On 23 September 2019, the fourth of six light installations on the way to the Leipzig Festival of Lights opened in the park and inner courtyard of the former Stasi headquarters. It began at the “Round Corner” on Dittrichring, where a concert by singer-songwriter and East German civil rights activist Stephan Krawczyk had taken place beforehand. Admission was free.
The concert recalled a central slogan of the Peaceful Revolution: “No violence”. The singer-songwriter also sang about his experience of the totalitarian SED dictatorship, as the artist was monitored by the Stasi for years until he was eventually arrested and stripped of his citizenship.
Power. Words! What brings down walls? The freedom to say what one thinks. And the freedom to do what one says. Thirty years after the Peaceful Revolution, Generation Y celebrated with its poetry slam the fundamental right that had to be won then and must be defended today: freedom of expression. To mark the opening of Light Installation 4, a Freedom Slam, a poetry slam on freedom of expression, took place. Bonny Lycen, Skog Ogvann, Malte Rosskopf and Franziska Wilhelm competed against one another in a battle of poetry, transforming the legacy of 1989 into everyday life in 2019. The audience became the jury and chose the winner through their applause.
Now and then, here and there – peaceful revolutions
Students at Leipzig International School explored the phenomenon of “peaceful revolution”. Which of the demands and protest slogans from 1989 are still relevant today? To what extent have the priorities and goals of young people changed? Can the young demonstrators of “Fridays for Future” learn anything from 1989? And how do peaceful revolutions such as those in India (Gandhi), in Egypt during the Arab Spring in 2011, or currently in Hong Kong fit into the overall picture?
