Who’s Afraid of October 31? The Panic over Berlin’s Gen Z Protest
Burning cars, fights with police and even the Hells Angels: we take a look beyond the scare stories around Berlin’s Gen Z Halloween protest to the demands behind it.
Wikimedia Commons: SliceofNYC, CC BY 2.0, Elveres, CC BY 4.0, Leonhard Lenz, CC0, Cartoon: Paolo Boncompagni, CC BY-SA 3.0
Halloween is around the corner – and it’s clear that some people are doing their best to spook the public. A protest of young people has been called for Saturday by the collective Gen Z regelt, but rather than looking at the demands, newspaper headlines, accompanied by photos of burning barricades from the streets of Paris or Milan, run dark warnings of a “violent mob”, “left-wing troublemakers” – with everyone from Palestine activists to the Hells Angels being roped in to complete the tale of terror.
So what is the media narrative, and how does it compare with the protest’s actual focus?
HEIST is a worker-owned online magazine, founded by writers and editors who after years working across Berlin's media landscape believed something essential was missing.
Anyone living here has felt a growing gap between the city as it actually is and the version being served up by mainstream outlets. We experienced that disconnect firsthand. We saw political censorship shape coverage decisions and felt the weight of billionaire ownership land directly on our work. It reached a point where we could either keep going along with it, or try to build something better.
That's why we created HEIST.
And look at you: scrolling, clicking, squinting at blurred text just to get a little further. If you'll go to that much effort to read HEIST, you can surely give us one email. That's the whole price, and the rest of the story is right behind it.
Real journalism costs money. We commission the hard-hitting, well-reported, long-form work everyone wants to read but nobody seems to publish anymore.
The future of this city is still in the balance. We intend to be part of that struggle. We hope that you'll join us.
