critical mass berlin: police 1 - mass 0

i came from italy.
in milano, we do 'critical mass' every week - every thursday night!
in summer we reach the 250-300 bikers and, comparing to berlin, milano is not a very big and modern city.
of course we create big lines of cars behind us, but normally, the maximum of police which follows us, is one car (often is in plain clothes).
we go around the city for more than two hours, and nothing stops us (not the traffic lights, not the cars, not the police...)

last friday i was at the critical mass in berlin and i think that the situation has been really ridiculous!!
there were 4 big vans, and many cars... at a certain point i was even looking for helicopters... i've never seen something like that... and then, when they blocked us for so long time, they created more traffic problems than we did before.
we were around 50 people and after a short trip the had to stop because two police vans blocked the road, and other two closed us on the back.
there was also a group of belgian people, like me very surprised for this exaggerated reaction... after stopping us, the police asked for everyone's identity card and took all the names.

i'm sure is necessary to create a stronger belief in the real meaning of 'critical mass': no leaders, no official demonstration, no rules except for the respect for people and the city.
if lots of cars go in the same road in the same direction, nobody stops them... in the same way, should became normal that many bikes go together in the same direction, without been considered a demonstration or something worse!

i always use the bicycle and i believe in better cities with less and less cars.
and i also believe that people can change the situation, but they must be not only law-abiding, but even intelligent and work together!

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• critical
• mass
• berlin
• police
• polizei
• bicycle
• demonstration
• anarchy

[Sneny]

ieri al critical mass a Firenze s'era pochi ma boni!!!peccato che al mi omo s'è spaccata la catena e s'è fatta tutta in 2 sulla mia biciclettina stortignaccola!!!

[cospaa]

when is cm in berlin again???

[gmdahl1]

No idea where you are going. ;P sweet

[depro9]

Hello from Critical Mass Chicago. Come & ride with us one day! :D