The Left Berlin News & Comment

This is the archive template

Lauratibor – Protest opera

Collective opera protesting the sell out of cities


18/06/2021

The collective opera “Wem gehört Lauratibor?” (Who owns Lauratibor) presents a novel form of activism – an opera created to protest the ongoing evictions of residents and artisans in the Reichenberger neighborhood of Berlin-Kreuzberg. Written in Italian opera style, Who owns Lauratibor? follows Laura and Tibor and their companions through the province of Lauratibor as they surmount numerous obstacles on their search for a magic potion to help them resist.

Along the way, they encounter ruthless speculators as well as allies in similarly precarious situations. The lovers are separated and reunited, flounder, and are again shown the way by the Master of Love… before their final showdown with the arch-villain, Maximilius Profitikuss.

Who owns Lauratibor? is the fruit of a collaboration between several long-running protest movements in Reichenbergerkiez. Disturbed by the number of evictions in the neighbourhood that were rising despite the pandemic, residents joined forces with other Berliners. More than 100 professionals and amateurs make up the core ensemble of two choruses, an orchestra and around 20 soloists, while others created the scenery, costumes, libretto and score.

Most participants live and work in Reichenbergerkiez. They want to preserve their lively and heterogeneous neighbourhood, with apartments and ateliers coexisting under fairly regulated – rather than inflated market – rents. The three-hour-long musical saga takes the form of a demonstration to depict the urgent and existential threat to ever more Berliners.

The music for orchestra, chorus and soloists was composed to be performed in the street. It includes echoes of Italian opera and Carl Orff, as well as Kurt Weill agit-prop and Tom Waits. The collective has worked intensively with the various places and people whose stories are told in the protest opera, with each initiative having its own sound at its actual location: The Meuterei collective bar speaks a different (musical) language to the Yayla martial arts school. The collaborative creative process allowed all participants to contribute their unique experiences, skills and ideas.

CommUNITY Culture Parade Against Capitalism

Combining political demands with cultural protest

What is the idea?

We bring CommUnity Culture to the streets! For us this means to combine political demands with cultural protest. Culture belongs on the streets, accessible to all: We don’t want profit culture in palaces for elites. Our counterculture is called community culture!

Come to our commUnity culture parade!

With your crews, families, communities and friends*!
Together we bring our anti-capitalist demands, different perspectives, protest forms and actions to the streets!
Art has to get out of the palaces, onto the streets and into the movements!
Bring your musical instruments, transpis, songs and dances!
Laugh with us the powerful laughter from below – artistic and militant!

What is it about?

Who lives and who dies? That’s what the capitalist system decides every day. Be it the consequences of preventable or curable diseases, war, climate change, state repression, right-wing terror or the consequences of a murderous neoliberal economic policy.

Everyday people struggle to survive in the housing market, in education and employment, in health care, in hope of papers for a self-determined life. We fight for the survival of our places where we come together and organize our counter-culture: for the financing of our youth clubs, our self-managed spaces and artistic workshops.

Alive is our resistance and our struggles that we connect together. Alive are our demands and movements for a world without racism and sexism, with good working conditions, climate justice and health and housing for ALL – not only for the rich. Every struggle of ours is a step of the living future of SOLIDARITY – locally and internationally!

We come as CommUNITY!

…As activists, cultural workers and workers*. As anti-racist, feminist community organizers, as climate activists and farmers! We are Black people and of color, refugees, LGBTIQA*, exploited people and allies.

The Community – Culture Parade Alliance:

ABL- working group peasant agriculture
Artistania
Coliberation
Legalization Now!
Migrantifa
UmverteilungsUltras
Sabotage Theater
Theater X
Venus Boys
Walk of Care
We’ll Come United Berlin Brandenburg

Marzahn Pride

Marzahn – we all love alike


16/06/2021

Marzahn – we all love alike!

On July 17th the non-profit LGBTQ* organization Quarteera e.V., led by Russian-speaking activists, in cooperation with LesLeFam e.V., is holding a Pride Parade in the Berlin district of Marzahn for the second time.

