An artist has created a statue in Görlitzer Park in Berlin called “Last Hero,” that memorialises African migrant drug dealers.
Scott Holmquist, an American-French resident of Berlin, was incensed by a recent demonstration of Pegida, the German anti-Islam group, against the prevalence of migrant drug dealers in Görlitzer Park, chanting that “where the rule of law is surrendered, it’s shamelessly easy to deal.”
Holmquist created an entire art exhibition dedicated to the dealers of the “Görli.” Called “Other Homes,” the motto of the exhibition is “solidarity and human rights for all – even for dealers!”
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He interviewed 13 dealers to find out “their stories.” He told Bild that the exhibition is about “the reactions to the drug dealers in the park which crystallize fears, temptations and wishes and at the same time shift the borders of control and solidarity.”
Of course, just making an exhibition of his own wasn’t far enough. Since 2016, he had been demanding a memorial to the drug dealers in Görlitzer Park, so he decided to put one up himself without telling anyone.
The 3-metre tall bronze statue of an African dealer holding a mobile phone was erected by the Pamukkale fountain on Sunday lunchtime, and stood there for 24 hours.
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Burkard Dregger, a spokesman for the Berlin CDU (Chancellor Merkel’s centre-right party) decried the project:
It is an expression of complete degradation that drug dealers, who want to get our children addicted to drugs and destroy our children’s health, are called intrepid and brave workers who work to earn their living. These drug dealers belong in a prison, not in a show or an exhibition!
Unsurprisingly, Holmquist has received backing from the German Greens and the Pirate Party. The Mayor of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, the district of Berlin in which Görlitzer Park is situated, Monika Hermann, claimed that “the show does not glorify drugs and and the drug trade, but a way of dealing with a problem that will not be solved if you ignore it.”
The Berlin Hemp Museum has also pledged their support to Holmquist.
