Mobility forms our lives and affects our environment. It is a fundamental human need and longing to be on the move and to experience the world. One of the technologies that has made the most distinct impact on our mobility is the car. For better or for worse, the car has given us a strong feeling of individual freedom; it has transformed our conception of time and experience of place, our everyday lives, and the way we consume and plan our cities. It also comes with a wide range of negative consequences such as pollution, accidents, social and urban segregation, and, more than any other technology, the car has a huge appetite for space. So maybe it’s time to rethink the way we understand mobility and go beyond a society that is primarily organised around the car. But who dares to challenge individual freedom and change the way we are ‘on the move’?
After the editorial team of the Magazine had returned from a conference in Japan arranged by the Asian Spiritual Bicycle Association (ASBA), the magazine’s headquarters in Neukölln was buzzing with ideas of how to make a better world. One of the most interesting aspects was the Holy Grail of Mobility. According to the ASBA’s Scripture of Ultimate Movement, the grail possessed powers which could control the stream of mobility worldwide. Since the invention of the wheel, the stream of mobility had filled the world with technologies that served the best of humanity—whereas the invention of the internal combustion engine and the car turned out to be a giant step towards total human degradation.
Therefore, it was of the utmost importance that the grail was found and its powers were used to get humanity back on the right track. To do so, it required a hero who was pure of heart and who possessed the courage and strength to defeat the terrifying road monster, which evil forces had put into the world to guard the grail. The question was, where could one find such a great hero? The editorial team of the Magazine had no doubt! There was only one who was great enough to fulfil this dangerous task.
The Great Dane was sleeping as calmly as a child when the editorial team dragged him out of bed early in the morning. After a short briefing on the situation, they armed him with a copy of the Scriptures of Ultimate Movement, put him on an old bicycle and sent him out on the dangerous quest to hunt down the terrifying road monster and conquer the Grail of Mobility. For about an hour, he cycled around the streets of Berlin without having the slightest idea of what to do or what to look for. Then he decided to have a bicycle-beer break at a Späti and look in the Scriptures of Ultimate Movement. He was at once thrilled by its great knowledge and historical accuracy. It stated:
The precise time and place for the first appearance of the Holy Grail of Mobility is unknown, but through history the grail has appeared and disappeared in relation to man’s growing desire to control his own destiny. Several significant appearances of the grail occurred in the Great Migration Period from 300 to 800 AD—also referred to as the Völkerwanderung—where its powers were used by Germanic and other barbarian tribes to invade Roman territory and reclaim the Roman Empire’s efficient network of more than 80,000 kilometres of paved highway stretching from Scotland to Eastern Europe, North Africa and present-day Iraq.
He finished another round of beers and then cycled on while thinking about the brave barbarian tribes outmanoeuvring the superior Romans and thereby changing the future of the world. He imagined himself as a fearless warrior holding the grail high in the air, paralysing legion after legion of Roman soldiers so his fellow warriors could liberate the people with ease and give them back their land. Afterwards, he was celebrated as a great hero, and songs and tales were made about him.
The Individual Solution
He began to feel exhausted, and stopped to rest his legs. While eating enough döner kebab to recover his strength, he thought about how the powers of the grail could best be used. There seemed to be as many right solutions as there were people in the world. And no solution would fulfil the needs for everybody. Some had to put up with what was best for the common good. The difficult question, however, was not who should have the advantage and who should not—the challenge was who should be entrusted with the power to make the decision.
One of the brothers who ran the kebab establishment opened the window and greeted loudly a young man and an elderly woman coming out of a car near the pavement where the Great Dane was resting. When the woman passed the Great Dane, she first looked at his old bicycle and then at him, saying: Young man, don’t worry so much. Instead, you should do like I told my sons … get yourself a decent job so you can afford yourself a decent car. It will give you both a good wife and make your mother happy. An old bicycle won’t get you far in life.
