Just Me and 120,000 of my Closest Friends

A big part of the political culture here in Germany is protesting, or I should say, active participation in government.  More so than anything I have seen in the US, but that may also stem from the fact that Berlin is the capital of Germany.  On my previous trips to Berlin was able to see some "protesting" in action for various causes ranging from education grievances, squatter rights, and farmers unions.  Most of these were large by my standards about 200 to 5,000 people, give or take, again not a formal count on these but recently I was able to attend a very large protest against Nuclear Power Plants.  At this protest or "demo" as it is referred to in German, there were 120,000 people in Berlin and over 250,000 people at protests that day in various German cities.  It had more of a concert atmosphere rather than a serious political protest, there was a band, a stage, and long lines for Beer and Pretzels, interspersed with crowd chanting "Abschalten" , loosely translated as close down.  On one hand it was exhilarating to be surrounded by so many people with similar beliefs in a fun atmosphere, but on the other almost surreal to be surrounded by people chanting together fists raised, and all kinds of people from kids to seniors.  A noteworthy event non the less, and definitely a lesson learned in Democracy.  Because of the protests, key elections were decided the next day in 2 German States.  In one of them, Baden-Wurtemberg, a conservative stronghold in southern Germany, they will have a Governor for the first time from the Green Party.  The Green Party in Germany is pretty powerful but it has never achieved this before, the results were overwhelming and partly had a lot to do with the power of the collective.  Due to such poor performance by the leading Conservative parties, Angela Merkel, the leader of Germany, has also spoken out against Nuclear Power and Germany is now on the way to closing most of its Nuclear Power Plants.  All in all was pleased to have been apart of the movement here and see how a large group of people, when they are motivated, can affect change.