The Left Berlin News & Comment

This is the archive template

Category: Campaign of the week

Archive of Silence

Crowdsourced archive documenting silenced voices in Germany


06/12/2023

Archive of Silence is a crowdsourced archive documenting silenced voices. Their mission is to chronicle the alarming waves of erasure and violence directed at Palestinian advocacy in Germany. There has been an uprise of bans, cancellations and censorship. Many, including Jewish people, have lost their jobs. Events have been canceled and people have been defamed. Archive of Silence refuses to accept this condition.

This digital archive serves as a platform for all voices that challenge the rigid political mainstream regarding Israel-Palestine, and have consequently been marginalized or silenced. Archive of Silence addresses those in positions of power, such as politicians, directors of cultural institutions and university presidents: We see you, and we hold you accountable for your complicity! We protest against your anti-democratic bans and the narrowing of our public spaces. We stand against anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism, against anti-Semitism and any other form of discrimination.

As a form of dissent, Archive of Silence collects each instance of silencing, ensuring that these injustices will not be forgotten. On their platform, both public cases and anonymous stories are shared. Through this, Archive of Silence aims to build a crowdsourced record of the violence we face, and gather evidence to hold institutions accountable for their complicity.

Germany, once again, finds itself on the wrong side of history.

We will not be silenced, and we will not forget.

If you are interested in this mission, you can follow Archive of Silence on Instagram (archive_of_silence), support by raising awareness and by sharing your own story through the submission form and motivating others to do the same.

Let’s turn silence into action!

For freedom of speech

and for a free Palestine.

Anmeldung für Alle

Registration for everyone


29/11/2023

The Anmeldung affects our lives as migrants in a very tangible way. Not having it excludes us from basic rights:

  • It is not possible to open a bank account or a receive Steuer ID (necessary for access to the labor market).
  • The Anmendung is usually required to obtain a visa or to renew it.
  • We also cannot have health insurance or receive public benefits.

BERLIN’S HOUSING MARKET AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The commodification of housing in Berlin affects everyone, but especially migrants. In addition to real estate speculation and rising prices and the resulting competition, restrictions such as “Keine Anmeldung möglich” lead to a vicious circle. Without Anmeldung, there is no work; without work, there is no housing to get an Anmeldung. For many migrants, the vicious circle of the Anmeldung often leads to exclusion from basic rights and services that are essential for a decent life.

OUR DEMANDS

  • We demand universal Anmeldung for all Berliners.
  • We demand the decriminalization of acts of solidarity related to Anmeldung.
  • We demand a solution to the housing crisis as well as to the problem of the Anmeldung.

JOIN OUR STRUGGLE!

That is why we are launching the campaign AfA – Anmeldung für Alle! to bring about a change in the legislation and/or practice of registration. We would like to invite you to be part of this campaign, which focuses on migrants as self-determined political actors in the city, so that our rights are no longer an afterthought!

  • If you would like to become actively involved in the campaign, please email us at anmeldung-fuer-alle@riseup.net. We invite you to spread the word about the campaign on your social media channels and to attend future meetings and activities!

EVENT ON 5th DECEMBER

Anmeldung für Alle is organising an Event to kick off the campaign in the Grüner Salon in the Volksbühne on Rosa Luxemburg Platz. The Event starts at 7pm on Tuesday, 5th December. Please come along and support the campaign.

Letzte Generation

Peaceful Civil Resistance


22/11/2023

Letzte Generation is a movement that uses peaceful civil resistance to fight for a short-term phase-out of fossil fuels until 2030. While the German government plans to continue using fossil fuels as long as 2045, Letzte Generation activists continue to point out that this is far too late. Together with other members of the A22 network such as Just Stop Oil in the UK, Letzte Generation has been raising public awareness of the need for immediate action to tackle climate catastrophe for the past two years.

On Saturday 28 October, Last Generation activists, joined by activists from many other groups such as Extinction Rebellion Netherlands and Christians for Future protested on the Straße des 17. Juni, a street between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column, with a mass blockade of more than 1400 protesters. This action was inspired by the success of Extinction Rebellion’s protests in the Netherlands, who have been blocking a highway every single day for more than a month with over 9000 arrests, leading to the Dutch parliament voting on a stop of fossil fuel subsidies.

The next mass occupation will take place this Saturday, 25 November, starting at 12 noon next to the Victory Column (Großer Stern). Again, climate justice groups such as Parents Against Fossil Fuels and Scientist Rebellion are calling for action. Join us!

Bloque Latinoamericano

Migrant self-organisation in solidarity with Latin America


15/11/2023

Bloque Latinoamericano is a five-year-old migrant grassroots organization based in Berlin. We understand that being a migrant inevitably implies having our hearts split in two, and therefore our work is currently focused on two pillars.

On the one hand, we make visible and support struggles in our territories, whether in the field of anti-extractivism or in the struggles against the advance of the right wing. On the other, we offer spaces for migrant workers to meet, reflect on our rights, and find common strategies to defend them and fight precarization, especially on the topics of labor and housing access.

These two branches of our work (solidarity with Latin America and migrant self-organization) would be incomplete without a transversal feminist and queer perspective, because the rights of women and sexual dissidences are intimately linked to all the other axes that we address.

We seek to bring our diverse Latin American organizing experiences to this territory because we feel it is important to be active political actors in this city and in this country, and because bringing the migrant agenda to the table is one more step (and a very necessary one at that) on the long road to transforming reality.

Rooted / Verwürzelt

Nurturing the Seeds of our Existence – Palestinian Embroidery Workshop


08/11/2023

Palestinian and Arab friends in Berlin:

Rasha Al-Jundi will be holding another Palestinian embroidery workshop on Sunday 12th November from 12:00-15:00.

This one is open to those of Palestinian or Arab roots in the city.

Please register via this Google Form. You will then be sent the location of the Event.

It is limited to 15 participants. Rasha will confirm the location later in the week.

A small fee of €5 will cover material costs. Any other donations will go 100% to Gaza.

Rasha hopes to nurture our roots and pass what she was taught through her family to you.

Open for all genders.