Together again – that’s the motto of the Technoparade “Rave the Planet”, which is to be held this Saturday as a new edition of the Loveparade through the streets of Berlin. So together again, that’s nice, that sounds like falling into each other’s arms after more than two years of pandemic and almost 20 years of abstinence from the Berlin Love Parade.
25,000 people are said to rave from Kurfürstendamm to the Victory Column, accompanied by colorful trucks playing loud techno. Garbage, noise, route closures – does that have to be?, some Berliners will ask themselves. “Fun brakes!” counter others. But you don’t have to be against fun or blocked roads to not like the “new Love Parade”.
The event, which is registered as a political demonstration, is organized by Loveparade founder Dr. Moth. When he led a handful of ravers through West Berlin for the first time in the summer of 1989, his motto was “Peace, Joy, Pancakes” – a political vagueness that the Love Parade never let go of.
This year, too, the demands read rather nonsensically – for example those after a public holiday as “Day of Electronic Dance Music Culture”.
There are plenty of issues that are worth taking to the streets for: Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, climate change, and the misogynist abortion policy in the USA are just a few examples.
Of course, someone at the parade will shout “Stop the war!” through a microphone and assure them that a sign for peace is being set – but the fact that there are any speeches at this demo is only thanks to Berlin’s rules: Dr. Motte complained publicly that the city was forcing him to include speeches in the program so that the event passed as a political demonstration.
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The fight for club culture is also justified. In Berlin, clubs were recognized as cultural sites last year and thus have more rights – this is by no means the case everywhere in Germany. But perhaps a professional youth over 60 is not the right advocate for a young scene that would like to be taken more seriously.
Especially since Motte turned the Loveparade into a commercial mass event in the course of the nineties, which ultimately lost its status as a political demonstration.
Parties don’t have to be political. But if they are already marching through the capital as a demonstration, they could be used to send a real signal for democracy and freedom – with a little more claim than “Peace, joy, back together.”
