City Errs in Banning KPD March

The City of Berlin's decision to ban the KPD from holding its long planned May 1st march and rally will prove to be a foolish and unnecessary mistake. By refusing to let the demonstration go forward, the City has converted what would have been a sparsely attended non-event into a major cause celebre.  The "support" enjoyed by the KPD is small and largely a fantasy of their deluded leadership. The march would have been insignificantly small and attended only by a small number of KPD members and a few curious onlookers.

Instead, the City has handed the KPD what they most crave, attention. By forbidding their parade, the City has converted them from a brief traffic problem into political victims. This is precisely what they want, and the City could not have better played directly into their plans and hands. Now they can act the oppressed and disenfranchised champions of the people, so effective and correct in their absurd politics that the City, out of fear, forbids them from public assembly. In the end, this will all result in far more violence and upheaval than simply allowing the march to proceed would ever have done. Both sides are arming themselves with military grade rifles and explosives, and daring each other to shoot first. In banning the parade, the City has simply created a huge powder keg. Now it is only a question of who will throw the match.

What should have been done? The demonstration and rally ought to have been permitted to go forward. It ought to have been held in a large, open space with controlled and limited access.... Alexanderplatz perhaps, or the football stadium. The police should have tightly controlled the access points, subjecting everyone who entered to a search. This would have removed from the KPD the one thing they most want from all of this.... to be seen a righteous and oppressed victims.

May 1st is still almost 2 weeks away. If the City does not wish to bear the responsibility of two weeks of senseless violence in the streets, there is still time to correct its badly flawed decision.