Still feeling exhausted and also confused about his quest to find the grail, the Great Dane could only agree. To have one’s own car wasn’t such a bad idea. It not only gave you a clear advantage concerning women and a variety of other purposes such as transportation of goods, protection from bad weather, cruising around with friends, going to the countryside, but it was also great when you were tired or just everyday lazy. On the other hand, cars were expensive. You had to work even more to afford paying off the loan, insurance, fuel, repairs, taxes, parking fees, etc. That way, the car reduced individual freedom as it ate up time and money that otherwise could have been used to do other things. For many people, it would instead be more efficient to bicycle, use public transport, or even walk.
The Great Dane felt himself trapped in a great paradox. For how could it then be that the car had become the most popular means of transportation? In search of an answer, he looked through the Scriptures of Ultimate Movement. It said:
Another important appearance of the grail happened over a thousand years later, in 1888, in the Black Forest—also known as Schwarzwald, the home of the famous cuckoo clocks—near the town of Pforzheim in southern Germany. It was in the exact same area and year that Karl Friedrich Benz made the world’s first long-distance automotive journey powered by an internal combustion engine. The true nature of the grail was, however, overlooked, and it was put on ordinary display at a local museum until, in 1932, it was rediscovered by an amateur archaeologist and automotive enthusiast following the historical route of Karl Friedrich Benz.
Later that year, a conspiracy was formed among the world’s major car manufacturers and political interests in Europe and the United States to cover up the existence of the grail and abuse its powers to their own advantage. But although many resources were invested in transferring the powers of the grail to mass automotive production, the attempt failed. Instead, the grail was remelted and disguised as an ordinary hubcap which was sent around the world, mounted on a specially built car, in order to make cars the dominant means of transportation. However, in the chaos of the Second World War, the trail of the grail—now referred to as the Holy Hubcap—was lost, and since then there have been no official recordings of its whereabouts.
This was indeed not good news for the Great Dane. The so-called Holy Hubcap could now be everywhere—it could even be lost. The situation demanded help from somebody who had a higher insight into alternative mobility.
The Political Solution
He found his friend the ex-vegan bicycle builder in a do-it-yourself shop where he was busy finding enough building material and tools so he could be ready to receive his coming baby. Besides building cargo bikes the size of small houses, his friend considered himself a traffic activist using his cargo bikes as an instrument to discuss traffic, transportation and air pollution in the city. To the Great Dane’s question if he thought that the Holy Hubcap should be used to free the world of all cars, he answered: I’m not into absolute solutions. In the real world, there will always be more stuff which needs to come around than even the biggest cargo bike can carry. Cars should be part of the solution, so should a well-planned public transport system, and separate car and bicycle traffic. So I believe it is a political question to find the right solution. Only by putting aside individual needs and longings will we be able to make a cleaner and better …
His politically correct speech was interrupted as his phone rang. It was his fancy-looking Virgin Mary yelling that she could feel the baby knocking hard on her womb, so he had to hurry and immediately start building them a new home.
The Great Dane was very excited. He couldn’t wait to help drag the baby out of the womb. He was already on his way out to saddle up his bicycle, when his friend kindly brought to his attention that this was not his task. It was of much greater importance, not just for his baby but for all babies in the world, that he fulfilled his quest for the Holy Hubcap and got humanity back on the right track.
To encourage him, his friend promised that he would tell everything about the birth as soon as they met again—which could even be in the next Great Dane episode. Then they loaded all the tools and building materials into a large van, and off he went as fast as the engine could go.
Once again, the Great Dane was on his own, and he didn’t seem to have come any closer to finding the Holy Hubcap or what its powers should be used for. He cycled on through the city, feeling discouraged and just wanting to go home. When he passed Brandenburger Tor, he looked up at the goddess Victoria sitting all-mighty and powerful in her four-horse-drawn chariot on top of the gate.
What would she have done? For her, it was not a matter of who had the right solution; it was about who had the courage and strength to be victorious. No one should be entrusted with power beforehand and have the exclusive privilege to choose what was right and what was wrong. In her perspective, everybody was equal until they had proven otherwise.
The Great Dane stopped his bicycle and bowed with respect for her wisdom. He felt somehow connected to her through a long life of hard struggles to show the world how great and righteous he truly was as a person. She seemed to approve of this, for he felt that she looked back at him, and just as she had inspired the heroes in ancient times, she filled the Great Dane with hope and insight into all the marvellous things that would happen if he succeeded in his hunt for the Holy Hubcap.
