Flashmob Riots as a Tactic for Free Palestine on the Streets of Neukölln, Berlin

A few hundred protestors hide, well dispersed across a plaza in Neukölln. Everything looks normal, Berliners drinking beer in the park, people walking their dogs. Someone suddenly shouts “From the River to the Sea” and from dozens of locations, people emerge towards each other, putting kuffieyeh’s over their heads and responding “Palestine will be free.” In a matter of seconds, we are hundreds blocking the busy street. Pretty soon there will be fireworks, dumpsters lit, and barricades built all accross the neighborhood. We do this night after night, becoming more dangerous every time.

Neukölln is home to one of the largest Palestinian populations outside of the Middle East. It is full of arabs and gentrifying hipsters. There are old men drinking strong and sweet black tea all day, who offer refuge in their shops to anyone who shouts free Palestine. When a flashmob is called, young arab people kick off the action, with fury and bravery that belongs to those who know the nature of our enemy.

While the people descend, disabled Palestinians in wheelchairs row down the street holding flares, screaming chants in arabic, fearless. The cops chase us and we fight them off as best as we can. They grab many of us but we keep going. We are desperate, yes we are angry, we are unprepared and unsafe in our tactics, but we do not despair. While the chaos emerges, queers hang around at bars and sometimes spontaneously join the schmob. Internationalist radicals come in black block, looking to support the decentralized schmobbing which will inevitably erupt, over and over. Waiting for a cue, they listen to the streets – follow the noise so they can place their bodies where helpful, collecting the names of arrestees, filming the violence of the police.

Initially our “schmobs” lasted 20, 30 even 40 minutes, defeating the cops attempts to stop us for quite some time, but recently, the riots last shorter and rapidly disperse into dozens of decentralized actions, each lasting between 30 seconds and 5 minutes. The state is now more prepared, and dozens of riot cops and vehicles are ready in the neighborhood every night. There are zionist reporters and snitches around filming us. But the people don’t stop trying, even as so many of us get detained, arrested and beat. Still, the cops are baffled, confused and stumbling in the streets. We have all committed ourselves and repeat: if Gaza burns, Berlin burns.

We emerge, we disperse, we emerge, the cops chase us, we disperse, we emerge.

After the police break up the march, hundreds of people scatter through the neighborhood, and you can typically hear fireworks and chanting coming from many directions. Groups of 3, 5 or 15 dispersed protestors will re-emerge wherever they find themselves together and with spirit, sending the police running back and forth. Someone spreads a text message that says “Round two, meet @ location.”  People rest for a while, have some tea, eat some fries, go back to looking inconspicuous. We give nods to the people that we know, know, as we drink our Fritz Cola. We ask them “round 2?”  “see you there.” “Be safe, be brave.”  And in 25 minutes, we emerge again, back with our numbers. We repeat for a round three.

We joke that the cops can’t tell us apart, many of us are Arab and the police are racist, others hide their faces and rapidly change outfit. But we know how to recognize each other. We may have never had a conversation, but we can tell who is one of us.

This exact scene and course of events has happened many times now. Night after night, we go back and try again. Initially it was called a “flashmob.” More recently, as the fires have burned stronger and the barricades have been bigger, people have call it a “riot.” Between friends, we call the tactic “schmobbing” and ask each other “will you schmob tonight?” with smiles on our faces. But what is happening on Sonnenallee is something rather novel, extremely powerful, and very dangerous — both for ourselves and for the crumbling legitimacy of the police and german statraison. When we get home, we watch in awe and horror at the livestreams on instagram, knowing that they will be used to incriminate us and our comrades. We go home with some of our friends still in custody, knowing that a massive wave of repression will likely descend upon the movement following all of this. We go home, yet we come back.

For anyone who is unaware, Germany is a particuarly hostile place for those who are pro-palestinian. You can be arrested for saying “From the river to the sea” or “Yallah Intifada.” At the anti-Israeli occupation protest camp (Besetzung gegen Besatzung), the police outright banned the public speaking of arabic, and arrested people for doing so. Many activists have had their houses raided, and many of us, including Israeli Jews themsleves, have been doxxed in mainstream German Newspapers, where we are understood as a dangerous network of “Israel Haters.” The majority of the German left has totally disavowed the movement, buying into the state narrative that equates anti-zionism with anti-semitism. It is within this context, that the schmob has emerged.

The schmobbing creates the most ungovernable space that I have ever witnessed. While walking around observing, you’ll notice lines of riot police marching in every direction, confused, angry and panicked, while people in local shops boo them away. You will hear a group of protestors around the corner dragging barricades into the street, the cops will start running toward them, but the protestors will be gone by the time the cops arrive.  Then they disperse, regroup, re-emerge, cause more chaos, rest before round 2 or 3.

I do not know how many people will get charges, lose their visa status, get kicked of the country, or their university. I am aware that many of us are not practicing safer street-tactics and most people are not covering their face as they set the city ablaze. We don’t know if “schmobbing” is strategical, it is often frustrating. Waves of anxiety and deep sadness often follow. Maybe this makes no sense at all. But the utter willingness to fight the police, to take back a moment of power, to express our collective rage, to scream our collective cry, is in itself, radically beautiful. Either way, things are changing. Fascist Germany is taking hold and the resistance is strong. Palestine is freeing us. We will burn Berlin, until Gaza is free.