The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Category: Campaign of the week

Demokratie für Alle (Democracy for All)

Voting rights from 16 and for people without a German passport


10/03/2022

Many people are not allowed to vote: they have no German passport, although they have lived in the country for years, or they are under 18. We want to change this – with voting rights from 16 and for everyone.

For many people, access to democratic participation in Berlin is closed. They are not yet 18 years old, or they have no German passport although they’ve lived in the country for years. Participation in referendums is also difficult for many, for example people with mobility impairments.

Our demands

1. Voting age of 16: immediate reduction of the active voting age from 18 to 16 for elections to the Berlin parliament and referendums

Article 39, Paragraph 3 of the Berlin constitution contains the following wording:

“Eligible to vote are all Germans, who on the day of the election have completed the 16th year of their life and have been living in Berlin for at least three months.”

Young people build the society of tomorrow. Many Berliners are already politically active at 16 years old. But they must still wait until they are 18 before they can vote for the Berlin parliament. In the local elections 2021, many of the larger parties demanded voting rights from 16 in their election programmes. These parties account for 71% of the seats in parliament – enough to write voting age from 16 into the constitution now. Therefore: A voting of age 16 must come immediately, without further delays. Now is the time. Let’s deal with it!

2. Election rights for all: Bundesrat initiative for voting rights for people without German citizenship

Parliament is urged to stand up for a Bundesrat initiative for full active and passive voting rights for all people who have lived in Germany for at least 3 years, on a local, regional and national level and for EU elections .

Over 600,000 people are denied voting rights at local and national elections, as they have no German passport – that is 1 in 5. Berliners without German nationality are also not allowed to support referendums with their signature. The voices of these people must count! We therefore demand voting rights for all people who have lived in Germany for at least 3 years. Democratic participation must not be dependent on nationality.

3. Digital Democracy: Introduction of an electronic voting option for referendums as a supplement to street collections

A regulation should be added to the voting law in which public initiatives and referendums (including the request for a referendum) should include the option of electronic voting in addition to the existing options.

The Corona pandemic has shown that democracy, participation and engagement also take place a thousandfold online! Public initiatives and referendums are an important democratic element of which Berlin is proud. While digitalisation has simplified more procedures in Berlin administration, digital democracy is still exclusively carried out with pen and paper. We say: Democratic participation must also be possible online! A digital signature will never replace registration on paper, but it allows the vote for people who cannot or do not want to sign in the street. For this reason we demand digital signatures for public initiatives and referendums.

The public initiative Demokratie für Alle consist of a broad alliance of civic initiatives and organisation. The public initiative is supported among others by Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen, Expedition Grundeinkommen, Klimaneustart Berlin, Berlin autofrei, Mehr Demokratie e.V., Nicht Ohne uns 14%, Change.org e.V. / innn.it and openPetition.

Representatives:

  • Samira Ghandour, speaker, Fridays for Future Berlin

  • Berta Del Ben, activist for Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen

  • Raúl Aguayo-Krauthausen, human rights activist and moderator

  • Miguel Gongóra, former school spokesperson, Berlin

  • Nora Circosta, Vorständin Change.org e.V. / innn.it

In addition, the following spokespersons have veen elected

  • Regine Laroche, executive member, Mehr Demokratie Berlin-Brandenburg

  • Anna Weckert, school student and activist at Klimaneustart Berlin

  • Sanaz Azimipour, activist, author and co-founder of MigLoom e.V. and the campaign “Nicht ohne Uns 14 Prozent“

Deadline for signatures: 25th March, 2022

Sharing leads to more signatures.

Inform your family and friends. This helps us collect more signatures!

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Enter your e-mail address here to receive petitions with which you can collect signatures.

Press contact: Mark Appoh presse@demokratiefueralle.de

Demokratie für Alle! Homepage

Host Ukrainians

Finding accommodation for people from the Ukraine fleeing to Germany


03/03/2022

It is to be expected that because of the war in Ukraine, many people will leave the country.

