A number of pedestrians were reported to have called for medical assistance after a disturbing experience on Friedrichstraße in downtown Berlin in the early afternoon last Friday. They had run into a march of living dwarfs with orange hats offering them bananas for free or were hailed with “We work more for less” greetings while standing in a Gucci outlet in order to buy an expensive material substitute for precious human spare time (which had long been sacrificed in the holy battle for ever-increased competitiveness).
These dwarfes call themselves followers of the Orange Alternative.The Berlin march was part of the international revolution of dwars – Zwergenaufstand – which aims to open our eyes to capitalist surrealism (after the defeat of socialist surrealism 20 years ago). Citizens of Europe supports Zwergenaufstand as an – admittedly – unconventional form of active transnational citizenship. It started at the centre of contemporary commercialized remembrance culture, Checkpoint Charlie, and went up to Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz next to S-Bahn station Friedrichstraße (to be renamed Fydrychstraße in the near future, after the spiritus rector of the dwarf international, Major Waldemar Fydrych), where an open-air exhibition about the first 25 years of the Orange Alternative was opened (to be seen daily until 26 October 2009). See photos of the happening and learn about further events on myspace.