The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Category: Campaign of the week

Queers Against Racism and Colonialism (QuARC)

Palestine is also a Queer Issue


02/07/2021

QuARC (Berlin Queers Against Racism and Colonialism) is an umbrella group for queers* committed to anti-racist and anti-colonial politics. The group grew out of the “Queers for Palestine” bloc, which was a spontaneous reaction and protest of queer communities in Berlin in 2019,against a ban on any demonstration of Palestine solidarity at a so-called “Radical Queer March”. Ironically, the organisers of the march were so upset by our Palestine solidarity, that they ended up calling the police on our bloc. The situation was so absurd, it showed us all why there is such an urgent need to begin a different type of organising in Berlin.

QuARC formed and continues to organise out of a need for a more representative, internationalist politics among the queer left in Berlin. A politics that represents an understanding of how structures of racism, colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism intersect and why solidarity with anti-colonial struggle the world over, is in our view, a crucial foundation of any effective organising especially within our queer communities.

This year QuARC and friends are organising an Internationalist Queer Pride for Liberation, under the banner “none of us are free, until we are all free” which will bring together Berlin’s radical queer, anti-colonial and anti-racist communities. The march will take place on 24 July – the same day as the mainstream CSD pride parade in central Berlin – and will wind through Neukölln and Kreuzberg featuring stops with speeches at different points and marking historical moments, milestones and movements that speak to a wider queer experiences than the Pink-washed, corporate, mainstream CSD event. From racial profiling and gentrification to police brutality and white supremacy – these are examples of the struggles that for us represent the true spirit of pride.

It goes without saying that the march will have no corporate sponsorship—that’s why we are asking people to join us on Saturday 3 July at Marielle-Franco-Platz — to eat, drink, dance and raise money for our march. Beyond this, if you would like more info or want to get involved, please write to quarc-berlin@riseup.net

We look forward to seeing you there!

CSD Berlin Pride

Demonstrating for LGBTQIA+ rights and diversity


25/06/2021

CSD Berlin Pride is organising its first hybrid demonstration through Berlin on 26th June. CSD-Berlin pride sees itself as a political demonstration which gives visibility and space to the different, diverse and varied LGBTQIA+ community which has lived in Berlin for decades.

There will be three demos – East PRIDE which starts in Prenzlauer Berg, QTIBIPoC United: Reclaiming Pride in Kreuzberg and Queerschutz Now! In Neukölln. With diverse focal points and routes, we want to offer all members of the Community to sow their diversity and bid farewell to the ideas that one institution has the monopoly over the orientation of a CSD-Pride demonstration.

EAST Pride begins at 11 o’clock at the Gethsemane church in Prenzlauer Berg an evangelical service of worship and will concentrate on the lesbian and gay movement in the DDR. From 1pm, the route will pass through Danziger Straße, where the second clerical working group in East Berlin – the „Gesprächskreis Homosexualität“- was based.

The organisers of the Neukölln route Queerschutz Now want to make the desolate situation of LGBTQIA+ infrastructure visible. There will also be a focus on the situation of the T* community. This will be addressed by contributions from the club scene, culture and gastronomy.

The demo QTIBIPoC United: Reclaiming Pride is organised by actors in the QTBIPoC community. It will also start at 1pm in Kreuzberg and will focus on anti-racism and queerfeminism.

The marches will arrive at different times and places between Strausberger Platz and Alexanderplatz until 6pm. The demo is only possible under strict adherence to hygiene and distancing rules. You can find detailed information about the routes, programme and hygiene measures on the CSD Berlinpride homepage,

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