"Not everyone is against us": An unusual statement from a popular music event
Organizers of the Fuckparade, a long-standing techno event in Berlin, published a statement on the event's official Facebook page addressing Israel at length. "Hamas killed 411 people at the Nova festival and took 43 hostages, this is not a war of freedom." The 27th edition of the parade took place last Saturday, with thousands of people participating under the message "Against commercialization and the displacement of subcultures."
A few days after thousands of electronic music fans marched through the streets of Berlin as part of the Fuckparade, one of the city's oldest and most underground techno events, the organizers published an unusual and particularly sharp statement on the event's official Facebook page regarding Israel, the massacre at the Nova festival, and the pro-Palestinian discourse.
"There are people who these days want to turn every demonstration into a matter of 'Palestine'. So yes, we have a statement," the organizers began the post. They then directly addressed the massacre of October 7:
"Hamas killed 411 partygoers at the Nova festival in Israel and took 43 people hostage, alongside acts of horror that cannot be described. Violence against people who are dancing is never acceptable, and killing partygoers is not a 'war of freedom'."
The sharpest part came at the end. "The Fuckparade is not a demonstration for your post-colonial and antisemitic ideologies," the organizers wrote. "It is a demonstration for the support of the free techno scene, like the Nova festival. If you don't agree - go fuck yourselves."
It is important to note that the Fuckparade, despite the appearance of a huge street party, is not defined as a festival but as a political demonstration in every sense. It was born in Berlin in 1997, then called the Hateparade, as a counter-movement to the Love Parade, which in those years was becoming a commercial and mass event. Among other things, its founders protested against the entry of sponsors into the scene, the displacement of harder electronic styles like gabber and hardcore, and the closing of the legendary Bunker club. Starting in 1998, it has been held under the name Fuckparade.
Over the years, the protest has expanded. Today, the organizers present the Fuckparade as a political network of club cultures, youth, and subcultures, and the parade deals, among other things, with gentrification, the closing of clubs, and the displacement of alternative culture from Berlin. Musically, it remains on the hard and less commercial side of electronic music, with trucks and sound systems playing techno, hardcore, and gabber along the route.
The 27th edition of the parade took place last Saturday, August 15, parallel to Rave The Planet, the modern successor to the Love Parade. According to the Berlin police, about 3,000 people participated in the Fuckparade, which marched this year under the message "Against commercialization and the displacement of subcultures." The event organizer, Martin Kallem, explained that the struggle today is for "free spaces in Berlin," against gentrification and the closing of clubs.
The post published after the parade does not present a broader position of the organizers regarding the war in Gaza or Israel's policy, but as far as the massacre at the Nova party is concerned, their message is unequivocal: from their point of view, an attack on a crowd dancing at a festival cannot be considered part of a struggle for liberation — and the Fuckparade does not intend to become a stage for messages that present it as such.