For this reason we, Ukrainian Leftists in Germany are trying to find sleeping facilities for them.

If you are prepared to put someone up, please fill out this form. Please also pass it on to people you know.

The data will be saved in a Google form with 2-step authorization. We will only share the contact date for the host (the person who is offering accommodation) with the guest (the person who needs accommodation). In one month after making contact between the host and the guest, we will inform the host that his or data will be removed and ask them to fill in the form again.

The host can withdraw his or her data any time and this request will be met within a week.

If you have further questions, please contact host.ukrainians@gmail.com,

African/Black Community (ABC)

Network of Africans /Black people in Germany


24/02/2022

The ABC is a German-wide Afrocentric and Pan-African network of Organisations and individual activists. It is run under the auspices of exclusively African and/or Blacks people with African genealogical roots (hence, the name African/Black Community) whose objectives are stipulated in its Code of Conduct (CoC) and Policy Paper (PP).

Aims/Objectives

Although the main idea of an ABC sprang up at the Black Community Congress held from the 18th  to 20th  October 2002 in Löhne-Gohfeld and subsequent meetings in 2004 in Berlin, the first practical consultation meeting called for by African activists within „The VOICE Refugee Forum” however took place in 2005 in Göttingen. The objective was to bring together again diverse African/Black activists from different Organisations, with the aims of networking and of a collective development of activities, galvanized and inspired by our Struggle for JUSTICE for Oury Jalloh and all other Sisters and Brothers killed by the German State terror, through structural and institutional racism, in short Systemic Racism.

The main objective of these meetings and other consultative engagements that later continued until 2011 was to breach the conflictual understanding of “Identity representation, class and privileges” within the Community. From 2013, the impulse was reignited by new activists and networks from within the Community, with help from those who followed up the previous processes since 2005. And here we are today.

How did the name ABC come about and is it the same as BC (Black Community)?

The name came about after a long deliberation about our objectives, which were to bring together again diverse African/Black activists from different Organisations, with the aims of networking and of a collective development of activities that would strengthen our independence (or reduce our dependence on) from the White majority society in which we find ourselves. It is the same as the Black Community (BC) in many levels and ways, but some of the differences are expressed in our conviction that uplifting Africa (through different liberation struggles, engagements and achievements) is at the centre of all our engagements. We follow the principle of self-organisation and intra-supportive community mechanisms and processes.

That said, it would not be a genuine process to talk about the history of the ABC just by recounting our experiences and Community engagements since the first Black Community Congress in 2001. While acknowledging the roles played by individual activists and Networks in the process of establishing and recording this rich history, a rather legitimate appraisal would be to formulate questions that can be used to express the background and documentation of the process of founding the ABC, the African / Black Community in Germany. This would enable the participation of many, in documenting our history of the foundation of the network.

Contact us and be part of our struggles and empowerment processes.

Tel: 0152 159 286 58  

Email: abcberlin19@gmail.com 

Migrantifa

Organising Berliners with migrant descent


17/02/2022

Migrantifa Berlin was formed in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Hanau on 19 February 2020 where Vili Viorel Păun, Said Nesar Hashemi, Gökhan Gültekin, Mercedes Kierpacz, Hamza Kurtović, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar, Kaloyan Velkov und Sedat Gürbüz were murdered by a fascist. We are part of a wider network of Migrantifa groups across Germany.

Migrantifa Berlin is a group where people of migrant decent across various communities organise together, many of them born and raised in Germany. We consider ourselves a revolutionary organisation. We believe that people of migrant decent cannot rely on the state for their protection and security and that self-organisation is necessary in order to protect the lives of people in our communities. Therefore, our main focus is community organising in the neighbourhoods of Wedding, Neukölln, Kreuzberg and Lichtenberg.

