Funeral Music

I was at a party on Saturday night when someone came in and said that a van had driven into the Berlin Christopher Street Day parade, killed one person, injuring more. I’ve never been to CSD; go, instead, to the Internationalist Queer Pride demo that, since 2021, has been organised in contradistinction to the corporatisation and pinkwashing of the main CSD demo, whose organisers had called the police to remove pro-Palestinian marchers. Since 2023, this has meant outspoken support for the victims of the genocide in Gaza, and all the attendant policing that involves. So to me Berlin Pride also means cops pepper-spraying and pain-gripping people on the street. Well, it’s in the tradition. In the sun, the heatwave having finally come back after the week’s rain and thunderstorms, finally setting off after several hours, marching past the newly-converted Rheinmetall weapons factory, formerly a builder of car parts, the first time arms manufacture has taken place in Berlin since the Second…