The opening speech will be given by the district mayor of Marzahn-Hellersdorf Dagmar Pohle, who has also assumed the patronage of the Marzahn Pride. There will be speeches from Quarteera’s cooperation partners, including the Alliance for Tolerance and Democracy, the Federal Association of Russian-speaking Parents and the Waldschlösschen Academy.

The message of this year’s Marzahn Prides is “We all love alike…” (in German “Marzahn – das bunte Miteinande”). Quarteera wants to convey that everyone – the residents of the district and any other Berliners, regardless of whether they are migrants, LGBTIQ* or not – have a lot in common. We laugh alike, we cry alike. After all, sexuality or identity is just one of the aspects that play a big role in life, but it is not the aspect that overshadows everything else.

About Quarteera:

Quarteera e.V. is a non-profit organization of Russian-speaking LGBT people and LGBT * – allies in Germany. For over a decade we have been focused on LGBT * rights, activism and education. With the support of the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Quarteera organizes numerous projects and cooperates with several German NGOs.

You can find more detailed information about us on our website.

Marzahn Pride website

Aktionsbündnis A100 stoppen​

Stop the extension of the A100 motorway


04/06/2021

Aktionsbündnis A100 stoppen! (Action Group stop the A1000!) is a network of Berlin initiatives and activists who are campaigning for a sustainable, humane and ecological urban development and transport politics. The alliance is independent of political parties.

An important goal is to prevent the extension of the Berlin urban motorway, the A100.

The 16th construction phase of the A100 from Neukölln to Treptow started in May 2013. Now there are plans for a 17th phase from Treptower Park through Friedrichshain up to Storkower Straße. This would be the prelude of a new motorway ring through the East of Berlin along the Ringbahn.

The motorway plans come from wishes in the 1950s for a car-friendly city and were revisited after the fall of the Berlin wall.

On 5th June, there will be a national action day for a social and climate-friendly mobility change, where citizens initiatives, climate groups and NGOs will be taking part in bicycle demos, rallies and protest actions against the construction of motorways and trunk roads across the country.

In Berlin, the focus will be on the A100 and the demand to stop building now.

Let’s turn the future motorways into a recreation space and meeting place. Walking and cycling are still desirable.

Our demands

  • An immediate moratorium for plans and construction of the A100 between Neukölln and Storkower Straße

  • The plan for federal transport routes and the development act for building the A100 must be removed!

  • The money which is freed must be used to finance a socially just and ecological change in transport policies.

  • Enable the building of social housing on the 16th construction phase! Cycle lanes on the areas which have been sealed off until now.

  • Keep the clubs on the planned route!

A hygiene concept will be in force throughout the whole action, We will be protesting with masks and social distancing.

Parkplatz Transform

Reducing the number of cars in Berlin


28/05/2021

There are 1.2 million vehicles in Berlin – more than ever before. These cars must park somewhere. Public space in cities does not grow with the population, nor with the number of vehicles. On average, every parked car uses up 12 square metres of space.

When we formed the initiative “Parkplatz transform” (transform parking spaces), we asked “how many public parking spaces there are in Berlin?” No-one knew exactly. Where local government does not manage parking and parking remains free, the number of free spaces is unknown to local authorities. We want to raise awareness about the amount of space allocated to cars in town and plan to map the whole city. Before the pandemic, we organized outings to map the number of parking spaces in an area together. During the Corona pandemic, we have developed the prototype of an App with which parking spaces can easily be mapped individually. We are currently testing this prototype.

We want less space to be allocated to parking, and that car owners pay for their privilege of using public space. We want to develop these alternatives with people in every kiez. We already have many ideas that we want to promote. We want more gardens, streets where kids can play, public meeting places, more footpaths and bicycle lanes, and more park benches. We want to make these alternatives visible. All people who live in limited city space would benefit from having more air to breathe when there are fewer cars. Everyone stands to gain from habitable cities with congestion-free mobility.

Urban transport must change. We need more space for public transport, car sharing and commercial transport. Designated areas for disabled parking will make life easier for those who do need a car.

If you are interested in getting involved, collecting, analyzing data feel free to get in touch at parkplatztransform@riseup.net