May Day @Berlin

F Fontecilla Gutierrez
May 1, 2019
2 min read

On May 1st, many countries in the world celebrate International's Labor Day. The festivity was officially recognized at the second International Socialist Labor Congress (Belgium, 1989) and it aims to pay homage to labor workers, the working class, and the struggles of the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, were workers went on a strike for a 8-hour-workday. One of the trademarks of Berlin, in popular discourse, is that of protests and demonstrations. Being the capital of Germany, Berlin hosts constant protest for a wide variety of issues, and May Day is not exempt of it.

The history of May Day in Berlin goes back to 1920s. While open demonstrations were banned in 1924, May 1st riots between communist and police resulted in injuries and death of around 100 people in an event known as "Blutmai" (Bloody May). In the 1980s, Kreuzberg, an immigrant, poor neighborhood of West Berlin became the center of protests and demonstration concerned with the development challenges of the area. In 1987, however, violence broke out between the police and the protesters. A Turkish supermarket was burned to the ground and other 30 shops had been destroyed. This became an ongoing conflict, and in 1988 around 10,000 people rallied chanting: "No liberation without revolution" which again ended with riots. Ever since that May Day has been commemorated, celebrated, and used as an opportunity to bring awareness about issues of labor workers, working class, gentrification, and economic disparity.

So what happens in 2019 in May 1st? Today, May Day hosts two significant events. On the one hand there are the political protests that occur, and on the other hand there is MyFest which is more of a cultural and artistic event. This year, I visited MyFest in Kreuzberg, which for me started the moment I jumped into the uBahn (the subway). The area of Kreuzberg in between the uBahn stations Kotbusser Tor and Gorlitzer park is closed to the traffic, and it turns into a big street party with vendors, drinks, live music, and hundreds of people walking side to side enjoying the privileges that prior generations of labor activists had built for us.

Since is a public holiday, and given good weather conditions (which there were not this year), people go out to the parks and hang out with their families and friends. Have a beer around the streets on Berlin and chill. Check out in the gallery below some of the pictures I captured during May Day in Berlin.