With her blessing, he once again opened the Scripture of Ultimate Movement, and read:
Following the global financial downturn in 2007–2008 and the automotive industry crisis in 2008–2010, a significant change in the balance of mobility came to its awakening on a worldwide scale. Since then, there have been increasing numbers of cases in which hypersensitive cyclists around Europe have become spiritualised by some kind of unknown force. Extensive field studies conducted by high-ranking members of ASBA suggest that these encounters most likely happen due to the nearby presence of the Holy Hubcap. Furthermore, when the different encounters were laid out correctly on the Spiritual Map of Mobility, it revealed that the Holy Hubcap for some years had been on its way up through Europe towards Germany, and that it probably soon would reach Berlin.
It seemed that the Great Dane, after all, was closing in on the grail, so his long journey soon would become fruitful. To celebrate his forthcoming triumph, he began cycling back and forth through Brandenburger Tor, while for each round he joyfully greeted the goddess Victoria, who was still watching him closely from the top of the gate.
The Wheels Keep on Turning
When he took an extra-large turn outside the gate, a fashionable-looking car drove straight in front of him, so he fell off his bicycle. There was a slight buzz, and the back window of the car rolled down. A middle-aged man in a dark suit stared at him sternly and presented himself as the rightful owner of the great capital of Germany, truly elected by all its common people. He continued: “I can now see it is good that we did not make the mistake of a bicycle-friendly city after the failure of the car-friendly city.”
The Great Dane was still in shock, so he didn’t know what to answer. The politician raised his voice and said a little more moderately, but the Great Dane thought that the message remained the same in essence: “My dear fellow citizen, as you know, it is important that we stick together. And we can only achieve that if we get going.”
With a wildly ecstatic smile, he made a sign to his chauffeur, and the car roared as if it wanted to swallow the Great Dane alive. An ominous rumbling went through the Great Dane’s chest. Could this be the road monster that guarded the grail? And did he really have the strength and courage to defeat it?
The car made a threatening move towards him, then it backed away quickly and sent out a cloud of evil-smelling smoke while it drove off. At that same moment, he felt the presence of a powerful spiritual force. With great speed, he began to cycle down Unter den Linden, knowing that the Holy Hubcap at last was within his grasp. The air around him was filled with dreadful smoke and noise from the road monster, accompanied by legions of other cars on the road. It made his lungs hurt, his eyes began to water, and he felt as if the whole world was yelling into his ears. But nothing could distract him. Second by second, he closed in on the road monster. He felt like a great hunter going straight for his prey, having only one thing on his mind: to hunt down the road monster and get the Holy Hubcap so he could change the destiny of the world.
He heard an explosion and his bicycle stopped with a flat tyre. In the distance, he saw the road monster disappearing—and with it, also the spiritual force that had shortly filled him with clarity. Now only the smell and noise from all the other cars filled his head. With his last strength, he dragged his damaged bicycle over to the side of the road and sat down under one of the elm trees.
For a while, he stared disillusioned at the cars that tirelessly sped past him in a world that kept on turning as usual. Then one of the cars stopped in front of him. It was the Intellectual Street Fighter Girl and the Mysterious Jew Boy. They had heard a used car dealer make a sales speech about the Great Dane’s grief and had now come to take him home.
It was quiet inside the car, and a sweet smell came from the Wunder-Baum hanging in the windscreen. It made him feel safe and calm as it kept the chaotic world at a safe distance. He leaned back and began to dream of a future where people would use their individual freedom to choose the best solution for everybody to be on the move and experience the world. But even so, it was tough for him to admit that he had failed in his hunt for the grail and in getting humanity back on the right track. Too late had he learned that there is a fine line between the hunter and the hunted.
Nevertheless, this should not withhold the more sensible readers from saddling up their bicycles and continuing the hunt for the terrifying road monster—one might even be successful in finding the Holy Hubcap of Mobility.
© sa@enuk.dk – Steen Andersen
Illustration by Wild Sally