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Category: Campaign of the week

Initiative Wahlrecht für Alle

Voting Rights for Everyone


08/09/2022

The “Initiative Wahlrecht für Alle” (Initiative voting rights for everyone) invite you to a meeting on Friday, 9th September 2022, 7pm in Oranienstraße 159 (kub/Allmende, shop on the ground floor), Here, we would like to discuss with you how we can let people know about the demand VOTING RIGHTS FOR ALL around the International Day of Democracy (Internationaler Tag der Demokratie, ITD, 15th September).

In addition, we would also like to chat with you about how we can middle- and long-term make public this subject which time and again falls into obscurity.

Because of the short time and other planned meetings on ITD, we have discussed our own idea.

With an A2 poster and leaflets, we want to make people aware of the undemocratic situation in Germany, to emphasize the demand for VOTING RIGHTS FOR EVERYONE.

The posters are to be hung up throughout the city, and will be naturally designed by a graphic designer.

Who are we?

  •  At the end of 2021, representatives of the groups ABA (Aktionsbündnis Antira – activity alliance anti-racism), Right2TheCity (Deutsche Wohnen & Co working group for non-Germnas) and Nicht Ohne Uns 14% came together to set up our    initiative         
  • In February 2022, we issued a statement to the Berliner Senat, which was signed by around 50 organisations         
  • In mid-April we organised a rally at Kotbusser Tor

After the Summer break, we want to be active again, and extend our group to include you.

How can you get involved?

  • Best case, regularly come to our meetings and join the work and help make decisions         
  • If you can’t regularly attend our meetings, you can practically support our work, for example by putting up posters on the evening of 14th September, so that people wake up to the posters on 15th September 🙂

More Information

Dekoloniale Festival 2022

Memory culture in the city


01/09/2022

Although not always visible, the colonial past is omnipresent. This can also be said about the reverberations of the colonialism that emanated from Germany into the world. Berlin wants to face its responsibility as former colonial metropolis and capital of the German Reich. This is the reason why we have started the Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City in January 2020 as cultural project to critically deal with the history of colonialism and its consequences.

The model project traces back to an initiative of four member organisations of the civic alliance Decolonize Berlin e.V. and the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. The Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation could be attracted as a cooperation partner. The project is thus significantly upheld by stakeholders who for years have been committed to achieving a critical appraisal of colonialism by the city of Berlin.

Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City perceives colonialism as a system of injustice, which always met with the resistance of the colonised people. The project picks up on the ever louder demands for a consistent change of perspective in the post-colonial memory culture. Instead of colonial and colonial-racist stakeholders, from now on the victims and opponents of colonial racism and exploitation are to receive attention and appreciation.

As a participatory solidarity project of historical-political education, we have set ourselves the goal of working with experts and activists worldwide to explore the past and present of the (anti-)colonial in Berlin, in the rest of Germany and in Germany’s former colonies explore and make visible online. Colonial history is always also a global history of entanglements: histories of life, places, objects and institutions connect Europe with Africa, Asia, Oceania, Australia and America.

Using the example of Berlin, Dekoloniale of Memory Culture in the City tests how a metropolis, its space, its institutions and its society can be examined on a broad level for (post-)colonial effects, how the invisible can be experienced and the visible can be irritated. The participatory cultural project is aimed at a broad and diverse urban society. It not only questions individual actors or fields – such as museums – about their (post-)colonial realities. During the project period, Dekoloniale mobilizes the entire city with its own activities and supporting cooperation.

Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City is a joint project of Berlin Postkolonial eV , Each One Teach One – EOTO eV , Initiative Black People in Germany – ISD-Bund eV and the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin . The state network Berlin Development Policy Advice – BER eV supports the project as a partner. In addition, we cooperate closely with the German Museum of Technology and the Berlin district museums in Treptow-Köpenick, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and Berlin-Mitte. The project is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

The Dekoloniale Festival 2022 takes place from 1st – 4th September around Mariannenplatz. You can see the full programme in English here.

Stolen Cameras Fundraiser

Fundraiser for cameras to Sahrawi citizen journalists


26/08/2022

Join us in supporting a people that never gets any attention in the media and help them get the tools to share their story. Your donation will make an impact whether you donate a lot or a little. Anything helps. Thank you for your support. Learn about the campaign and the Sahrawis below.

We are biking 48,000km and fundraising for cameras to Sahrawi citizen journalists. Why is this needed? Sahrawi journalists are the only ones that document human rights violations in occupied Western Sahara. The occupying Moroccan regime does not allow foreign journalists or human rights organizations entry to the occupied territories. This has led to Western Sahara being one of the most underreported areas in the world. The brave Sahrawis who document the human rights violations often get their cameras stolen and are harassed by the Moroccan authorities.

