Hamburg’s G20 Summit: Reflections on the riots and the aftermath
It’s not often one experiences one’s home city thrown into chaos. Just a fortnight ago, that’s exactly what I witnessed in Hamburg. Raging street battles between protesters and police, cars burning, shops looted and property destroyed. With all that considered - it’s amazing no one died.
The following is a collection of my thoughts leading up to, during and following the G20. Although I was broadly in support of some of the protests during the summit, I was mostly there to observe and document a major world event. It was certainly an eye-opening experience.
Background
G20 summits are rarely without scandal. Every year, leaders and central bankers from 19 of the world’s biggest economies (as well as an EU rep and invited guests) converge on a selected city to huddle together in smoky rooms cackling maniacally as they hatch-out evil plans.
Jokes aside, G20 summits are convened with the primary purpose of hashing out international trade agreements and economic growth targets. This year’s summit was held 7–8 July in Hamburg. All of the world’s top leaders were in attendance including some… controversial characters.
Putin, Erdogan and the Saudi royal family are regular summit attendees — each with terrible human rights records, a fondness for suppressing any dissent within their respective societies and clinging to power at almost any cost. With the addition of flaming human garbage pile / 71-year-old baby, Donald Trump, the stage was set for a controversial summit indeed.
Why choose Hamburg to host the summit?
Hamburg is Germany’s second largest city (with approx 1.8 million people) and generally wealthy (Hamburg state has the highest GDP per capita of any federal state in Germany as of 2015). It is one of the most open, liberal cities in the country with a large proportion of left-leaning people. Hamburg’s state parliament has a left-wing majority coalition (72 of the 121 seats) made up of the social democrats (58 seats) and Greens (14 seats).
The city has a lovely harbour, beautiful scenery and a spectacular but absurdly expensive building called the Elbphilharmonie. While it is marvel to behold and great to show off to international visitors, it was completed in 2016, years behind schedule and hundreds of millions of euros over budget. The world’s leaders seemed to like it though!
Merkel’s Gambit
Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel gambled that by hosting the summit in Hamburg (where there was likely to be strong opposition), Germany could showcase to the likes of Putin, Erdogan and world media how open democracies tolerate and peacefully handle protests.
That sure worked out great.
It was particularly egregious that the hosts (including Merkel and Hamburg’s mayor, Olaf Scholz) chose a venue that was smack-bang in the centre of a bustling liberal metropolis with a history of radical protests.
Keep in mind, this kind of parade of capitalism was held less than one kilometre from Sternschanze, Rota Flora and St. Pauli (leftist hotbeds) with little consultation of the populace as to whether they wanted to have 20,000 police (at a cost of at least 32 million Euro) foisted upon them. It was asking for trouble.
In 2015, a referendum was held as to whether Hamburg would like to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. 51.6 percent of the city voted ‘no’ while 48.4 voted ‘yes’. I imagine if they had polled Hamburgers: “Do you want your city to host the 2017 G20 Summit?”, it would have resulted in an overwhelming rejection. What exactly was the upside for the city? Patronage at the local hotels? Extra international media coverage? If the summit had been hosted in, for instance, a small town in Bavaria — organisers could have locked down the surrounding area with minimal disruption to the local populace, saved a chunk of change on security and avoided some of the chaos that eventuated.
Have there been riots at previous summits? Could this have been expected?
Yes and yes. In 2010 in Toronto, a very similar series of events happened. See if any of these quotes from Canadian newspapers sound familiar:
“Police say they did not have the right tactics to effectively handle the Black Bloc.”
“1,118 people were arrested; 39 arrestees reported being injured, five of whom had to be treated in hospital; and 97 police officers were injured.”
“ 40 stores in the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area alone suffered damage.”
Why people protested — some of the issues that bothered people
It was widely reported that there were at least 100,000 protesters during the summit. While many of the organised protests had an anti-capitalist message, there were a range of causes and messages which included pro-refugee and pro-environment marches.
If you don’t think there are many legitimate reasons for people to feel pissed off and protest — you haven’t been paying attention.
Climate change is out of control (we are on track for yet another record hot year), the global concentration of wealth and resources continues unabated (8 men now have the same amount of money as half the globe), Britain is committing a slow drawn-out suicide as it exits Europe. The United States has become a sad joke, lacking legitimacy in international affairs as its leader is more interested in fighting the media via Twitter, enriching himself and his family and playing BFF with Putin than, you know, leading. War rages on in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and a bunch of other countries. The refugee crisis continues…. you get the idea.
Having police take over the city is not only a giant pain but also provocative
It’s quite confronting to find your familiar city streets suddenly occupied by thousands of police. Large portions of the inner-city were shut down, armed police stood at almost every corner, covered in bulky body armour and multiple helicopters buzzed above the city.
