Maybe it’s because I’m leaving, but Berlin seems even more politically alive than usual at the moment. Today, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of students have been on the streets, as [part](http://www.taz.de/1/zukunft/wissen/artikel/1/bildung-statt-banken/) of a week-long [strike](http://www.bildungsstreik-berlin.de/page/index.php?show=call) against attempts to privatize and charge for education.
The government response has been, rather pathetically, to [call them](http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,630965,00.html) ‘behind the times’. Bleating that markets = modernization = good was pretty shaky at the best of times, but now it seems positively ludicrous. And the students’ [demands](http://www.bildungsstreik-berlin.de/page/index.php?show=call) are much saner:
– Self-directed life and learning
– Free access to education, and the abolition of tuition fees, training fees, and childcare costs
– Public financing of the education system, without corporate influence
– Democratization of educational institutions, and strengthening of their self-government
I went along to support the Berlin demonstration earlier today, and found myself strangely weepy. I don’t know if they can win, mind, given the current hopelessness of the SPD and the rest of the European centre-left.
From a more radical corner, the squatting scene is [headed for a busy week](http://rockstar.blogsport.de/2009/05/27/heisser-juni/). [One place](http://brunnen183.blogsport.de/) is due for eviction tomorrow — and then on Saturday comes [something more ambitious](http://tempelhof.blogsport.de/) — a massive, and pre-announced, attempt to squat the currently disused Tempelhof airport. It sounds insane, but I’m gradually coming to see the logic of it. Turning an abandoned space into a temporary hippie playground appeals both to my head and my heart.