Fuck Parade fall out

http://datacide.c8.com/fuckparade-fallout/

The yearly Fuckparade was taking place again in Berlin on August 22. The gathering point was Revaler Strasse, where the 17 trucks were warming up for the parade. A part of this warm up were also the obligatory speeches. For this, the Fuckparade organisers invited Hans Cousto and Dr. Motte, whose talks can be seen here. They deserve some attention, especially what Motte had to say.
Hans Cousto (who speaks first on the clip), is an author who published books on subjects such as “Cosmic Octave - Origin of Harmony” or “MDMA Tuning”. His angle is the same I criticised a couple of years ago in a praxis newsletter: The state is asked not to sell off its property to people who want to extract value out of “our” party culture, meaning “capitalists in other parts of the world”. He pleads that for a lively culture there is need for free spaces available to all. Fine, but to lobby the state to provide these spaces is pretty naive to say the least. In our opinion it’s politically objectionable - but all this is nothing new and would not be worth mentioning here if it wasn’t for Dr. Motte’s elaborations that follow on the clip at 4:20.
Dr. Motte is the founder of the Loveparade and a techno musician. Ironically the Fuckparade once upon a time set out to counter the commercialism and conformism of the Loveparade. When Motte himself lost control of the (now defunct) Loveparade, he started taking part of the Fuckparade.
He’s worth quoting:
After introducing himself he says: “I want to briefly sum up how I would like to define our electronic life culture. In a Nazi book about symbols I have read something great! You have to imagine - it was about runes!” He then not only describes the man rune, he also puts down the microphone and impersonates it streching out his hands and then says “it means something very beautiful, unfortunately” the peace movement turned it upside down and made it into something “greedy”, because the original man rune means something like creative development in freedom, according to Dr. Motte (or his “Nazi book”), and “this is the expression of our electronic music, and our politicians should please preserve our freedom and not sell it to property fonds who don’t care because this is our coutry, our country!!” After shouting the last words, and some applause by the Fuckparade audience, he continues: “It doesn’t belong to them but to us all, and I demand from all politicians also our mayor with his bad, gay politics that no one needs, to champion our ideals, our free spaces (…) for our free culture, not the culture of the empire from above”.
This tour de force took less than three minutes, but raises a number of questions. How can he link what he calls “our electronic life culture” to a “Nazi book” about runes? What does he mean with the “bad, gay politics that no one needs” of Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit (who is openly gay)?
The second point was picked up by the mainstream press (Der Tagesspiegel from August 27-08-09), and Motte “apologized” to the mayor saying that “as an Anarchist” he respects the freedom of everybody else, including sexual freedom. But what did he mean? “The neoliberal politics” of the mayor is the answer. Gay = neoliberal?
The use of the word “gay” as “something bad” should not be tolerated at a supposedly left wing event that the Fuckparade purports to be. At least this time the statement became controversial at all - because it was not the first time he made it: At an anti-gentrification demo (Megaspree) on July 11 of this year he also went on about the “gay politics” of the gay mayor - on his own blog he still quotes himself saying it. Only now that he’s “found out” he “apologizes” (how serious he is about it is illustrated by the fact that his statement from the July 11 demo is still on his own website which suggests that the “apology” is just a PR exercise in damage control).
But even worse - and not picked up by the mainstream press - is that he explicitly bases his definition of “our electronic life culture” on Nazi esotericism - and was not challenged at the Fuckparade itself about this.
There has been very different kinds of research into the history and meaning of runes. This is not the place to go into it, but it is worth noting that the rune “research” of the Nazis is largely based on Guido von List, a charlatan who claimed to have received his rune wisdom in visions, author of “Das Geheimnis der Runen” (Secrets of the Runes) from 1908. I am no expert in the field but it appears that List’s Runology is practically completely made up to fit his völkisch-nationalist ideology. Via other far right esotericists such as Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels and Karl Maria Wiligut this became the basis for the Nazi interpretation of runes. Although we don’t know which book exactly Dr. Motte is referring to, we have to assume (since it’s a “Nazi book”) that it reflects the völkisch-racist and anti-semitic ideology of the mentioned authors.
Other enthusiasts for the man rune include Death In June who use it in the header of their web site as well as on the cover of their album “The Wörld Thät Sümmer”.
At least the Fuckparade realized they had to distance themselves clearly from Dr. Motte and did so on their web site on Sept. 1.

my short report from Fusion Fest and some other general thoughts

I wanted to start writing a report concerning Fusion festival since 3 days now , but I was still totally exhausted , tired, traveling back to the south. I will try to give an overview of Fusion Festival, what questions came up to my mind afterwards about the existing party scene as well as rave today. Im not expecting from myself now ,to extend on a political text ,analysis about the aim concerns of ir , nether putting efforts to reflect at the whole “alternative” concept of Fusion , something like that it needs time and long discussions with all my mates who joined the festival. In the other hand I shouldnt want as well to write just that everything was fine , yeah awesome. (but ok sure Fusion is a good experience for everyone.)

