Letter from the Editors, 15th February 2024

Remember Hanau


14/02/2024


Hello everyone,

The exhibition Kite of Four Colours has been running since Monday in Bardo Projektraum, Jessnerstraße 33. Kite of Four Colors is a photo exhibition with live-events that aims to counter the dehumanizing image of the Palestinian people spread by the Western media. The exhibition includes a selection of pictures that are part of a larger exhibition: GAZA HABIBTI*. During the week of the exhibition there will also be live events exploring different aspects of Palestinian culture. The events will be announced in the coming days. Stay tuned! The exhibition is open from 5pm every day until Sunday. The event is free, but a minimum donation of 5€ is strongly suggested. The photographs on display will also be available for sale. All proceeds will be donated.

This week’s demonstrations for Palestine are on Friday at 4pm at the Auswärtiges Amt under the motto Let Rafah Live, and on Saturday at 3pm at Hermannplatz under the motto Stop the War – Stop the Aggression.

Our latest Palestine Reading Group will be taking place at 7pm in our usual venue of Agit, Nansenstraße 2. This week we’ll be discussing the Violence of the Oppressed. Follow the link for suggested reading. The Palestine Reading Group takes place every week at 7pm in the Agit offices, Nansenstraße 2. This means that the following group (on The Israeli “Left”) will be on Sunday 25th February. Because the rooms are not always free, you may need to check the dates of some meetings. Future dates are posted on our Events page and will be posted in future Newsletters. You can also join our Telegram Group to keep up with the debate and suggest future subjects or readings.

This week is the fourth anniversary of the racist murders in Hanau, when 9 BIPoC people were murdered by a white racist. There will be a national memorial demonstration in Hanau on Saturday. Busses will be leaving Oranienplatz in Berlin at 5am. Please contact community@welcome-united.org to book your place on the bus. There will be also 2 memorial Events in Berlin on Monday, the day of the anniversary – a rally at Oranienplatz at 5pm, and a Commemoration (at 5.30pm) and Demonstration (at 7pm) at S-Bahn Sonnenallee. The Sonnenallee Event, organised by Migrantifa, is our Campaign of the Week.

On Saturday at 3pm, there will be a magazine Release : 8 years after the ‚March of Hope‘ offering stories of and perspectives on the ‚Balkan route‘.What events have shaped the ‚Balkan route‘ since 2015/16? How was the EU border regime expanded? What interventions and resistance have there been? Balkanbrücke have addressed these and many other questions, speaking to people on the move, activists and NGOs. The result is a series of artistic, activist and academic articles about the so-called Balkan route. The magazine launch takes place at Konserve at Haus der Statistik. There will be activities, a panel discussion, many exciting groups on the topic and a concert afterwards.

Also on Saturday, at 7.30pm, the Tech Workers Coalition is organising Part 2 of their online workshop Bringing Palestine Solidarity to Your Workplace. As the genocide in Gaza continues, more and more tech workers are looking for ways to bring Palestine solidarity to their workplaces. But what to do if your company isn’t actively doing business with the Israeli military? The ongoing Palestine liberation movement teaches us that war profiteering, imperialism, and militarism are the bedrock of occupation in Palestine and elsewhere. By bringing their Palestine solidarity to their workplaces, tech workers are engaging their leadership and co-workers to examine the tech industry’s complicity. Join tech workers throughout the world be registering here.

There is much more going on in Berlin. To find out what’s happening, go to our Events page. You can also see a shorter, but more detailed list of events in which we are directly involved in here.

If you are looking for Resources on Palestine, we have set up a page with useful links. We will be continually updating the page, so if you would like to recommend other links, please contact us on team@theleftberlin.com. You can also find all the reading from our Palestine Reading Groups here. And Berlin-based Palestinian photographer Rasha Al-Jundi is launching a limited print sale of images from occupied Palestine to support production costs of another project of mine related to Palestinians in exile. More information here.

In News from Berlin, the Berlinale invites, then disinvites AfD politicians, more delays and train cancellations from the BVG, police attack Palestine demo on Sonnenallee, and AfD gains votes at re-run elections while government parties record losses.

In News from Germany, Germany joins the largest NATO manoeuvre since the end of the Cold War, the head of German’s employment agency says that Germany needs migrant workers, donations to charity fall, commemorations planned for the victims of the Hanau massacre, and AfD transphobia is increasing.

Read all about it in this week’s News from Berlin and Germany.

New on theleftberlin, Palästina Spricht Hamburg call for more acceptance of racial minorities on demos against the far right, Nathaniel Flakin counters media disinformation about alleged antisemitism at the FU, the latest photo and cartoon from Rasha Al-Jundi and Michael Jabareen in their series It’s So Berlin!, Sophia Deeg looks at Germany’s lack of empathy for Palestinians, Christine Buchholz explains why she will stay in social movements and not take a seat in parliament, Dave Gilchrist reports from London on a German trade unionist’s speech at a conference against racism, and Alice Lambert remembers the Hanau massacre, which took place 4 years ago this week.

This week’s Video of the Week shows the demonstration for Palestine on Sonnenallee this week before it got attacked by the police.

You can follow us on the following social media:

If you would like to contribute any articles or have any questions or criticisms about our work, please contact us at team@theleftberlin.com. And please do encourage your friends to subscribe to this Newsletter.

Keep on fighting,

The Left Berlin Editorial Board