Youth riots in Switzerland
The youth riots in Switzerland in the 1980s were caused by riots of several hundred young people in front of the Zurich Opera House (the so-called "Opera House riots ") on 30./31. Raised May 1980.
initial situation
In May 1980 the Zurich city council approved 60 million francs for the renovation of the opera house. At the same time he rejected the demands for an autonomous youth center (AJZ). This was followed by a spiral of violence, unique in Switzerland, between the population and the police, for example after the first closure of the AJZ at the Sihlquai car park near Zurich's main train station . It claimed several hundred injuries on both sides and property damage running into the millions.
On May 30, a demonstration in front of the opera house, which was reinforced by a crowd that came from a Bob Marley concert, led to the clashes that were later referred to as the "opera house riots". The Zurich youth riots came as a surprise to the authorities and the public, but had been announced earlier, for example in the 1979 storm of a concert by Jimmy Cliff . As early as the late 1960s, there were disputes which, among other things, were related to the desire for an AJZ (→ Globuskrawall ). Only over time was the city politicians ready for dialogue and the required space for alternative cultural activities (e.g. Red Factory ) was made available ( see also: History of the City of Zurich ).
Protest in other cities
Violent protests were also held in other Swiss cities such as Basel , Bern and Lausanne . The youth movement was active in Basel from 1980 to 1982 and then again from 1986 to 1989. Initially, the focus was on the required cultural freedom, which the young people wanted to manage themselves. Between 1986 and 1988, the grounds of the Alte Stadtgärtnerei (ASG) were an important place for self-determined alternative youth culture. In Bern the arguments revolved around the Zaffaraya and the riding arena . In Winterthur , the Winterthur events in 1984 in connection with an explosive attack on the house of the then Federal Councilor Friedrich and the subsequent wave of arrests and the suicide of an inmate made headlines.
media
The eighties movement fought with unconventional means (for example, two Zurich activists appeared in a TV discussion on the youth riots as “ Mr. and Mrs. Miller ” and called for tougher action against the young people), linguistic jokes (e.g. “Macht aus dem Staat Gurkensalat ”or“ Unobstructed view of the Mediterranean Sea - Sprengt die Alpen ”) and with new aesthetic design elements (see e.g. punk in Switzerland ) for more cultural autonomy. She addressed socio-political issues such as the housing shortage or drug misery as well as the surveillance state.
The video Züri brännt from the video shop Zurich , published in 1981, documents the youth riots in Zurich from the perspective of movement activists in a comprehensive way. Also as a victim, Reto Hänny dealt with the events in his Zurich report at the beginning of September in the same year . An anthology published by Heinz Nigg in 2001 documents the events 20 years later from the point of view of those affected and with analyzes by journalists and scientists.
See also
literature
- Reto Hänny : Zurich, beginning of September. edition suhrkamp 1079, Frankfurt am Main 1981. ISBN 3-518-11079-9 .
- Kathrin Bänzinger: Dani, Michi, Renato and Max. Research on the death of 4 young people. Limmat, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-85791-137-9 .
- Heinz Nigg (Ed.): We want everything, and subito! The eighties youth riots in Switzerland and their consequences. With DVD-Video. Limmat , Zurich 2001. ISBN 3-85791-375-4 . Also available as an e-book since 2014.
- Christoph Braendle , Reto Hänny , Alain Marendaz: Zür (e) ich burn . 1st edition, Europa Verlag , Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-905811-18-6 .
- Olivia Heussler : Zurich, summer 1980 . Photographs and an epilogue by Stefan Zweifel. 1st edition, Edition Patrick Frey, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-905509-89-2 . (With a detailed archive on its own website.)
- Piñeiro, Esteban / Winzeler Seraina. 2017. Dangerous municipalities, tenant struggle and autonomous youth centers. On the genealogical track of professionally supervised living. In this. (Ed.): Housing shortage as a social conflict. Alfred Kunz and the non-profit foundation Wohnhilfe Basel. Basel: Schwabe Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7965-3640-3 .
- Peter Bichsel , Silvan Lerch: Autonomy on A4. How the Zurich youth movement set standards. Leaflets 1979-82. Zurich 2017, Limmat Verlag, ISBN 978-3-85791-833-9 .
- Demian Lienhard : I am the one my mother warned me about . Novel. Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt 2019. ISBN 978-3-627-00260-2 .
- Christian Koller : 40 years ago: Züri brännt , in: Sozialarchiv Info 1 (2020).
Movie
- Züri is on fire . DVD-Video, Switzerland 1981, German, Swiss German with subtitles in German, English, French, Italian. Videoladen Zürich ( information on artfilm.ch ).
- Clemens Klopfenstein and Remo Legnazzi : E Nachtlang Füürland , Switzerland 1981, feature film.
- Peter Krieg : The Pack Ice Syndrome , Zurich, 1982
- Richard Dindo : Dani, Michi, Renato & Max . Documentary, Switzerland 1987.
- Richard Dindo : Interrogation and death in Winterthur . Documentary, Switzerland 2001.
- Mischa Brutschin : You can make yourself alone. The Zurich House Movement 1979–94 . Documentary, Switzerland 2010. Eight-hour video documentation.
- Felice Zenoni : The Spy and the Chaots , documentary, Switzerland 2020.
Web links
- Marco Tackenberg: Youth riots in Switzerland. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- The eighties movement: we want everything, subito! (Book and internet project by Limmat Verlag , the Swiss Social Archives and Heinz Nigg )
- Züri is on fire. (Texts from Stilett 56 and 57/1980 at de. Indymedia .org)
- Eighties riots. "We want everything, and subito!" Interviews with activists of the eighties movement. In: WOZ The weekly newspaper .
Individual evidence
- ↑ In the hot summer of 1980, when Zurich was on fire, swissinfo.ch on May 31, 2010.
- ↑ Platzspitz terminus . Martin Eibel in: Der Bund , July 10, 2019, accessed on August 20, 2019
- ↑ Alone they can make you - house-to-house fighting in the film . Daniel Stern in: WoZ , May 27, 2010, accessed on August 20, 2019