Ranting, Protesting, and Reflecting in Berlin Amid Political Uncertainty
© Betsy van Drie, Berlin (2025)
As the 2025 elections in Germany approach, Betsy van Drie reflects on her few weeks in Berlin, a city where conversations seem to happen everywhere – over dinner, in the park, or during a quick U-Bahn ride. During her time in the city, the political climate and personal experiences unexpectedly intertwined, offering insight into both the shifting landscape around her and her place within it.
People looked at me in surprise: “Berlin? In February?” – and the inevitable question – “Why?”
Yes, Berlin is not a city designed to charm you. It’s not there to win you over – it’s just there. Big, grey, and arguably quite dreary. But finding myself in between jobs, feeling like something should happen, I call all my friends who live there – I buy my ticket without a return date. Having time with friends, I realize, is a luxury I wasn’t aware of when we all lived in the same place.
I’m lucky – the weather, for Berlin in winter, is great. I walk a lot, and the blue skies make the grey buildings seem almost scenic. Maybe because it’s so big, its streets so grey, and its history almost unreal, Berlin can feel limitless, as if you can be anyone. No one cares – the city for sure doesn’t – so you can decide anything for yourself. I’m thinking while watching someone do their workout in a riding metro, while no one else seems to pay attention.
February 6, 2025: How to be leftist in times like these?
I’m having dinner with G. at her place in Kreuzberg. An apartment that would have amazed our teenage dreams. High ceilings (which, as a Dutch person, I can’t accept as normal – “why do you have such low houses when you’re such tall people?” – “…probably because it’s cheaper?”), beautiful big spaces with loft-like furniture, bought by her rich flatmate, but which we can enjoy the riches of.
G. tells the story of a friend she recently brought to a dinner party. The friend didn’t know the hosts, or anyone else for that matter, but suddenly started ranting about the privileges of the people in the room – and how they weren’t dealing with them correctly. Suddenly, G. found herself in the middle of friends, all on the left, criticizing each other for how they were being leftist.
Now G. is gearing up for a rant. “Why do we all need to be the ideal left person? Why do these conversations always turn out this way? Of course,” she says, “it’s necessary to look at the privileges people have and why. But why is the focus always on how someone is doing leftism wrong?”
We laugh at how, on the political left, we critique ourselves, the so-called movement, what we’re doing and not doing. “Maybe leftist people are just that – critical. Our downfall.”
I hadn’t realized the timing of my visit. Walking through Berlin, the upcoming elections are undeniably close. Posters are everywhere, and protests have been ongoing. The week before I arrived, the so-called ‘firewall’ around the extreme-right was broken. For the first time the Christian Democrats (CDU), traditionally a large power-bloc in Germany, relied on support of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to pass anti-migration legislation. In response, huge protests erupted all over Germany, also in Berlin, to condemn and resist this shift in politics. The future seems bleak – “I’d rather die from climate change than a fascist uprising,” we joke. With the AfD polling second, just behind the CDU, their anti-immigration rhetoric is pushing German politics further into the right corner, making the comparison to 1933 a bit too easy. G: “It’s fucking abhorrent, what they’re trying to do”.
G. and I talk about the anti-immigration laws, now passing in both our countries. “Even Merkel,” G. says, “has now spoken out against this. But how are we suddenly reminiscing about her now?” Angela Merkel stepped down as Chancellor in 2021 after 16 years in office and now, her cautious, centrist policies seem almost comforting in contrast to the current political climate. “I mean, how sad has this become?”
We decide G. needs a podcast; to do some political ranting.
February 9, 2025: An East-German Heart
The sun is out. Meeting my friend J. at Treptow Park in East-Berlin for a walk (“One of the few places in Berlin, where you can actually have a nice walk,” she texts). My ride over there is an hour underground - reading on the U-Bahn, my new favorite, Amy Key’s Arrangements in Blue (2023); putting on the earrings I bought earlier, feels like I live here.
We hadn’t seen each other in two years, hadn’t even been in much contact, yet conversation flows as it always had. From ‘what-are-you-doing’ to ‘but-how-are-you-doing’ – and how those two are intertwined . There’s something intimate about reflecting on life with a person you hold dear but who isn’t part of your everyday – allowing yourself to look at what you’re doing from a distance, to appreciate what they’ve been up to for the times in-between.