We regularly organise anti-fascist neighbourhood walks as well as food, clothing, hygiene article distributions. Beyond the community organising aspect, we organise protests and educational events and engage in alliances with other migrant, anti-racist and/or revolutionary groups. We often serve as a connection between the German radical left scene and the anti-racist/migrant left.

We believe racism to be an integral part of capitalism, which serves as an ideology to justify the subjugation and exploitation of our people. Therefore, we believe that the only viable answer to the racism that we and our communities face is class struggle.

Initiative zur Aufklärung des Mordes an Burak (Initiative for information about Burak’s murder)

We will not be silent until Burat’s murder is explained.


10/02/2022

Our initiative understands itself as a platform where Burak’s family and friends, anti-racist groups, political artists, activists from various collectives in Neukölln, people from the neighbourhood, youth workers, victim counsellors, and researchers into Neo-Nazis can come together at one table, to speak with each other, listen to each other and become active.

The starting point: 5th April 2012. Apparently an assassination in broad daylight, in the middle of Neukölln. A perpetrator who can can go around with a weapon and randomly choose a group of young people, where Burak, Jamal and Alex met with two more friends. Five shots, silence, no-one can understand why. We also have no explanation – but we have many questions. Above all we ask: was racism the motive again?

This murder in broad daylight is seen as a great threat, and not just by family, friends and neighbours. The murderer walks around freely and can carry a weapon. No-one knows what he will do next. Shock and helplessness spread. Questions as to how the police would react if the group did not consist of so-called “migrant youth”, Would a state of emergency have been immediately called? Would the media have called for stricter gun laws? And would the State have shown its toughness and visibility? We don’t know, but we can make assumptions.

Independently of the actual motivation of the unknown perpetrator, this attempted murder of a group of young people is a symbol. A few months after the NSU became public knowledge, the parallels are more than clear. Whether or not the murderer was an organised Neo-Nazi, a normal racist of a “troubled individual”, as the police like to tell everyone, the attempted murder has brought a broad insecurity onto the streets – above all among young people. Because the perpetrator is still free to walk around. And the police and the authorities are giving no information.

The starting point of our initiative was a self-reflexion of anti-fascist and anti-racist politics: after the exposure of the NSU murders, it has become obvious that strategies regarding solidarity and our relation to state authorities must change. This requires us to overcome the racist splits inside the Left and in the neighbourhood. After the NSU murders we have learned: all that is needed is that the majority remains silent and ignorant which the minority is threatened and attacked. This strategy cannot continue.

We live in Neukölln, a district in which Neo-Nazis have carried out many arson attacks against youth centres and homes of migrant families in recent years. Knowledge of the growing list of violence by Neo-Nazis, who do not shrink from murdering, the existence of the NSU and all the unanswered questions around it, creates a scenario in which we see that murder attempt on Burak and his friends as a threat to everyone who do not fit into the racist world-view of the Neo-Nazis. Whether it is the colour of our skin, our language, our sexuality, our friends, our politics or whatever.

Although we do not know who the perpetrator was, we fear that until we see contradictory evidence, this was a racist murder. In a social climate in Germany, which shows with alarming regularity that the NSU murders were just a professionalisation of racist murders, which are propagandistically staged and emulated. This is why we have formed this initiative. We will not be silent until the murder is explained!

It must also be said: building a joint platform is an exhausting and intensive task. There are reservations, and reducing them takes many discussions. We must set aside many assumptions and develop our interest in knowing each other. We must withstand the pressure from state authorities who for various reasons do not want to see such a platform, and build mutual trust. Every step forward we take together helps us know each other better.

There are different opinions of how and in which form Burak’s murder must be remembered – these must not contradict each other, but can develop into part of a joint strength, through communication and respect for each other – above all for the survivors. And the common question, which brings us together in raising a strong voice:

Who killed Burat?

We call for solidarity with Burak’s family and friends. Let us remember Burak together. We are not prepared to accept that Burat’s murder remains unexplained. We will not return to normal life, but remember this murder and demand its explanation. Today and in the future.

More information about the Initiative here.