They’re damn serious. Fridays for Future in Berlin

Fridays for Future in Berlin. More than 20,000 young people went on strike at the Brandenburg Gate.

As Mobile Journalist I accompanied four young girls. And I am deeply touched.

Report by Sibylle Trost, Berlin, 2019, March, 29. #sibylletrostberlin #sibylletrostjournalism #JournalistsForFuture #FridaysForFutureBerlin #FridaysForFuture #mediaforfuture

They’re singing. Like us back then. Only their lyrics are different. Hooray, this world is coming to an end!

Mid 50’s. White. Greedy and sluggish. Are we: the people who ruined the planet? The parents who present the young generations with a rocked-out world? Exploited, ruined, full of garbage. Plastic waste, CO2, nuclear waste. A world that 5 to 18-year-olds are afraid of. Because: “There is no Planet B.”

Natural disasters, hurricanes, stranding whales. Not local history with buttercups.

Since first grade the generation of our children has been exposed to carefully color corrected documentaries about jeans in Asia, child soldiers, slave labour, stranded whales, drowning Africans, white men selling extermination systems, autonomous weapons drones, nuclear accidents, businessmen in black suits, waffling politicians, poles melting, natural disasters, hurricanes. Isn’t that to startle at night? What contents did the old people in primary school grow up with? Local history with buttercups. Shouldn’t we thank the pupils for driving us out of the obesity of our brains? “Switching off does not mean your brain”, a handwritten poster shows.

“There is no Planet B.”

“We’re here, we’re loud because you’re stealing our future!” This Friday about 25,000 children and teenagers pass the capital studios of the public broadcasters, the offices of all parties of the Bundestag and the Brandenburg Gate through Berlin. Here they are waiting for Greta Thunberg, the icon of a protest movement that did not exist in Germany after reunification. Thirty years ago, young people stormed the Wall. Today, young people are standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate. It is the anger of the young that drives a society forward. Occasionally wrinkled people, grandmas, grandpas, parents. What did they fight for when they were thirteen or fourteen?

Greta says: “They just pat on our heads, saying ‘everything will be fine, don´t worry’.

Greta Thunberg has now arrived at the Brandenburg Gate. Still in the train she posted a photo. 180,000 Likes. She talks about us. The generation of parents who like to say “don´t worry”, who managed to leave the earth as a scrap heap of civilization. Greta says: “They just pat on our heads, saying ‘everything will be fine, don´t worry’. But we should worry. We shold panic, and by panic I don´t mean running around screaming. By panic I mean stepping out of our comfort zone, because when you are in a crisis, you change your behaviour. I once again want to thank you all for being here again. We are sharing a common goal: We want a future, is that too much to ask for?!”

Should the post-traumatic satiety disorder of all baby boomers of the sixties be treated by the cash register?

“Climate Justice – Now!”, the young people chant with clear faces. “Yes, we can do something! And the old? Have they fallen into a hypnosis of capitalism, into an amnesia of special offers? Hello, wake up! Collecting plastic in the yellow barrel is not enough. Must the posttraumatic satiety disorder of all baby boomers of the sixties be treated by the cash register?

“Leave the earth so that after you it will be a fertile place for seven generations.”

An Indian proverb says: “Leave the earth so that after you it will be a fertile place for seven generations”. Seven generations instead of none.

“Our children are our future” – an advertising slogan of the German solidarity principle?

I accompanied four teenagers on the FridaysForFuture march in Berlin. I saw them smiling, laughing, jumping, shouting, and I also saw them very thoughtfully, bowing their heads to the pavement.

Where, I ask myself, has the sentence actually gone: “Our children are our future”? Just an advertising slogan of the German solidarity principle? As we continue to talk instead of acting, I hardly believe that our children without a future will fill the pension coffers for us so that we can make ourselves really comfortable on Fuerte or Malle (like the war generation of our parents, but at least they have…) after all the exhausting consumption.

Hello, wake up! Mid 50s, white. Greedy and sluggish. Are we?

Report by Sibylle Trost, Journalist, Berlin

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