The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Category: Campaign of the week

Hand in Hand

Let’s Act in Solidarity Now


31/01/2024

Crises, wars, disasters – the world around us is increasingly shaky. Much of what we long relied upon is uncertain. In a rapidly changing world, we see the political climate in Europe changing dangerously. Fears of change, loss, and poverty are deliberately fueled, and people are pitted against each other. Divides in society deepen.

In Germany, the political landscape is developing alarmingly: right-wing and extremist views are gaining public support. Racism, antisemitism, and other forms of group-related hostility are on the rise. Individuals are demeaned due to poverty, unemployment, or homelessness, and are socially excluded. At the same time, crucial tasks such as climate protection and social justice are devalued as burdensome impositions.

Disrespect, hostilities, and the denial of facts dominate parts of the societal mood. The separation from detractors of democracy like the AfD is diminishing. Standing up for human rights is questioned. Refugees are massively deprived of rights, and those who support them are increasingly criminalized. Our societal coexistence, diversity, and fairness  – our democracy – are in danger.

But we are determined to be loud and active: for an open, democratic, pluralistic, and solidarity society, collectively against the right-wing shift in Germany and Europe! Silence is not an option! We must become visible and audible. The time to act is now because the municipal, regional, and European elections in 2024 are crucial!

Now, we ALL are called to stand up:

  • For solidarity and respect, against hate and incitement
  • For justice and tolerance, against division
  • For a society that leaves no one behind, for human dignity, against exclusion
  • For self-determination and humanity, human rights for all, against racism, antisemitism, and other forms of group-related hostility

Protest on 3rd February – 1pm, in front of the Bundestag

Appointment in Samarra

From Cairo to Berlin with Love


24/01/2024

Appointment in Samarra is a new blog by a Berlin-based Egyptian journalist, Simsim Abdo. theleftberlin asked Simsim to explain what it’s all about.

What is in your newsletter?

I was initially covering the independent art scene in Cairo, which is what I am most passionate about. But with time I realized that there are many stories that I see on the streets here in Berlin that I feel I need to talk about because we need to expose the German government. The world should know what is happening to the migrant community and the pro-Palestine voices here. At the same time, I feel very connected to my hometown, in the same way that most people of color here in Berlin are constantly struggling with homesickness. The newsletter became a bridge for me, linking between my hometown and Berlin.

Why did you start writing about Berlin?

I never felt comfortable covering events in Berlin. Especially since I didn’t have a wide enough network. Not to mention that my German is not that great. But everything is different now, especially since October. I have so many emotions about the city, which I need an outlet to express. And despite my anger about what is happening, the current events have also led me to find a new community here, which makes me feel slightly more at home.

What are the topics that you plan to cover?

I want to talk about what is happening on the streets. This includes the protests and the police brutality. But it also includes the street art, the stickers whether they are on the walls of the U-bahn or the toilets inside the bars. I find those stickers and tags on the walls to be extremely interesting. I am going to include something about that in this week’s newsletter. Other things I want to talk about include the shops and cafes facing the streets. My main protagonists are Hermannplatz and Neukölln. But I am not just telling my stories. If you read my newsletter, you will find that I rarely talk in the first person. This is because I want to also tell everyone else’s story. I really want the readers to reach out to me, sending me tips or photos of what they think should be covered. One thing I want to hear about is the artists that need fundraising, volunteers, or any other form of help. I want to spread the news about them to others in the community. Other things included in the newsletter are from my own archive. I will also keep sharing the new articles that I publish with other news organisations.

More information:

Muslim Futures

Creating an empowering and Disruptive space


17/01/2024

Who thinks about the future and who doesn’t?

Who is offered chances and spaces to use the challenging experiences of today and the many fights in the here and now to imagine a tomorrow that is more just, inclusive, and empowering?

How would it be if there were such a space that allowed Muslims to draw the future, to negotiate, and to target what is worth fighting for today?

