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F**kparade
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When:
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Aug 2009 (annual)
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Where:
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Berlin
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| Costs: |
Free
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The grassroots F**kparade in Berlin fuses partying and politics and bills itself as a demonstration against bureaucratic uniformity, corporate culture and the Disneyfication of the city.
The event was born in 1997 as a counter-demonstration to the commercialisation of the Love Parade and to the creeping gentrification of the neighbourhoods around the centre of East Berlin.
The original "Hateparade" attracted trucks pumping out a variety of music, 1000 or so participants and widespread press coverage. Legal complications led the protestors to complain that the courts had quashed their right to demonstrate for their vision of society. They were made to recast the parade into a more explicity political demonstration in order to retain the right to demonstrate, and the sound trucks have since been scratched.
Participants are urged to "politicise sound" by bringing drums to beat, boom boxes to blast and so on. Local station Radio Fritz now broadcasts sets by the DJs originally booked for the sound trucks.
The F**kparade pledges to continue demonstrating for "the niches where we meet our friends and party...which have not yet been cemented over and penetrated by security cameras" and against those who "want to clean and sanitise everything...and make us buy a drink when we want to sit down".
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