Why this is a simmering summer of youth rage

Corona is a political challenge as much as it is a public health challenge. There is of course a constant discussion about the trade-off between safety and freedom, the economy and the wellbeing of the citizens; but ultimately the pandemic creates splits and cracks in our societies against a backdrop of already existing feelings of insecurity, dread and being excluded or left behind. 

I saw this early on in the streets of Berlin – it must have been in April or even March – when angry citizens gathered in the common suspicion that something was up, that there was a large and sinister plan behind all that was going on, that secret forces were joining together to get at them: Bill Gates, Angela Merkel, the World Health Organisation… Who or what didn’t actually matter that much. Conspiracy theories create their own parallel reality. Already it was obvious that the pandemic would exacerbate a tension that was tearing at individuals and society as a whole. The question was when and where cracks would first appear.

I observed it in my friends and the people in my lefty liberal Twitter feed who combined concern with denunciatory tendencies. They were quick to dismiss anybody who’d question the scale and nature of lockdown measures – those few people who tried to point out that the destruction, both economic and psychological, would be massive and likely get even worse. It’s not that I thought the measures imposed by the German government were unnecessary (such as the closure of schools and kindergartens, closure of restaurants and bars, of non-essential stores, the obligation to wear masks in public transportation, to name the main ones). What struck me was the lack of precision in implementing them, the lack of open discussion, and the manner in which any concerns over the consequences of these measures were simply kicked down the road.

But I wondered: what happens when you lock people down over a prolonged period of time? Especially people who don’t write the news and who often don’t read it either? What happens when people are left alone because their schools are closed, their jobs are lost, their future has become foggy? Boredom grows, of course. Young people – as well as the poor, and minorities – were the most affected by the lockdown. It has an existential impact. It puts a break on their lives, their loves, their way of meeting with friends, of going out, of spending the night, of getting wasted – all the dangerous fun that youth is about.

Summer, after all, is the season in which much of this happens. A time for excesses and drunkenness, a time for music, for long hot nights, and for the feeling that anything could happen. That is, if you’re not locked down. This year young people suddenly found themselves with no malls to hang around in, no bars to crash, no music, no concerts, no festivals. 

An already economically sacrificed generation – Generation Euro Crisis – saw its future and its job prospects come under threat from Covid-19 and stimulus packages that created massive debt. This was the generation that had felt both politically sidelined and centrestage in the debate on climate change. No wonder its anger would soon boil over. 

In Germany, the first taste of this riotous energy came when looting and protests broke out in Stuttgart. Hundreds of young people laid waste to parts of the city centre. A wave of street protests in different European cities around passionately-embraced topics such as colonial legacy, statues, Black Lives Matter, created the impression that popular culture, raw energy, styles and actions were crossing the Atlantic as they had before in the 20th century, only in ways adapted for the 21st century. 

If, as may well be the case, this summer is going to be a summer of rage – witness the violent incidents in Dijon and the street protests of Belgrade – then Corona will have shown itself to be like a crystallising cultural force, one that will shape our societies through shared memories and scars and leave in its wake much more pain than unity. 

The solidarity that so many people strive for – and that I very much want, support and do witness here and there – is in fact nothing obvious. What these riots bring to the fore, I believe, is the fundamental dysfunctioning of the pre-Corona system: built on rapid and excessive gains, and on the selling out of one generation, and many others, to climate change and its consequences. A system imposing a status-quo that has become largely untenable. Of course there are contrasts across Europe and circumstances will differ, as they always do, because the continent is such a patchwork of histories. But the simmering anger is the same.

Diversity is the strength and the beauty of this continent. The post-Covid-19 period presents new challenges and also new opportunities. I see this as the beginning of a new era in Europe and beyond. We can decide to listen to the grievances or we can decide to dismiss them. The choice is ours. The consequences will be ours as well. We can foster change, imagine and create communities that are fundamentally reconfigured, open to all and based on concepts of care and commonality – not blunt gain. The rage we see is unlikely to be insignificant. It is a wakeup call for sleepwalkers.