Kompass – AntiRa – Newsletter No. 73 – October/November 2018

+++ The most beautiful day of the year - more than 30.000 ppl in the We`ll Come United Parade - impressive demonstration for the daily uprising of solidarity+++ phenomenal 240.000 ppl in Berlin in the Unteilbar/Indivisible-Demo +++ 20.10. in Frankfurt: Demo against crazy rent-increase +++ 23.10. in Berlin: Press-conference on the case of Oury Jalloh +++ 28.10 in Berlin and at 17.11. in Mainz: Preparation meeting for actions against "100 years against deportation-prisons" +++ 2.-4.11. in Berlin: kritnet meeting - (Un)Doing borders, including a Solidarity City Workshop +++ Action CitizenAsylum - Campaign for spaces of protection against deportation +++ New Video-Documentation against deportations to Afghanistan +++ Mediterranea - Mare Ionio: New rescue boat from Italy in operation in central med +++ 4 years Alarm Phone +++ New transnational website-projekt: Missing at Borders +++ Updated Report from RSA/Pro Asyl about the hot spot system on the greek islands +++ Criminalization of Iuventa: Italy launches criminal investigation against rescuers+++ Protest against repression in Riace/Italien +++ Harmanli 21/Bulgaria: The trial has started – solidarity is more important than ever! +++ Review: 13.10. in Karlsruhe: statewide demonstration against racism +++ Outlook: 23.- 25.11. in Stockholm: Meeting of the Transnational Social Strike Plattform; 1./2.12. in Hamburg: Next meeting of We`ll Come United +++

Dear friends!

Yes, for us it really was the „most beautiful day of the year“! The call did not promise too much and the announced number of 25.000 participants in a press conference before the demonstration has even been outnumbered. We have been in many medias and demonstrated last not least to ourselves, that we are more than we believe. More than 30.000 people took part in the We`ll Come United Parade at 29th of September in Hamburg. Never before such a big antiracist demonstration took place in Germany in this mixed composition, with selforganised refugees and migrants as central voices, and with clear demands for freedom of movement, against all deportations and for equal rights for all. 

Hundreds of events and visits in refugee camps, the „swarming out“ of already involved groups to convince new comrades, the conference of the „big coalition of antiracism“ in May in Goettingen, finally the We`ll Come United summer camp in July in Brandenburg: all these activities have build the base for the great „signal from Hamburg“. And particular thanks and praise to the unbelievable preparation and dynamics of mobilization by the solidarity structures in Hamburg. We are still overwhelmed.

That the parade went so big and strong of course is connected with the general mood of indignation, which spread wider in Germany within last weeks (and currently - with the date of 16.10. - after the elections in Bavaria even the position of the right wing interior minister Seehofer is questioned). The protests of Seebrücken remain manifold and strong, in the demonstrations of „we are more“ and „ausgehetzt“ (stop the racist agitation) from Chemnitz via Rostock to Munich ten thousands of people stand up against right wing agitation and the atmosphere of pogroms. Moreover we see ongoing big demonstrations against new police laws and against the crazy rent increase. And last not least the great success in Hambacher Forest, which would not be possible without the persistence of the disobedient tree-squatters.

All these sentiments culminated now at 13th of October in the phenomenal 240.000 participants in the demonstration of Unteilbar/iIndivisble in Berlin. „For an open and free society - solidarity not exclusion“ was the nice title, and it was and is more than regrettable, that the demand „for the right to come and to stay“ was deleted from the draft of the call. But Seebrücken and We`ll Come United have built an own block exactly with these demands in the demonstration of 13.10., and in the coming weeks and months the big challenge is given now to transmit these hopeful big mobilizations into a „daily uprising of solidarity“. 

The situation appears paradoxical: the antiracist protest movement is in fact stronger than ever, but the tightening up of last years takes hard effects. The deportation machinery works in an appalling way. As changes on the political level cannot be expected, we can only count on a daily, factual blockade of the roll back. 

How to re-appropriate the right to come and to stay, if it will not be granted in the foreseeable future? How to strengthen the sea rescue and how to get reopened the harbours particularly in Italy and Malta? How to intensify the pressure in many cities in Germany and Europe in a common and simultaneous way, that refugees and rescued people will be directly relocated from southern Europe? How is it possible to develope concepts for a „relocation from below“, in which the needs of the affected people are put into the center? And in the same time to build up in practice the „underground railroad of migration“ - strengthened structures of flight help into and within Europe? How to intervene against the more and more aggressive and effective (charter)deportations? How to come into a new offensive as solidarity cities and with citizen asylum? In the mobilizations on the streets the call for a „September and October of solidarity“ worked very well. Now it counts to transform and use this swing for concrete local practices of civil disobedience against the border regime. No border lasts forever!

Your Kompass team