This summer, like the year before, in various cities in Germany, there were numerous protests of cultural and social collectives "against exclusion, privatization and security-mania" in the inner cities. Despite the variety of interests of the organizers, there had been lots of common themes against which the nationwide coordinated groups could intervene: the governmental projected "security-net", migration control, Private Public Security, "war on drugs" and again and again the reprivatized German railway company [Deutsche Bahn AG], whose central part in the process of privatized exclusion was denounced through a nationwide critical action day in June.
But it seems that there was no interest for this kind of protests in Bonn, the former German capital. None of the few local political groups, like the antifascists, anti-racists, feminists or anti-militarists seemed to be concerned about the reconstruction of an authoritarian security state or its local representation through private security companies. But the process of social exclusion through privatization and reconstruction can be seen in Bonn, too.
"Who wants to leave his money in Bonn, should feel comfortable here,(...), should experience the inner city. One step to this is the project "city art Bonn" [StadtKunst Bonn] (Bonner Rundschau, 29.04.1998) Thess few words, quoted from one of the two local newspapers in Bonn, show what obvious goals the association "City Marketing Bonn" has, which organized the project "city art Bonn", initiated by Christiane Overmans, a member of the town councils cultural committee and of the conservative party "Christian Democratic Union" [CDU].
For two weeks from June to July 1998 there were art exhibitions in about 50 shops and institutions which turned the inner city of Bonn into a huge art-store containing the public spaces, like streets, parks and the outer walls of houses. Through this art the city should have been made more attractive for consumers from outside the center, who should prefer the historical surrounding for consumption in spite of the peripheral malls in the outskirts. People should come and shop in a relaxed atmosphere and feel like on holiday. Even a delivery service to transport the shopping goods back to their homes is planned for this autumn.
The reconstruction of the inner city of Bonn has already been started in some sites like the central town hall, the office of the reprivatized German post company [Deutsche Post AG] and the demolition of the 19th century jail. The surrounding of the main railway station, where now some homeless people and illegalized drug consumers meet, is going to be transformed into a "shopping center with a railroad connection"(Dürr, chairman of the German rail company): glittering shops and boutiques, a glass-roofed passage, new office and apartment buildings and a roofed bus terminal with a hotel nearby. The blueprints existed for years, but finally the town council found a private investor for the reconstruction.
These plans realize the regionalist desire to turn Bonn, the former capital of West-Germany, which has now the new invented status of a "federal city" [Bundesstadt], into a city of science and culture. For example the annual "Beethoven-Festival" is supported by local government and business together to make this town known as a place where this international music festival takes place. The house where he was born, which is now a "Beethoven Museum", has even been renovated recently.
The larger museums near the governmental quarter outside the city, like the national "House of History" [Haus der Geschichte] and the national "Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany" [Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der BRD] and the Municipal Art Museum [Kunstmuseum Bonn], are joined together in a "mile of museums" [Museumsmeile], where now in Summer open-air music and dance festivals take place, too. The "Art and Exhibition Hall of the FRG" is also used as a scientific conference center in cooperation with the university of Bonn. The university itself, based in the Prussian castle near the main station, thinks about attracting the interest of big companies to "let" lecture rooms, which will be named after them (like "SONY-lecture room"). Also advertising on the outside of the university buildings will be allowed, with the exception of the historical castle.
There seems to be a need for a new representation of this changed status of the city, and there are plans to give Bonn and its shopping passages a more respectable look to produce a comfortable surrounding for investors and consumers. Markus Fußhoeller, a leading member of the private "City Marketing Bonn", a local business association, plans to clean up the streets. For example, to prevent the illegal putting up of posters on empty shop-windows of closed shops. He displays historical photos of the building in the window together with information for potential investors, and makes a private security company protect the shop-windows at night. Fußhoeller also tries to organize the shopkeepers in the inner city to open on Sundays on a special weekend (which is not regular) together with cultural events on the squares.
Such a spectacle takes place before Christmas, wooden huts are built on the streets, where snacks, sweets, gifts, craft and of course alcohol are sold. This "Christmas market" is made up in a folkloristic way. Shopkeepers in pseudo-rural huts dress like traditional peasants or medieval craftspeople. In fact most of these "huts" are caravans in which these traders move from town to town, to each "Christmas market".
In February, when the Germans in the Rhine-valley celebrate their "carnival" in Prussian uniforms or fantasy costumes, there is a funfair, in Bonn too. On a central place near the main station. This year the police "preventatively" arrested over a hundred young people on the funfair, all of them because of their "non-German" look. Police officials said this was a preventative measure against violent street gangs, but the only "weapons" they found were some pocket-knives, so they had to let the people go home in the night. Parents and even teachers individually protested later against this racist raid - especially against the numbering of their forearms with water-resistant pens- without any consequences.
Since some years ago the police, together with the Public Affairs Office [Ordnungsamt], have patrolled the streets of the inner city, controlling people they think are illegal migrants or drug dealers, or both. Only around the main station and the steps to the underground passages, called "the hole of Bonn", the police have tolerated begging homeless people, drug dealer and addicts to stay during the day, so that they can control them by video surveillance and regular raids. But when the reconstruction of the station area is going to be started, one of the first measures will be the expulsion of these people. Maybe they are going to be forced to live in cheap old houses, to continue the control, and keep the new shopping passages and the market squares "clean". As a sign in every tramway carriage in Bonn says: "Clean is in again!"
Joerg Arendt