We walk along the river, more into the park. But she suddenly changes route, – “I have to show you something.” We pass through a large gate, where we have to hussle through an entire Italian high school that seemingly just arrived, and when we come out, I see that the trees are now perfectly symmetric - “True Soviet design,” J. says.
The path leads to an opening, where more trees are aligned in a circle. We turn left and walk up to a huge monument. At the end, massive sculptures in black stone are on either side of the path, representing two kneeled soldiers. Stairs lead up to a huge open space, where more massive monuments in heavy black stone arise. The monument is a memorial for all Soviet soldiers who died during the Second World War. It was also the place for a large protest against rightwing-extremism during the Reunification of Germany in 1990, J. tells me.
“I always feel calm here,” J. says, “maybe it’s the symmetry but maybe it’s just my East-German heart going” - and J. pounds heavily on her chest as if her heart will break out. We laugh.
J. is impressive. Since I’ve known her, she’s always been working on multiple things at once, always open to new experiences, new people. We met while studying in Amsterdam, but even then, she was already setting up political participation projects in Germany, constantly travelling back and forth. Turns out, the project she started back then was a success. They’re now working on institutionalizing it.
The project brings constituents of a certain district together in a round table to be in direct contact with their representative in the Bundestag. It’s a form of direct democracy – “I’m still not sure if I’m really for it,” J. admits. Years before, we studied philosophy and discussed the importance of pluralism for democracy, but always in theory. “When you see it in front of you, such diverse people discussing politics – it’s really beautiful at times, but it’s also incredibly difficult.”
February 10, 2025: Throw some tomatoes!
Having dinner with my friend H. in Moabit. The restaurant was empty, except for the two of us, allowing some space for conversation. For thinking out loud.
H. works now at a youth theater in Berlin as a dramaturg. She’d just returned from a conference for German theater makers and dramaturgs in Nürnberg – and she was annoyed.
“And then this author, of course, a middle-aged white man, says,” – as H. mimics the man’s mannerism perfectly – “Why, why don’t we get agitated anymore?” She moves her hands heavily and makes a face as if life has been especially hard for him. “Why don’t we get the audience to the point where they would throw tomatoes at us?”
And then, stepping out of this persona: “And you could see everyone in the audience just being like, yeaaaah” – she’s saying while nodding aggressively – “yeah, we need that.”
“And it’s this idea that political engagement can only come from agitation, from alienating your audience – that’s so ridiculous to me.”
Theater in Germany has a long, political history. The political stance of city theaters, the plays they put up, and how they interact with the city’s people – have always been intertwined. But the question is: How do you do politics in times like these? How do you make theater, or art for that matter, that engages with everyone, not just a select few? How do you affect pluralism in art?
“I work in a youth theater – if you give these kids some tomatoes, they will throw them, all right.”
February 16, 2025: A protest in Mitte
I wake up at G.’s place. The day before, we spent a cold day in the park doing a Kohlfahrt, ‘a cabbage walk,’ a local tradition from Bremen, where G. is from. You spend the day outside in the cold, playing games with friends and having the beloved Grünkohl for dinner. As with any good German cultural outing, it also involves heavy drinking.
Still feeling the alcohol from the night before, I feel like fresh air and walk from G.’s house to Mitte. Walking on Alexanderplatz, I begin to hear the shouting of a protest in the distance; it changes the big open space, it draws you in. I walk towards the sound, and suddenly I am part of a mass of people.
I suddenly spot H. in the crowd, almost a miracle in a crowd of thousands. She’s flushed from being outside, energized by being at the protest: “This is great. It’s this energy that’s probably just buzzing from the people, right?”
I could only agree.
The political landscape feels increasingly uncertain, but let’s keep engaging with it, let’s keep being critical, let’s keep protesting, and – as G. might say – let’s keep ranting.
Betsy van Drie (she/her) likes working in various contexts, whether it's selling mushrooms at markets or conducting documentary research. In recent years, she graduated in Philosophy and worked as a lecturer for the Philosophy Bachelor at the University of Amsterdam, specializing in feminist and decolonial theory. She enjoys reading, writing and discussing political issues, theories, and structures. Currently, she works at a cinema specialized in documentaries for the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).