Introduction to the english version

Berlin is a city which is inhabited by a considerable number of people who want to abolish capitalism and the state. There is a complex and confusing scene of political groupings, bars, bookshops, ex-squats etc. During the last years, there has been a constant influx of new activists from smaller cities in Germany as well as from radicals from other European countries. They have been attracted by the subculture and by still relatively low flat rents compared to other major European cities. The latter is changing rapidly at the moment as the well-known process of gentrification is finally hitting Berlin, too. But there are still newcomers to the anarchist and communist circles in Berlin from the southern European countries, as the economic crisis there is getting more severe.
Given these circumstances, one could expect Berlin to be a hotbed of subversion, a lively melting pot, where negative spirits of different origins came together and exchanged their various experiences in order to form a social force which was capable of finally shaking the false social peace which has given Germany the long lasting appearance of what Adorno once called a „classless class society“. But, alas, it is not like that. Instead, the scene remains in a lifeless condition, which is maintained by false and sterile separations of the various sub-scenes, groupings and individuals as well as by equally false associations. The following text, „A Theory of Shattered Fragments“ analyses this misery in more detail and makes at least some rudimentary suggestions how it could be remedied.
Although we are dealing mainly with the radical milieus of Berlin and, to a lesser extend, of the German speaking countries in general, this critique may be of interest for people from other countries, too. Certainly, some of the problems we mention are relevant for other scenes, too, as the absence of a revolutionary movement which deserves its name seems to be a general phenomenon. The thoughts we present in the text arose out of discussions around the club für sich, an informal fortnightly pub meeting which for a couple of years tried to bring together some radicals who were fed up with the „official“ scene or couldn’t find a place for themselves in the existing political groups. The original version of the text can be found here: http://magazinredaktion.tk/scherbentheorie.php; the authors can be contacted under the e-mail-adress: magazin_redaktion[at]gmx.net.