June7th, Hamburg: 15,000 people against Fees & Cuts

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June 7th, Hamburg:
15,000 People against Fees & Cuts

"Radical Democracy for Free and Critical Education!"

The city senate of Hamburg (Germany) follows the global trend and announced cuts in education. Various people decided to do something against that. It is important to know that Hamburg is considered an autonomous federal state in Germany (one out of 16). Each federal state is in charge for its own education policies.
On May 25th close to 2,000 students already took to the streets to protest tuition fees. The senate actually already announced to abolish tuition fees again towards the end of 2012, but students don't see any reasons why they should wait any longer.
One week later students at the Hamburg University for Politics and Economics (which was fused with the University of Hamburg in 2005) occupied parts of the institution and barricaded all entries to the faculty building at 11pm (May 31st). The activists released a statement shortly after ending with the words:"Radical Democracy for Free and Critical Education!"
During the lastest general assembly (June 2nd) students decided to keep squatting the building at least for another week and use it as a space for organising and offering alternative critical lectures. At this stage the occupations also has the support of lecturers, since the cuts also threaten the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences as a whole. The faculty was already heavily affected by cuts when it was fused with the University of Hamburg.
At the squat people also got ready for the demonstration on June 7th and prepared to create a protest camp on the city-hall square afterwards.

Many people and Riot Cops

Eventually tens of thousands of students, lectures, staff, pupils and parents took to the streets against the cuts and fees together on June 7th. Following the demonstration thousands of the protesters began to occupy the city-hall square and build the protest camp as publicly announced. Soon after somebody announced through a megaphone:"Soon we will have food and drinks for all! Afterwards we will have an assembly to discuss how to continue. We came here to stay!". The basic idea of the camp was to set up an alternative university to show the importance of education and science, while giving everyone the possibility to access and shape education at the same time.
But before the warm food could be distributed to everyone armies of riot cops moved in and began to terrorise those at the camp, saying that such assemblies and camps are not permitted on the city-hall square. For the cops the people didn't leave the square fast enough and therefore began to attack protesters with pepper spray and threatened to violently evict the whole square. Some protesters were injured and tents destroyed. Due to those repressive measures the activists decided to take their remaining tents and sleeping bags and moved to a different public place called the "Jungfernstieg". In the following days they plan to have public lectures and workshops there.

What about the education?

The city senate wants to cut public spendings for higher education by 6 to 10 percent. This would necessarily lead to the closure of whole courses of study and even faculties. This affect not just sciences, but the social and education system as a whole.
It makes no difference which parties in what kind of coalition make up the government. The politics has been the same for the past decades. Currently it's the turn of the socialdemocrats.

In a press release following the demonstration the protesters at the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences stated:

We want more than just to protest against the cuts!
For the universities to be properly funded continously!
For education free of charge for all immediately!
For the radical reform of the bachelor-master-system!
For the fundamental re-democratisation of universities!

People at the protest camp want to have an open educational offerings with self-determined learning. An environment with a critical approach towards education, science, universities and society!

The university can't be just for a small part of the population. It must be open for everyone regardless of origin, social background and financial capabilities. The planned cuts as well as the current handling of education and learning within society as whole don't allow for such universities to exist.

Although the demonstration was also joined by the citiy's university presidents, they did so for totally different reasons. They want more resources for "their" institutions, so they have more possibilities to make them more prestigious on the education market. The movement needs to be careful not to blindly follow protests staged by the university-marketing section and the presidents. Their vision is very different. They are not fighting for a open, democratic university, where critical education takes place. They envision a university where education is treated as a commodity; where the neoliberal logic dominates the structures, the work, research and teaching; where democracy is just used as an empty phrase.
Looking at the current president of the University of Hamburg (Mr. Lenzen), who de-democratised and commercialised the Free University of Berlin, should be proof enough. Of course his vision has nothing to do with his person. But is linked to the currently dominating economic system unleashing its forces globally. That explains why we can observe the same symptoms around the world.

People at the camp fight against this vision by trying to live an alternative for everyone to experience.

This report includes translations from a text published by the action assembly at the University of Hamburg.