bloggi’s observations

A Call for Action

First things first: I would like to ask you, who have the chance to take their protest to the streets of Pittsburgh, to try a new form of protest. I think, here in Germany a new tool for protest has developed that could change the course of history of protests. The non-violent, political flashmob.

What happened

Last week, at two different occasions, the Chancellor of Germany, Mrs. Merkel, delivered a speech in the run up for the national general elections at a rally of her conservative party, CDU. At both venues, she was met with a completely innovative approach to protest by a spontaneous flashmob.

A crowd had spontaneously agreed to form a flashmob, first in Wuppertal, then in Hamburg, that spread out well amongst the audience. Their strategy: Whenever Merkel had concluded a sentence they would extati cally cheer "Yeeeeeeah!". The ritual repeated a few dozen times at each of the venues, and eventually Mrs. Merkel felt obliged to welcome her "friends from the Internet" - which assuered coverage on German national prime time news TV.

video from the Hamburg rally

The charm of the new approach to protest

Unlike other forms of confrontational protest, this approach can hardly be countered with violent means. It is not a systematic disturbance, it has not the least potential for violent escalation, yet the ironical component of exaggerated approval and cheering clearly shows disapproval in its most essential format: contempt. Even so, every hypothesis by the speaker (Frau Merkel in this case) is answered only with a short staccato of sacrastic disapproval. The discourse can go on, even if not as planned by the speaker.

This kind of negative applause therefore could evolve into one of the most efficient forms of protest ever invented. The official speaker simply has no means to confront the formally approving (yet sarcastic) crowd by aggressive means.

How the story evolved

According to German blog Spreeblick everything started with a photo taken from a CDU billboard in Hamburg on September 11, published on flickr according to the post on Spreeblick, a hand written note on the billboard written by an unknown passer by had created considerable amusement in the German blogosphere. The note read "und alle so: Yeah!" ("all shout out yeah"), and meant to criticized the all but completely blood empty campaign of Mrs. Merkel's CDU party, showing such important solutions as "we have the pow er" ("WIR haben die Kraft").

Eventually, in a comment, a blogger by the name of Edgar asked whether there could not be a spontaneous flashmob using this slogan. Spreeblick's editors took it upon them to create a mixtape with the "Und Alle so: Yeeeah"-song, while appointments were made in Hamburg and Wuppertal to create flashmobs - in many cases supported by the still rudimentary but seemingly functional local chapters of the anti-copywrong political party Die Piraten (the Pirates).

the mixtape song

The result in terms of media coverage was quite impressive, and begs an adaptation in some form or another in Pittsburgh.

Postscriptum: here in Germany, people have started to use the #uasy hashtag on twitter.

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