The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Shut Elbit Down

In Ulm, Koblenz, and Berlin too!


10/09/2025

Elbit Systems is the largest private arms manufacturer in Israel and one of the main suppliers to the Israeli military. Around 85% of the IOF’s drones come from Elbit Systems. However, few arms companies face as much opposition as Elbit Systems. Well-known examples include the UK, but protests are also growing in the US, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany, among other countries. Since December 2023, the Shut Elbit Down campaign has also been running in Germany.

From 17th – 21st September 2025, Shut Elbit Down is organising a Camp & Protest Days in Ulm, where Elbit’s European headquarters are located. On the 20th, a demonstration will be held to call for the shutdown of their operations. Elbit’s weapons contribute directly to the occupation of Palestine and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. You can register for the camp here.

A solibus will be leaving Berlin on 17th September and returning on the 21st for a suggested donation of €25 per person. Secure your seat now, as the Soli-Bus is going only if there are enough confirmed bookings to have a climate friendly ride – and we want to confirm it soon. Write to solibusprotestcamp@proton.me

We demand:

  • Elbit Systems out of Ulm!
  • Stop the genocide in Gaza!
  • A comprehensive military embargo against the zionist entity!
  • Free Palestine

The resistance against Elbit Systems is growing in Ulm. Join the movement against this criminal corporation.

Cakes & Zines

More is More!


02/09/2025


This September, get ready for a whole weekend with Cakes & Zines! On September 6 and 7, we are hosting another non-commercial, queer-feminist zine festival with you, the community, and everything that goes with it: a zine & art market, workshops, new friendships, a creative program, delicious food, and of course lots of cake! The festival features marginalized perspectives and aims to be a welcoming space for all. 

All donations from the festival will go to Palestinian mutual aid funds and no-border struggles. 

Cakes & Zines is a queer-feminist, antifascist DIY zine & art mini-festival collective from Berlin.

StadtWERKSTATT Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Mehringdamm 20, 10961 Berlin

Opening times: 06.09. 15:00 – 22:00, 07.09. 12:00 – 18:00

Accessibility info: The festival hall is at ground level, it is connected to the street by uneven ground. There are wheelchair accessible toilets. There will be a calm space available at the festival. Covid policy is in place (come tested, tests at the door, masking encouraged). Festival mostly in English/German spoken language. No sign language interpreters provided.

‘People don’t let people drown’

Photo exhibition


28/08/2025

The photo exhibition “People Don’t Let People Drown!” opens on Saturday, 30th August 2025 at the Regenbogen Café. It features photographs and texts from the deployment of the sea rescue ship Sea Punk I in January 2025.

The works document several maritime emergencies, as well as the observation of a pullback by the so-called Libyan Coast Guard. The exhibition is complemented by brief research and an examination of the legal framework and the situation in the Mediterranean.

Regenbogen Café: Lausitzer Straße 22a, 10999 Berlin Kreuzberg

Exhibition times: opening: Saturday, August 30, 2025, 4:00 PM – otherwise Tuesday 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Wednesday & Friday 3:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Duration: until 27 September 2025

Note: Some content may be emotionally distressing

Decolonize Berlin

For a critical debate with histories and present day instances of colonialism and racism


20/08/2025

Decolonize Berlin came out of a civil society network of Black, diasporic, post-colonial and developmental initiatives, together with individual activists. The alliance has been organised as a non-profit organisation since 2019.

It campaigns for a critical debate about colonialism and racism, and for the recognition, reappraisal, and overcoming of colonial injustice. The goal is the decolonisation of the whole of society, that is, the dismantling of racist power relations, structures, and narratives.

A main focus is on the colonial continuities in public spaces, for example in street names or monuments. For this reason, the group has organised the anti-colonial street festival for the last 10 years, and has fought for the renaming of colonial charged streets in the African Quarter in Wedding—most recently the renaming of Petersallee to Maji-Maji Allee and Anna Mungunda Allee in 2024.

The work consists of thematic working groups (education, public spaces, museums), which develop projects, decide on activities and carry out the organisation’s work. We have regular open meetings.

Since 2020, the organisation has had a coordinating centre which is financed by the city of Berlin. They use decisions of the Berlin parliament to develop a city-wide concept for dealing with colonialism and its consequences. The coordination centre works together with civil society, administration, and politicians. It follows a participatory approach which integrates Black, diasporic and migrant groups.

On Saturday, 23rd August, Decolonize Berlin is organising the Amofest to celebrate the renaming of M*Straße to Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Straße. The festival starts at 2pm at Hausvogteiplatz.

Key of Return

Event series x Palestine


13/08/2025

Key of Return is a grassroots event series for Palestine, brought together by fourteen Gazzawi artists, six non-Gazzawi artists, a few cultural organisers and curators, and countless helping hands. At heart, we are a decentralised collective of friends—working like the tentacles of an octopus: each part working independently and engaged with their local communities, yet all connected by a shared core.

We organise events to raise funds for artists and their families in Gaza, but also to build community, to grieve death, and to celebrate life. We are united in our commitment to liberation from all forms of oppression, and we fiercely condemn the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Refusing immobility, we organise through the strength of community, believing that art is a powerful tool of resistance, memory, identity, and solidarity. We aim to amplify voices that are silenced and, through art, claim existence and shared humanhood.

Our exhibition:

In ‘Ayda Refugee Camp, just outside Bethlehem, every single resident has been exposed to tear gas bombs, often multiple times a week, making it the most tear-gassed community ever documented. In order to get there, you must drive along the separation wall, where breaths are skipped as petrol burns.

One more turn and there you are–the place where Akram Wa’ra and his family greet you: This is my wife, these are my kids, my niece who is visiting. Warm hellos and cheerful thank‑yous before the most delicious feast enters your mouth—just like the Palestinian key turning in the lock of a house on returned land.

Not so long ago, Jerusalem’s neighbourhoods Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan witnessed yet more Palestinian homes expropriated; khalas? You left my hand holding a key without the house it opens! In this exhibition we return to the shades beneath the olive trees, to the scent of jasmine in Jaffa, the mulberries of Ramallah, the flower tatreez of Khalil, the steadfast mountains of Nablus, the sea that cradles Gaza.

In the art you are about to see, you’ll encounter a reimagined homeland—where tear gas bombs are turned into jewellery, where a grandfather’s memories are etched into every corner of the city, where smuggled sperm brings life from within Israeli prisons, where colour becomes an escape from grief, where the landscape is liberated from colonialism, where hibiscus tea returns as oil on canvas, and where “free blood will inherit the land”, once again, in Gaza.

Welcome, everyone—for this is your home. It has no key, for it was never meant to be locked.

Exhibition: Key of Return: 14th – 18th August 2025 in the Glogauer Art Gallery, Berlin.

More information on Instagram.