Karsten Gundermann
„WE ARE THE PEOPLE!“
Programmhefttext 8.11.2009

When the first East Germans left the churches and took to the street in order to protest against the state power of the GDR, the media called them "a few roisterers and radicals". Police as well as the Ministry for State Security arrested the leaders, tried to intimidate their followers and to stop the movement.

Yet, when the number of protesters had exceeded the number of 100,000 just in Leipzig, and more and more people with an established public reputation, artists, scientists and even some comrades open to reform joined the movement, one could no longer talk about roistering and rioting individuals. The slogan "We are the people!", popular back then, was at the same time an expression of the grown self-confidence of the protesters and of the dwindling legitimation of a state power which had acted "in the name of the people of the German Democratic Repulic" ever since the beginning of its existence.

The RBB (Radio Berlin-Brandenburg) kindly provided me with an original recording of one protest demonstration in Leipzig in the autumn of '89. I made a collage of it using music for strings: A sounding memorial of the people of an era in which the people unseated its government peacefully but unambiguously so and of a government whose office holders were courageous enough to prevent a bloodshed.