The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Palästina Solidarität Archiv

Palestine Solidarity Archives


19/06/2024

Since January 2024, Palästina Solidarität Archiv has been documenting repression by German authorities.

The archive includes nearly 40 hours of testimony with activists, hundreds of videos of demonstrations, dozens of police letters, sharepics, physical materials and more. It will be publicly available, including a website using archival software pan.do/ra.

The project was initiated by a residency of the Palästina Kampagne at AGIT, a space for artistic and archival projects. It has now grown into an independent project with continued support from AGIT, as well as various activist and community groups and aims to document the repression and resistance within the Palestine-Solidarity movement in Berlin.

In response to the escalating repression in Berlin, Palästina Solidarität Archiv seeks to make a wide array of vital materials about the actual situation and experiences of Palestinians and their allies available. These materials are thoroughly indexed, allowing journalists, activists and researchers to parse them with relative ease.

Irish Bloc Berlin

Berlin-based platform for Irish solidarity with Palestine


12/06/2024

Formed in February 2024, Irish Bloc Berlin is a community of activists from different backgrounds, equally open to people who are not Irish or European, but who share our common commitment to Palestinian liberation. We foreground international solidarity and collective organisation, and seek meaningful and practical ways to support our Palestinian and international comrades wherever possible. We aim to resist Germany’s systematic and racialised silencing of pro-Palestinian voices.

Irish Bloc Berlin stands as an expression of the Irish people’s long-held solidarity with Palestinians, advocating for liberation and serving as a forum for our collective rage and confusion in the face of ongoing injustice in social, cultural, and political institutions. We believe in the urgent need for new and interconnected structures for international solidarity and advocacy, tackling these pervasive issues from the bottom up. The Bloc seeks to remain a proactive voice of solidarity, raising funds to support Palestinian causes and promoting awareness of the genocide in Gaza as well as injustices throughout historic Palestine.

Check out past and future actions on the Irish Bloc’s Instagram and Telegram channels.

Rechtsextremismus stoppen

Stop Right-Wing Extremism – Defend Democracy


05/06/2024

With demonstrations from 23 May to 8 June 2024 across the country

We stand for a democratic, open, and diverse society, for peace and freedom, diversity and human rights, the preservation of human dignity, economic security, and social justice. All of this is attacked by the AfD and other right-wing extremists.
As a confident society, we do not stand idly by. We unite across the full democratic spectrum against them. Just before the European and local elections in nine federal states on 9 June, we take to the streets against the extreme right. We call on our fellow citizens: Join us in sending a strong message against racism and right-wing extremists. Go vote and choose democracy!

We won’t let democracy in Europe be destroyed!

The right-wing extremists want to raise the borders within Europe again. But a Europe of national egotisms endangers freedom and prosperity. We defend a united Europe – as the historical consequence of eternal wars and fascism.
We want to boldly develop the EU further: Our Europe sets ambitious social and environmental standards, which nation-states would never dare to set on their own. It is based on future investments and consistent climate policy. And it allows all people to participate socially, ti defends human rights, and it protects the persecuted.

We are a resilient democracy!

People with a migration background, other marginalized groups, and all who do not fit into their exclusive worldview are particularly threatened by the rise of the AfD. With a climate of fear, right-wing extremists want to suppress any contradiction. All democratic parties must now make it clear that they do not seek majorities with such forces. We must prevent victories of the right-wing extremists in the local elections and their participation in government at the state level!

Hope and confidence are back!

The wave of protests against the AfD that has swept our country encourages us. Now we want to ensure that the extreme right also loses at the ballot box. Before the local and European elections, we will take to the streets in hundreds of places from 23 May. The climax of the demonstrations is Saturday, 8 June. Be there!

Demonstration in Berlin: Saturday 8th June 2pm, Siegessäule

Honouring the Children of Gaza

Vigil and Public Reading


29/05/2024

On Saturday, June 1,  Berliners from all national backgrounds and all religious and political creeds are invited to meet in front of the Neue Wache to read aloud the names of the 15,000 children who’ve been killed in Gaza since October 2023. 

Initiated by three International Berlinerinnen, the action means to break the silence surrounding the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, and express compassion. Behind the anonymity of the mass tallies, there were 15,000 children who each had a family, a life, and a face — they had names, which Berliners are invited to speak together over a 14-hour public reading.

“Faced with the German media’s failure to inform, and the subsequent silence surrounding the horrific death tolls of so many innocent victims, we want to speak aloud: our frustration, our outrage, our grief…. and those children’s names!”

Strictly apolitical and 100% independent, the movement is supported by local initiatives Grieving Doves, gesundheit4palestine and Stimmen aus Gaza, as well as associations, groups and artists calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

  • The public reading: Berliners of all backgrounds and all political and religious beliefs will gather and honour the memory of the children killed in Gaza by reading aloud their names. The reading starts at 9am and continues without interruption until the last name on the list (after midnight). 
  • The shoe display: The public reading will be accompanied by the display of thousands of children’s shoes — a symbol aiming to materialise the scope of the mass killings. 

A symbolic location and a special date:

  • When: On International Children’s Day, June 1, 2024, from 9am till after midnight — without interruption
  • Where: Outside the Neue Wache, on Unter den Linden 4 — Germany’s official Memorial to “the victims of wars and tyranny,” which houses Käthe Kollwitz’s famous Pietà (“Mother and her Dead Son”) — a symbol!

Hundreds of Berliners of all nationalities and backgrounds, including Jews and Germans, have already signed up to read between 9am and midnight. Anyone can book a slot of 5 to 10 minutes ahead of the event (see below, no Arabic skills needed). Or just drop by on Saturday either to help read or simply to join the collective expression of solidarity, human grief and compassion for the innocent victims of Gaza and their families. 

To Contribute/book a slot:  

Email: starttalkingaboutgaza@gmail.com 

IG: honouringthechildrenofgaza 

TG: https://t.me/honouringthechildrenofgaza

Press requests: n.vancauw@gmail.com 

CineForo organized by SoliSur

Latin American cinema in Berlin


22/05/2024

We invite you to join us in a space of film and political debate, where we will showcase Latin American documentaries focused on issues such as migratory rights, the advance of the right wing, and struggles against extractivism. We will screen a documentary every two months in the auditorium of Spore Initiative at Hermannstraße 86, 12051 Berlin.

In the second CineForo of SoliSur, we will show The Panama Deception (1992), a documentary shedding light on the US invasion of Panama in 1989. After the screening, we will open a dialogue to discuss other cases of US military interventions in Latin America, such as Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative (Plan Mexico). Come and share your opinions in this space of critical and solidarity analysis. Through memory, consciousness, and reflection, we weave networks of internationalist resistance. We look forward to seeing you on Thursday, the 23rd of May at 18:00.

SoliSur is a migrant political group based in Berlin. We are united by a political practice that seeks to articulate the Latin American migration experience with our lives in the city from an internationalist perspective. For the past two years, we have focused our political work on defending migrant rights, questioning the extractivist practices that Latin American territories suffer from big capital benefiting local elites and “developed” countries, and fighting against the extreme manifestations of capitalism that result in the rise of the extreme right, both in Europe and in Latin America / Abya Yala.