Western Sahara is Africa’s last colony. Morocco has been occupying Western Sahara since 1975. The indigenous people of Western Sahara, the Sahrawis, are being subjected to grave human rights violations on a regular basis. They are beaten, imprisoned and tortured when they demonstrate peacefully. They face a litany of abuses. Many who demonstrate are women who have been sexually assaulted by the Moroccan police and military without any way to punish their raper.

This is why we need this campaign and your support. Almost no one has heard about the daily violations against the Sahrawi people. The ongoing arrests, beatings, torture and rape of the indigenous Sahrawi people will only be known if the Sahrawi journalists have access to camera equipment so they can document it and share it with the outside world. Without proper documentation these violations will continue in the dark.

We, who live in freedom from oppression, need to support those that fight for theirs. By donating to this fundraiser you are supplying Sahrawi citizen journalists with camera equipment so that they can continue their important work documenting human rights violations and help open the world’s eyes to one of the last colonies still existing today.

If you have a camera you don’t need or are working in an organisation that has a supply, you can also donate that. Just contact Solisarity Rising on social media or the e-mail address below.

This campaign is initiated by Solidarity Rising and all proceeds will go to Sahrawi citizen journalists. For any inquiries contact us at solidarityrising@gmail.com,

  • Make a donation here
  • Read theleftberlin interview with Sanna and Benjamin from Solidarity Rising here.

WEAREBORNFREE! Humanity Matters

Visible art by black and people of colour (BIPoC) artists


18/08/2022

Wearebornfree! is an open platform – we welcome everyone – but we especially call out to refugees, Black people, people of colour, LGBTIQ+ people, women*, children and other marginalized groups to connect and collaborate with us

WEAREBORNFREE! is a fundamental principle to understand the true essence of being a human. Unfortunately, in the capitalistic colonial exploitative world of today, only a few of us acknowledge this fact. While a minority hold the keys of power and feels entitled to determine who is human and who isn’t, the majority of people are dehumanized.

It is crucial to recognise that blacks and people of colour (BIPoC) refuse to be dehumanized and that they retain their dignity through cultural and artistic expressions, through political activism, and through writing their stories so that they do not become invisibilized.

We recognise that over time and space marginalized people have expressed themselves in different ways such that their voices, expressions and stories have broken free through the chains of confinement. In this way, the people who have been dehumanized have regained their dignity through their expressions.

Wearebornfree Decolonial Mission Academy (WDMA) aims to create a space such that it becomes possible for people on the margins to express themselves in a multitude of ways and thus share their various journeys with people who may or may not have had similar experiences.

Wearebornfree Decolonial Mission Academy (WDMA) is happy to curate an Art Day on 20th August @ Al Berlin from 12 noon onwards. Our aim is to fight against European hegemony as well as to celebrate, display, and make visible art by black and people of colour (BIPoC). The programme will include food art, comedy, dance, drums, poetry performances, displays, music, DJ set and open mike reflections by the performers.

Curated by Bino Byansi, Moro Yapha and Fazila Bhimji. We look forward to seeing you!

Programme:

12:00-16:00 Decolonizing Media: Wearebornfree Radio on Air

16:00-20:00 Open Art & Performance

20:00-22:00 Food & Networking

22:00-03:00 DJ: Hip-Hop, Reggae, Trap, Afro Beats, R&B

RevolutionaryBerlin Tours

Anticapitalist walking tours since 2009.


11/08/2022

Revolutionary Berlin has been offering anticapitalist walking tours since 2009.

“Turning the May Day riots into a tourist attraction,” as the far-right tabloid BZ helpfully informed readers. The city’s revolutionary history is not limited to the Neighborhood Uprising of May 1, 1987. Karl Marx made his home here, as did Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and many other revolutionaries. The city was shaken by protests in 1848, 1918-19, 1968, 1989… Many of the buildings have been destroyed and even the streets have been rerouted, but this history can still be found everywhere.

Revolutionary Berlin is offering two tours in August 2022: –

  • This City Kills Fascists looks at the murder of Horst Wessel, a young Nazi leader from Friedrichshain who was shot one night in 1930. It’s a micro-study of life in a very red neighborhood. This tour is meeting on Monday, August 15, at 17:30 in front of Kino International (Karl-Marx-Allee 33).
  • (Anti)Colonialism looks at Berlin’s little-known history as a colonial metropolis, especially how it is reflected in street names today. This tour is meeting on Friday, August 19, at 17:30 in front of the Akademie Der Künste (Pariser Platz 4), next to Hotel Adlon, opposite the Brandenburg Gate.

Both tours last two hours and are donation-based. If you’re interested, sign up via e-mail at revolutionaryberlin@gmail.com