* A description briefly about the festival

Fusion is taking place since 1997 , it remains the biggest alternative festival in Germany or in other words Fusion is a “holiday communism”. 5 days , 12 stages is enough to get totally nostalgic when you live the festival. It takes place at an old soviet embassy approximately 200klm away from Berlin. The location easily reminds you something from the good days of the huge festivals during 90s. People from all around Germany and other countries traveled for some days party. Some of the people especially from Berlin usually join every year as far as I know at least. I arrived there already from the first day of the festival , we manage to set a tent and afterwards went to the main stage.

* main stage

The main stage was incredibly fabulous the opening day. A nice atmosphere , you should also check the youtube video post at the insti2te. Everybody was dancing , seemed everyone knew who is playing , the name of the track etc. That was impressive of course, nice people , nice music , perfect lights and a techno big tower in the middle. Unfortunately I didnt get the same impression for the rest of the days there. For instance on Saturday , the day that a big mass of people arrived in the fest (only for one night probably). It was over crowed , sometimes wasnt really possible to dance . An other point was the people were hmm , a bit alienated. They were not even smiling to each other ,something totally different than some other smaller stages. It was like beiing in the middle of nowhere , with unknown people , who are not even help full when someone was falling down , had an accident , was really drunk or whatever…

* cubes stage

The stage I liked the most , I guess. It was decoraded with nice cube iron constractions around the dancefloor (you can also look at the pics of Drofnothing). Minimal techno , house , electro djs were playing all days and nights good stuff , the people were friendly , good dancers etc.

* a stage near to the paradize bar (the main bar? of the festival)

A back yard something like a not announced stage. There sometimes was even better than my favorite cubes. As far as I know it wasnt announced and only faces I know from berlin were often hanging around there. Usually the line up was good electro stuff , some drum n bass and many more genres of every kind.

Well… I cant really write for every stage because all of them together were 12. On the rest of the stages you could find a huge diversity of artists and good sounds as well , such as drum n bass , post rock , dubstep even sometimes jungle and electro bands etc.

* food

All around the festival you could find several food wagons. All of them were selling vegetarian and vegan food such as the wagon burger place , a popular vegan burger. I really liked that wasnt really a place that you could buy meat , I suppose it wasnt tolerated by the organized group of the fest. Generally the food was cheap comparing at least with other festivals

political barrios and workshops.

Except the red communist and antifa flags , some german radical left groups from around Germany were spreading information for different political campaigns or organized workshops. People from media-spree , antifa as well as people who were organizing a couple of workshops concerning gender discrimination problems , helping people who faced sexism or homophobia during the festival and beyond.

* Kino

Several good movies projected at the kino space. One that finally didnt manage to go was the “Berlin calling”

* exhibitions

A lot of exhibitions , theatre performances took place at the “cazino” space and the theatre

some general thoughts about Fusion

Always when I am attending in an alternative festival specifically the last years , i really dont like the environment of the “consuming paradize” , alianation and extreme ignorance?? of the people. Sometimes I was annoyed by these who were throwing bottles , trash all around , making a mess , expecting from others to clean the space afterwards. Finally I attend to believe that it is impossible to create anywhere (at least inside the European states of control) relations based in equality , solidarity and without discrimination.At least not yet. Everything happens for money , everybody accepts that , only a short minority stands against. The relation also of organizers/party consumers , it remains something that only few people are reflecting as well. No questions about autonomy , horizontality or even further discussing for alternatives of life ways. Self management was missing once more. I dont wanna say that it is only the problem of the organizer committee. First “We” are also responsible for what kind of situations wanna build. when some are realizing that , the repression is coming. I think it is time to resist against it again. It is time for the sounds of resistance to occupy the soundsystem again )

As an ending point I would like to express my full Solidarity with the TEKNIVALS , free parades in France and all around the world…