On New Years Eve in Hamburg, fireworks are omnipresent. You can buy them everywhere and in huge stocks. Arsenals of rockets on sticks, packs of small paper balls filled with black powder, «Chinaböller» by the dozens, whole blocks of assorted, orchestrated mini-rockets that look like some modern air defense missile-launcher. And they work the exact same way. They fill the night-sky with sharp lines of light, cutting through air with a shrieking sound, bursting into a thousand pieces. Their blast reverb in the streets, hurting ears, puzzling people. It feels like war and terror reigned again.
On the street I saw two men in their thirties, leather jackets, beards, sharp, fresh haircuts. Both had a gun in their hands, black, clunky pieces of metal. Then they started shooting. In the air. Blam!Blam!Blam! Fireworks-Pistols. How you can tell? You can’t.
Around the corner I saw a boy, maybe twelve years old, running my way, closing his ears with his fingers, a sassy smirk, a destructive glow in his eyes. The next thing I saw was a trash bin blown up by a huge explosive. Trash propelled everywhere, black smoke arose.
A few meters down the street, a group of young men fired rockets through the streets, exploding only a few meters above other people, covering them with colorful burning rain.
As far as I could tell, no one got hurt. But there was something bewildering about it. What struck me most was the posing: the pride and buzz of the guys with the pistols, holding their guns in the air with swelled chests and cool looks. It was the same look you can see in photos of the rebels in Libya or Syria: Young lads feeling the power of guns.
The posing, the shooting, the blowing up, the running away: It all seems like some kind of war-reenactment to me. Like turning life into some kind of Hollywood-Action-Movie for a night. I see the argument, some people actually like (who?!) watching (and hearing, and smelling?) fireworks. But those noisy explosives? Bullshit.