Berlin: The famous Kopi squat. The banner reads: "Kopi is and remains risk capital."
To take part in the new favourite sport of Berlin’s anti-capitalist fringe, all you need is a disposable barbecue set, some matches and a fast pair of legs.
The objective is to scare the wealthy away from the old city centre by burning their cars. The rules go like this. First, you single out an expensive vehicle in a gentrifying area – Mercedes are the most popular targets. Then you light the barbecue set, slide it under the car and run.
A burnt car being hauled in Berlin
Making a mark: the car-burning spree in Berlin has led to political debate
Such attacks on vehicles are now so common – there have been more than 200 in the past six months – that some Berliners even use them as a way of gauging whether an area is up-and-coming. The more burnings there have been in an area, the more desirable it must be to the new wealthy.
Incidents have taken place across the city, but as www.brennende-autos.de, a website that maps the city’s daily toll of car burnings, demonstrates, they cluster overwhelmingly in the central districts of Kreuzberg, Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, where the handsome streets of art nouveau tenements have become a battleground between wealthy incomers, poor long-term residents and the first wave of middle-income gentrifiers sandwiched in between.
While some arson attacks may be random acts of vandalism, the locations of many burnt cars, which are in areas of intense gentrification, suggest clear political intent.
With few arrests made, the attacks are proving a headache for residents and police. Last year, when the burning spree had just begun, Dieter Glietsch, Berlin’s chief of police, said: “Don’t park your Porsche in Kreuzberg.” His advice caused outrage among rightwing politicians, who accused him of capitulating to the arsonists.
The burning spree also earned criticism for Klaus Wowereit, Berlin’s charismatic mayor, who some feel is not doing enough to counter the leftist extremists in the city.
But not even burnt-out BMWs, it seems, can halt the embourgeoisement that is turning districts of Berlin into the equivalent of New York’s Brooklyn or London’s Clerkenwell.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/690acc60-e03a-11de-8494-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=672232c6-1385-11de-9e32-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
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