Demonstration at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Photo supplied by author.
Red banners on the windows, hammocks in the hallway, and each day a flurry of workshops, strategy meetings and movie screenings announced on a noticeboard in the foyer. The Institute of Social Sciences at Humboldt University appears busier than ever and yet no lectures are taking place here. As of now, the political situation in Berlin is tense and the Institute is in the midst of a student occupation.
In every occupation there is something of the commune. Wherever activists attempt to reappropriate a place into a co-operative space, things that were previously difficult to imagine very rapidly become normal. Students with no previous organisational experience have taken up roles in press, communications, and welfare teams. The toilets are gender-neutral. A vegan kitchen is open at all hours by the staircase. But there is nothing utopian about this space; rather it is an explicit protest against a state of affairs increasingly shifting to the disadvantage of students.
