Yesterday I discovered a nice bookstore-café specialized in bande dessinée. I found here the 2 volumes of Jason Lutes’ “Berlin” published by the Italian Coconino Press. So far I’ve read the first volume covering the events from Fall 1928 to the May 1st 1929 police killings or Blutmai. After having visited the exhibition at the Deutsche Historische Museum, reading this novel puts flesh and blood on the mood of different portions of the Weimar Republic society in that turbulent year.
I read the graphic novel partly because of my interest in German history but mainly because of the events now unfolding in Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt. Economic crisis fuel protests and that can lead to positive or autoritarian developments. Velvet revolution. Jasmine revolution. The Maghreb turmoil has been a writing on the wall for so many decades. Everybody would hint to those “masses” of unemployed and desperate youth as a fire waiting for a match to happen. But at the same time it seemed as though the status quo could not change.
Yesterday Moubarak nominated a vice-President. The Western governments, be they France or the US, seem to have been completely surprised by what’s going on. Tirana’s events have been overshadowed by Cairo’s. And we know how much is the world economy sensible to anything happening close to Suez.
All this is happening in the Mediterranean, right in front of our Italian geographic balcony. The international press only talks about this. Italy is sucking its thumb, lost in navel gazing, biting its nails. Italy is being vague, because it is not a very healthy democracy either. If the Maghreb countries cast a glance across the sea to Italy, they can’t really see a good example. Of democracy.
Let’s hope that in the Maghreb the path is not the same of 1929′s Berlin or 1979′s Iran and that El Baradei‘s return to Egypt may catalyze the democratic forces. And maybe Italy will learn something from Egypt, in the end?
NOTE – Blutmai, from Wikipedia: In 1929, the SPD government prohibited the annual May Day workers’ demonstrations in Berlin. The Communist Party, which was the strongest party in Berlin, called demonstrations nonetheless. By the end of the day, 32 demonstrators, workers and bystanders had been killed by the police, at least 80 were seriously injured. The Berlin police, under control of the supposedly pro-labour social democratic government, had fired a total of 11,000 rounds of live ammunition. This incident, remembered in the German language as Blutmai (“Blood May”) deepened the split between the SPD and the Communist Party, which indirectly helped the German right wing parties and the eventual rise of the Nazi Party in the German parliament.
PS – on a cheeky note…The faux amis struck again. In the second volume of this graphic novel, in the Italian translation at page 189, Marxist characters refer to an area of town called “Matrimonio rosso”. Obviously the novel was translated in Italian from English. AAAARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Red Wedding refers to Wedding, the Berlin neighborhood, not the celebration. Another bad translation. Enough!!
Photo: coconino press
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