Here is a description of the Workshops and Keynote Speeches which you can attend at the Berlin LINKE Internationals Summer Camp on 10-11 June 2023
First Round of Workshops: Saturday, 10th June 2pm
What’s happening in die LINKE?
Die LINKE, the German Left party, was formed in 2007 out of protests against the SPD-Green government’s Hartz IV reforms and warmongering. One of its first acts was to support the mass protests against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. In the 2009 election, the party won nearly 5 million votes.
14 years on, the party scraped into the Bundestag on a technicality, and is split on a number of issues. In Berlin, die LINKE was part of the Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen, but was also part of the government which refused to implement the referendum result for expropriation.
Housing activist, member of the Berliner Senat, and newly elected deputy leader of die LINKE Berlin Katalin Gennburg will take a look at the current state of die LINKE in Berlin and Germany, and discuss how it can return to its activist roots.
speaker: Katalin Gennburg
The EU and Africa
This workshop will look at the continued underdevelopment of Africa by the Global North, focusing on the role of EU and Germany. We look at the foreign aid system and debt structures and their fundamental role in underdevelopment. To set the scene, we’ll broadly discuss global economic structures, international financial institutions and economic ideology. There will also be some naming and shaming some German companies and organisations actively profiting or engaging in misguided, neocolonial development projects.
speaker: Dominic Bunnett
Campaigns Introduce Themselves – Berlin Autofrei
In the interest of industrialized capitalism cities and metropoles around the globe have been turned into a habitat where cars, with all their detrimental effects on human life, feel at home and human life has grown estrange from the city space that we collectively inhabit.
In this workshop participants will have the chance to get to know the initiative Berlin autofrei (Berlin car free), their goals and means to achieve a more livable city where city space can be reappropriated by and be a home to humans. There will be room for discussions and reimagining what to do with all the space a Berlin with less cars.
Speaker: Benni Wasmer
Keynote Speech – Refugee non-protection in the EU – exploitation, torture and murder: Saturday, 10th June 5.30pm
The so-called ‘migration policy of the European Union’ has its roots in the 1951 Refugee Convention, which in turn takes from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights guaranteeing the right to seek and enjoy asylum to everyone. Instead, for decades now, Europe has been erecting endless bureaucratic fences and barriers that give ground for erection of physical fences and barriers. It has been playing the “game of derogations”, where the obligation to provide safety to those fleeing danger is subjected to so many possible exceptions that it loses its original sense and becomes a caricature of itself. The protection guaranteed on paper becomes a de facto non-protection.
We will look briefly at today’s EU migration policy, its underlying power dynamic and essentially racist nature. It is not the “legal truth” though that we would be focusing on but the facts on the ground: exploitation, torture and de facto murder of people knocking the gates of the Europe in search of protection.
We will focus on the situation at the Eastern EU border, where a de facto system of segregation welcomes ‘white’ refugees and forces ‘brown and black’ ones to fight for their life in the border forest and puts them in detention.
The way things stand today for people seeking protection in Europe is everything but not what the Convention and the Declaration guarantees them, everything but the protection.
Speaker: Magda Qandil
Second Round of Workshops: Sunday, 11th June 11am
Understanding Imperialism
Following Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Left and the anti-war movement has been split. One group argues at we must oppose all imperialisms, which means demanding support for Ukrainian resistance, up to and including NATO weapons. Others argue that the main enemy is at home and that we must oppose Germany doubling its arms budget and US imperialism getting involved. Is Ukraine now a “proxy war”? Can NATO ever be a force for peace? What should the Left do concretely to support the Ukrainians and Russians resisting Putin.
This discussion will be moderated by Ingar Solty of the rosa luxemburg stiftung, who has written extensively on the subject,
Comic Reading on Western Sahara
In 2014 and 2022, Fine spent a month as a guest in a West Saharan refugee camp. While she was there, she worked on a comic about the political and historical background to the conflict and her personal impressions of the region.
In this workshop, Fine will read from her comic, to shed light on the background to the West Saharan conflict and to report from the experiences from the refugee camp. We will then have a discussion about the topics raised, and Fine will answer any questions you may have.
Speaker: Fine
Campaigns Introduce Themselves .- Right2TheCity
Right2theCity (R2TC) organises for housing socialisation for people without the right to vote. It is a working group of Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen (DWE) for non-Germans (more info at https://www.theleftberlin.com/right2thecity/. In this workshop, Luke Hussey from R2TC will give an overview of the campaigns of both R2TC and DWE. This will be followed by a discussion of strategies both past and present followed by breakout groups to explore the future of the campaign
Speaker: Luke Hussey
Third Round of Workshops: Sunday, 11th June 1.30pm
A collective toolbox: the use of art in protests
In this workshop we will think through the uses of art in protests — why and how we can use it, what it can bring us, and how it can help us make our actions more impactful. Using some real-life examples as a starting point, this workshop is designed for activists to collectively think through how we can organise protests and actions differently.
speaker: Hanna Grześkiewicz
Repression and Resistance in Sudan
On 15th April, 2023, war broke out in Sudan. In Khartoum and other cities military and militia are fighting against each other, at the expense of the civil population. They are destroying the country with firearms and air fire, and buildings are burning as a result of explosives. Hundreds of people have been killed.
The war is taking place in the context of the civil uprising which has been active since 2018. This is an internationalist anti-authoritarian and anti-colonial movement. Resistance committees and other bodies have been working in their neighbourhoods to help organize mutual aid. The resistance committees are now organising to help the victims of war.
In Berlin, Sudan Uprising has been organising demonstrations and other support for people in Sudan. Ibrahiim Jirefawi from Sudan Uprising will be talking about their work in Sudan and Berlin, and what you can do to help them.
speaker: Ibrahiim Jirefawi (Sudan Uprising)
Armenian resistance in Artsakh/Karabakh and Rojava
The Ararat collective a group of Armenians of all genders founded in response to the catastrophic 2020 war against the people of Artsakh and the ongoing genocide and persecution of the Armenian people. We wish to participate in the liberation struggle, and to resist the violent supremacist ideology of Pan-Turkisam, the founding principal of the Turkish and Azerbaijani states, and to oppose the structures of patriarchy oppressing society throughout the region. Our goal is to be able to live in peace, interwoven with all the ancestral peoples of the region.
The workshop will be about the humanitarian situation of the people under blockade in Artsakh, as well as the Armenian political organizing within Rojava with some fresh footage
Speaker: Ben Rassbach
Keynote Speech 2 – 75 Years Nakba
2023 is the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. For the second year running, police banned all Palestinian demonstrations to commemorate their tragedy. At a rally which was allowed – organised by the Jüdische Stimme – protestors were assaulted by the police, and the press printed lies about antisemitic demonstrators (next to a photo of a Jewish artist being arrested).
At the same time, we are seeing a rise in internationals support for Palestinians, and their fight against oppression, occupation and colonialism – even in Germany. Despite the reluctance of much of the German Left to even discuss Palestine, increasing numbers of people in Germany are demonstrating and organising in support of oppressed Palestinians in Israel and in Germany.
In this meeting, Ramsy Kilani from Nakba75, and Palestinian journalist Farah Maraqa will look at the state of the Palestine solidarity movement in Germany, and lead a discussion on how we can bring this movement forward.
Speakers: Ramsy Kilani, Farah Maraqa
About Summer Camp
These workshops are part of the LINKE Internationals Summer Camp, 10th-11th June at the Naturfreundehaus Hermsdorf. Participation is free (though we ask for donations for food).
You can see a full progamme here
To register (and to qualify for free accommodation), please fill in this form.