Let’s assume that hosting the summit was not a particularly popular idea with locals. Who would be happy with their city’s downtown being shut down for the best part of five days? At very least, it’s massively inconvenient for citizens not to be able to drive their cars through the streets while also facing public transport delays or suspensions. In order to get from A to B, many Hamburgers were walking and biking through clogged streets. This led to people coming in contact with police and protesters when they were simply trying to get home.
Here are a few images of what the police presence looked like.
Just to be clear — I don’t mean to imply the mere presence of the police provoked people to violence. Just that, to me, it kind of felt like Hamburg had suddenly been taken over by the military. Considering that most people didn’t want the summit there in the first place, having police everywhere was bound to get some people stirred up.
Most protests during the summit were peaceful — but naturally media gravitates towards the dramatic and exciting
Make no mistake — shit got real intense around Hamburg between Thursday 6 and Sunday 9 of July. But the talk of riots and burning is really only part of the story.
Here’s a reality; pretty often when big groups of people with opposing viewpoints take to the streets, violence and riots occur. Anyone remember the below scenes?
No? These are riots between Russian and English football fans in Lille, France during Euro 2016. There were fights, riots, injuries, arrests and damage to local businesses.
I have worked as a journalist for a breaking news website in New Zealand. I have been in and around media for nearly a decade. If you are a journalist covering this stuff, people dancing and holding up signs peacefully doesn’t get clicks and attention; people burning shit does. Some media reports gave an accurate impression of what went down, while others exaggerated or misrepresented the overall picture in Hamburg. There was plenty of chaos. It’s just that overall, the violent protesters got disproportionate attention. That led to friends contacting me from abroad asking: “Are you okay?”, when everything was just fine.
The majority of protests and protesters that I saw were peaceful. These were people who felt compelled to do something but didn’t wish to fight police or cause destruction. I went to the Rave G20 on Wednesday 5 of July. It involved 30,000 predominantly young people walking through the streets accompanied by trucks and vans blasting dance music. To my knowledge, there were no incidents between police and demonstrators. It was a group of people having a good time but still showing they didn’t agree with Hamburg hosting the summit or the direction the world is heading.
Here are just a couple of photos I took of peaceful protests throughout the summit.
When does one cross the line from protester to criminal? Thuggish behaviour from some of the Black Bloc
Who are the Black Bloc? They are protesters with an anarchist, anti-fascist or anti-capitalist bent who cover themselves and their faces with sunglasses, scarves, bandannas and other dark clothing items to conceal their identity. Because they often move in big groups, their outfits makes it difficult to distinguish between individuals. Hence, if they get involved in any mischief, it’s difficult for them to be caught and prosecuted.
In German law, it is illegal to cover your face when you are on the streets (and there some obvious good reasons for this). Some of the confrontations with police occurred when the police ordered the Black Bloc to remove their masks and the protesters refused.
I did find it interesting, given the law, that when the police wear their helmets (which are for protection against projectiles), it is often very difficult to distinguish between one officer and another. Some of the officers did have identity numbers (particularly on their backs to help other police know which unit they were from) but individual identity tags were often not visible (particularly when police were running en masse towards protesters).
Sometimes, when an individual feels anonymous amongst a crowd, they may feel empowered to behave in a way they wouldn’t usually. This may manifest itself in people enacting violence against people or property without fear of reprisals or repercussions.
In the video link below, it’s somewhat ironic that these Black Bloc members would describe themselves as “anti-fascist” as they engage in activity that looks highly reminiscent of a band of terrorists.
I don’t precisely know what the objectives of these BB protesters was (fuck the system?) but it seemed to me that at least some of these guys were out for the thrill of destruction. I saw BB members cutting stones from the pavement (presumably to throw at someone or something) and others smashing windows. Burning people’s vehicles and terrifying members of the public by strolling around vigilante-style, looting and creating mayhem damages not only your own cause, but left-wing protests in general.
I have read online forums in which people bragged about the damage they had caused during the protests. I understand the logic of ‘disrupting the system’ but wantonly destroying neighbourhoods and people’s vehicles in Hamburg (particularly Schanze), is not only fucking dumb, it’s criminal, thuggish behaviour and those caught should be prosecuted.
The behaviour of the police
In most instances of my nearly two years in Germany, I’ve seen the police handle protests like bosses. Protest organisers simply need to give the local govt fair warning of when they plan to protest, and police vehicles will escort the marchers at the front and rear. The logic is that their presence will clear the streets ahead and basically keep things orderly.
Although Germany police carry guns on their hips (unlike New Zealand police who only have them in their vehicles), they are not the police we are used to seeing in American shows like Cops — screaming and pointing their guns in people’s faces. In fact, they are well trained and won’t easily escalate situations unnecessarily, at least in my experience. When some Black Bloc guys were in Schanze firing projectiles at police with slingshots, it was not surprising that police eventually sent in the German equivalent of a S.W.A.T team to restore order. One officer fired a warning shot but otherwise ,thankfully, nobody was shot or killed.
