normative consensus of society, thus fueling alienation, social disorganization, deviant behavior and anomie (Brake, 1985, p. 9). To some extent, Berlins punk scene reflects the dominant habitus of Berlin, which includes the social-psychological wall in the head that has developed in response to rapid social changes sparked by German reunification. Indeed, numerous subjects interviewed in this study indicate that they have retained some feelings of suspicion, resentment, and animosity towards the urban spatial other. Though such socio-spatial distinctions continue to be informally apparent within the everyday interactions of punks, Berlins translocal/transnational anti-gentrification movement has to some extent transcended traditional bipolar labels. In particular, the lines between Ossis and Wessis have become somewhat blurred in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, with anarchopunks and various activists from both sides of the former Berlin Wall often cooperating to fend off potential alien intruders that are identified primarily by their social-class status (e.g., yuppies, wealthy, capitalists) and only secondarily by their socio-spatial origins (e.g., Ossis, Wessis). In sum, Berlins dominant habitus is being challenged by anarcho-punks and other youths who are interacting in the relatively open public spaces of courtyards, nightclubs, bars, parks, and squats. The hegemonic processes of gentrification are directly threatening many such social spaces and exacerbating Ossi resentment of Wessi-yuppies, yet are also providing the raison dtre for a nascent social movement that includes interdependent participants from both sides of the former Berlin Wall. New dialectical dispositions among antithetical agents and subversive, non-conformist challenges to dominant social structures are becoming visibly apparent, gradually replacing older socio-spatial rivalries within the spaces of youth. Indeed, numerous teenagers and young adults in Berlin seem to be formulating new collective identities based primarily on countercultural/subcultural affinities and common economicpolitical goals; thus seeking to radically reconfigure their citys socio-spatial milieu.

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About the Author


Prof. David Drissel David Drissel is a professor of social sciences at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Iowa. His undergraduate work included a double major in political science and sociology. His graduate studies focused on comparative politics, international relations, social

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change and development, and social movements. Research interests include transnational social movements and computer-mediated communication, nations/states undergoing political/economic transition, youth subcultures and collective identities, the global politics of Internet governance, juvenile delinquency and subterranean values, diasporic youth and social networking, and the role of interactive media and popular culture in mobilizing social networks. Professor Drissel is a two-time Fulbright Scholar who has studied extensively in China and the Czech/Slovak Republics, among many other countries. A frequent speaker and conference participant, he has had several papers published in various academic journals and compilations. He is an alumnus of the Oxford (University) Roundtable in Great Britain, where he presented a paper which was later published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

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EDITORS

Tom Nairn, The Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Australia. Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Patrick Baert, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK. David Christian, San Diego State University, San Diego, USA. Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Joan Copjec, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA. Alice Craven, American University of Paris, Paris, France. Michel Demyen, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada. Elizabeth DePoy, University of Maine, Orono, USA Mick Dodson, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Oliver Feltham, American University of Paris, Paris, France. Clyde R. Forsberg Jr., Oxford College/Aletheia University, Tamsui, Taiwan. Stephen French Gilson, University of Maine, Orono, USA. Hafedh Halila, Institut Suprieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. Souad Halila, University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. Hassan Hanafi Hassanien, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. Ted Honderich, University College, London, UK. Paul James, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Moncef Jazzar, Institut Suprieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. Eleni Karantzola, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece. Krishan Kumar, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA. Ayat Labadi, Institut Suprieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. Marion Ledwig, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA. Greg Levine, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Harry R. Lewis, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA. Fethi Mansouri, Institute for Citizenship & Globalization, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Juliet Mitchell, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK. Nahid Mozaffari, New York, USA. Nikos Papastergiadis, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. Robert Pascoe, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. Scott Schaffer, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Stanford University, Stanford, USA. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University, New York, USA. Bassam Tibi, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany and Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. Giorgos Tsiakalos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece. Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA. Cheryl A. Wells, University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA. Zhang Zhiqiang, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Peoples Republic of China. Chris Ziguras, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

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