To draw futures, and the many desirable nuances from them, which focus on the many-faceted Muslim lives and on Muslims, which do not homogenise and categorise them in a racist manner, which do not criminalise Muslims and declare them to be an “Other.”

How would it be if we called this space “Muslim Futures?”

Inspired by the work on Afro-Futurism, Muslim Futures wants to connect with this tradition and to focus on specific Muslim intersectional futures. The anti-racist and decolonial project uses the methods of Critical Futures Thinking and makes it fruitful for political and artistic education work.

Muslim Futures is in many ways and areas a disruptive practice – in political education work, in Futures Thinking, and around anti-Muslim hegemonic thinking and acting.

Come and enter the world of Muslim Futures to radically imagine more just and inclusive futures with us. From the 18th until the 21st of January, you’ll find us in the ACUD Gallery and Club. Please visit the website and our social media (superrrnetwork) for more details on the programme!

Muslim Futures
Thursday 18.1 – Sunday 21.1 – ACUD Galerie + ACUD Club
Opening: Thursday 18.1, 19H

Gemeinschaftlicher Widerstand (Community resistance)

Our Solidarity against their Repression


What went on in Hamburg in 2017?

In the run-up to the 2017 G20 summit, the meeting of the governments of the 20 most powerful countries in the world, Hamburg was turned into a fortress to prevent protests as far as possible. Tens of thousands of police officers were deployed, general bans on demonstrations were imposed across the city, demonstrators travelling to the event were monitored, critical journalists were excluded and even the German army was involved. Despite this, hundreds of thousands of people took the opportunity to protest against the summit: After all, it is precisely these states that are largely responsible for inequality and exploitation, flight and war, neocolonialism, oppression and climate catastrophe.

From the very beginning, demonstrations and protests were attacked by the police, hundreds of people were injured, some of them seriously, and countless others were locked up in specially designed prisons. Despite this, there were massive, angry, creative and diverse protests in favor of a better world in which everyone can live without fear.

A good overview of the protests and police violence can be found in the documentary “Hamburger Gitter” – available on YouTube with English subtitles.

What is the new G20 process starting this week all about?

The first day of the summit was July 7. Thousands of activists were out and about from the early morning to demonstrate and block access routes for the summit participants. Various protest marches set off from the protest camp in Altona. On the way to the city centre, a group of around 200 people encountered several police units who brutally attacked the demonstration in Rondenbarg Street in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld from the front and behind and broke it up within a very short time.

The police immediately ran towards the demonstration without prior announcements, shouting loudly. Demonstrators were violently brought to the ground, beaten and insulted. There were numerous injuries ranging from lacerations and bruises to sprained neck vertebrae and open fractures.

Although there was massive police violence against the demonstrators and no police officers were injured, it is not the police but the demonstrators who are now on trial. Charges have been brought against a total of 85 people in the so-called G20-Rondenbarg-proceeding, and the trial for six of them will now begin on January 18 at Hamburg District Court.

What impact would a conviction have?

The public prosecutor’s office accuses all of the defendants of “serious breach of the peace”. None of the six defendants is accused of an individual act: Demonstrators are to be sentenced for mere presence at a demonstration! The minimum sentence for “serious breach of the peace” is six months in prison.

If the court follows the demands of the public prosecutor’s office and sentences those involved in the Rondenbarg proceedings, the freedom of assembly and thus the most important means of political debate in public spaces would be massively restricted.

In addition to the retrospective justification of police violence during the G20 summit, a permanent restriction of the right to demonstrate is the most important goal of the state in this trial. The trial is being organized on a correspondingly gigantic scale. The first instance alone will be heard over at least 25 days, with dozens of police officers invited as legal witnesses.

How can we show solidarity now?

We would be happy if as many people as possible came to the demonstration in Hamburg next Saturday, 20.01.2024!  The details of the joint bus journey from Berlin are here.

There will be manifestations in front of the court on every day of the trial. We look forward to your support and participation here too. All dates can be found on our homepage. There will certainly also be other larger protest actions – not only in Hamburg, but hopefully also in Berlin and many other places.