Although I was impressed by the restraint shown by Germany police overall, I did also witness examples of police brutality (just search YouTube). After several days of dealing with tens of thousands of protesters, many of whom were throwing bottles at them, some police responded badly.
German police aren’t equipped with guns to fire rubber bullets but they do employ pepper spray, tear gas and water cannons. Given that they don’t have that many distance-weapons, to scare of protesters, they would often resort to charging forward in groups, swinging their clubs wildly. I got the impression that sometimes they swung their clubs, without knowing for sure who they were hitting or whether that person had actually done anything wrong. There are videos of journalists (who wore helmets and tags identifying themselves) being shoved over and police beating protesters viciously.
Saying that police are justified in hitting people because the police told them they should move is complete bullshit. There are situations wherestre ets need to be cleared (such as if ambulances need to get to sick people) and in those instances, I can understand police issuing repeated warning before firing off their water cannons to disburse protesters. However, all steps should be taken to avoid escalating the situation. Officers who overstep the mark should also be condemned and disciplined. You don’t get a free pass for committing acts of unnecessary violence just because you wear a uniform.
Phones Out — the spectacle of destruction
There was a moment as I was walking along one of the main streets of Hamburg, crowded together with hundreds of others observers, journalists, protesters and the like and I stopped to take stock. We were observing a major battle between police and protesters (predominantly Black Bloc). Guys hurled bottles, defiantly flipped the bird and otherwise yelled and chanted (“Ganz Hamburg hass die Polizei” “All of Hamburg hates the police”) at the advancing police force.
I’m a big fan of the mesmerising and scarily prescient show, Black Mirror. In the second season, an episode called White Bear dealt with how removed we can become from events happening in front of us when we are separated by electronic screens. You can see the trailer for the episode here but the below screenshot gives an idea of what the episode looked like.
The spectacle of the clashes between police and protesters was so outside of any of my previous experiences that I was almost spellbound. Like the majority of observers (either protesters or rubberneckers), I had my phone in front of my face. Was this because I realised I couldn’t effect the outcome of what was occurring in front of me and just wanted to capture it? Partly. I also wanted to share what I was witnessing with friends and family. One would hope that the bystander effect doesn’t become too powerful because if we see something terrible going down and we have the ability to do something — we really should. Mobs of us were moving along the street watching and filming, and there was just something that felt deeply weird about this.
Are protests effective?
I was at a peaceful protest by the St. Pauli UBahn station on the afternoon of Saturday July 8, when a Canadian journalist interviewed me about why I was there and whether protests ultimately work. After all, she asked, didn’t millions of people around the world march against the War in Iraq in 2003? What did that achieve? That unjust, illegal war based on lies, resulted in a country being destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people losing their lives, the region destabilised etc etc etc.
Reflecting on these facts — why protest? Does holding signs and marching actually achieve anything?
I would argue that sometimes, civil disobedience is necessary in order to bring about change. To attract media and, by extension, public attention — there often needs to be some form of disruption. When a great injustice is perpetuated, the reaction of normal citizens cannot only be limited to online petitions or holding signs. Civil disobedience may come in the form of strikes, occupying areas or blocking roads. While these actions may inconvenience some people, when we reflect on historical movements (black civil rights, the LGBT community, climate activists etc) the nature of bringing about change is that there needs to be action that rattles the status quo.
What should be strongly emphasised is that protests, must, at all times, remain peaceful. Perhaps it is inevitable that when protesters disrupt a part of society, whether it be critical infrastructure, a major business or whatever — police or security will be dispatched to restore order. If the police have to clear a road to allow vehicles to move past, I ultimately don’t have much a problem with that - as long police behave in a calm and civil manner. I guess that the process of removing people from public spaces inherently creates a tense atmosphere and that’s when situations often escalate quickly. I’ve had a few discussions with friends since G20 and some were of the view — if the police tell you to leave a street, you should just do it. Really? If people are peacefully occupying an area, they should always immediately leave or risk immediate violence?
One extremely important takeaway from all that occurred — was that there was not one death. According to this source, nearly 500 police were injured over the three day event. Some of these ‘injuries’ included things like exhaustion, overheating or bumps and bruises. There was also apparently one officer whose eyesight was damaged by a laser pointer and others who were burnt by fireworks. The number of protester injuries is unknown but I’d imagine it was similarly in the hundreds.
The aftermath: Clean up.
The heartwarming coming together of a community
By midday on July 9, teams of volunteers, as well as the the city cleaning crews, had already cleared up riot hotspots of detritus. Schanze was looking even more tidy than usual! Shop windows and rubbish bins were replaced and the hordes of police slowly began to withdraw. The helicopters returned to their bases and Hamburg was once again, at peace. The ructions created in the city would however, far outlast the short summit.
Thanks for reading, if you have any comments or questions — please let me know.
