Abstract
Around the early 2000s, the periodic riots in Hamburg’s inner-city neighbourhood of Sternschanze changed profoundly. For decades, these riots constituted struggles between state authorities and militant anarchists of the autonome Szene (autonomous scene), entwined around resistance to consumer capitalism, control and police repression, and contestations over the production and use of urban space. However, the rapid gentrification of Sternschanze — which has turned from a lower-class area into a popular nightlife district and expensive neighbourhood for the bohemian middle class in recent years (Naegler, 2012) — also changed the character and public perception of the riots. Over the years, the agitated evocations of supposed terrorist threats caused by militant ‘black bloc’ anarchists that used to interfuse the public discourse on riots were replaced by moral outrage about adolescent, apolitical rioters vandalising the gentrified, hip and trendy neighbourhood. This notion became so popular in public discourse that a new term came into being to describe these young people: they are the so-called erlebnisorientierte Jugendliche (thrill-seeking youth). The term is exclusively meant for those teenagers who participate in riots not out of any political motivation but for the sake of the adrenaline rush, excitement and pleasure found in violence and vandalism.
Dear anonymous … rioter,
I was there when you came to … [Sternschanze] for the May-First weekend, with backpacks full of stones and accelerants. With Mom’s subway ticket from the [well-off] suburbs, head full of cheap booze and few real ideas. Where you are, social life dies. Discourse dies. Because your goal is chaos, violence. Destruction. I watched you, as you cowardly hid under your expensive, branded pullover and once again senselessly rioted in [my neighbourhood]. I watched you as you brainlessly [destroyed] the property of the small people. You photographed each other proudly in front of the destroyed bank counters, in front of the water cannons. Pictures of scum […] You, pubertal suburb-guerilla, how dare you brush ‘revolution’ on the… [walls] which we once struggled free?! (residents’ open letter to The Hamburger Abendblatt, 2010)
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Naegler, L. (2014). The Ritual of Insurrection and the ‘Thrill-Seeking Youth’. An Instant Ethnography of Inner-City Riots in Germany. In: Pritchard, D., Pakes, F. (eds) Riot, Unrest and Protest on the Global Stage. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-30553-4_9
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