What else can we do? We can (very importantly!) tell as many people as possible about the ongoing process and spread the word, we can distribute leaflets and put up posters, write our own texts, translate existing texts and show our protest against this political process in Hamburg in all imaginable diverse, angry and creative ways.
And perhaps most importantly, let us expand, broaden and intensify the struggles for which we already took to the streets in Hamburg in 2017: Against the impositions of capitalist normality, against war and isolation, armament and racism, patriarchy and environmental destruction, police violence, oppression and exploitation. Let’s come together, let’s change the world for the better!

The campaign „Gemeinschaftlicher Widerstand“ (“Community Resistance”) has been working on the so-called G20-Rondenbarg-proceedings since the end of 2019. It stands in solidarity with the 85 defendants. People across Germany are involved in organizing rallies, demonstrations, events and other solidarity actions as part of the campaign. The campaign’s call for solidarity is supported by more than 100 groups and initiatives. Contact: gemeinschaftlich@riseup.net

Arts and Culture Alliance Berlin

Berlin-based artists and cultural workers in support of Palestinian Liberation and artistic
freedom


09/01/2024

We stand against censorship, cancellation and harassment

We stand together against the recent escalations in the censoring, silencing, defaming, and deplatforming in Germany of those standing up for Palestinian liberation and human rights. Even before the current war, Germany had become uniquely and shamefully notorious around the world for canceling, silencing, smearing and intimidating cultural, academic, and civil society individuals and organizations who align themselves with the politics of the international Palestine solidarity movement. These violations of artistic freedom and common decency are perpetuated by actors at all levels of government, including the Berlin Senate and its bodies, as well as by cultural institutions, foundations and funding bodies. Acts of censorship harm the democratic structures and cultural conditions of Germany, and serve to isolate the German cultural scene from engaging in contemporary global discourses of decolonisation.

Repression of critical and racialized voices empowers the far right

We recognize that the silencing of voices speaking out for Palestinian human rights is contributing dangerously to the rise of racism, xenophobia, state violence and repression in Germany. It serves only the far right whose rising support positions all racialized people in greater danger and corrodes democratic public institutions, including funding and support for cultural expression. Palestinian, Muslim, Arab and racialized people are being made to pay an especially high price in this culture of fear. Those perpetuating the policies, cancellations and smear campaigns cynically proclaim that they are doing so in the name of fighting anti-Semitism. But by silencing People of Colour, Anti-Zionist Jews, Muslims, Arabs, queers, and our anti-colonial positions, the far right, who have always seen these groups as the enemy, are emboldened. The fight against anti-Semitism is the fight against racism and fascism, and must include fighting all forms of racism, defending free expression, freedom of arts and culture, and the right to international solidarity.

We stand for humanity and in solidarity with Palestinian liberation

We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom, self-determination and a just peace in the name of our common humanity. Those who work in arts and culture cannot only claim to represent and defend the flourishing of the human experience when it is convenient. The same values that drive us to create challenging and beautiful works call on us to name and protest against the great injustices of our time, including the mass murder of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. It also calls us to name and protest the fascist government of Israel and that nation-state’s foundations in violent settler colonialism. We see this as entangled in our struggles in Germany, where for too long, the dominant culture has refused to incorporate the humanity of Palestinians into their conception of what it means to truly account for the sins of their past.

How and why do we organise?

This alliance is committed to fighting against, not only what we perceive as threats to the German cultural scene from government institutions, but also what we understand to be the pitfalls of the individualizing mechanisms of the art world that create the conditions for artists using political struggles to platform themselves and further their careers. It is for this reason we feel the urgency of organising collectively. While we aim to find a language and vision that provides as wide a tent as possible for mobilising artists of diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, we foreground the needs and safety of the most marginalised voices among us. Right now, that means we listen to, and protect the Arab, Muslim and Palestinian artists in our group. We emphasise the danger of divorcing cultural censorship in Germany from the global catastrophe that is the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

Follow the Arts an Culture Alliance Berlin on Instagram here.