Kompass – AntiRa – Newsletter No. 76 – March 2019
We`ll Come United in 2019 +++ From the Sea to the Cities - for open harbours and Buses of Hope on a transnational level +++ 8 March in Potsdam, Berlin and elsewhere: Women's Strike and Migration +++ 14.3. in Ellwangen: Solidarity manifestation for refugees legal actions against their penalty orders +++ 15.3. in Frankfurt and other cities: International Day against Police Violence +++ Deportation figures 2018 and further planned aggravation +++ Solidarity at Sea/Iuventa +++ Alarm Phone Report February 2019 +++ Reading tips: Alarm Phone Sahara Text from Afrique Europe Interact and Solidarity City Brochure from Rosa Lux +++ SoliBus project: self presentation and appeal for donations +++ Circular: In which society do we want to live?! +++ Review: NSU monologues in Hamburg +++ Outlook: Next WCU meeting on 27/28 April in Saxony; 10-12 May in many cities: Action days on 100 years of deportation detention; 17-19 May in Hamburg: Right to the City Forum; 9-14 July near Nantes/France: Transborder Summer Camp; 24 August: big demonstration in Saxony; 31 August in Büren: big demonstration against 100 years of deportation detention
Dear friends!
More than 100 activists from 13 cities in a well-mixed composition came together at the germanwide meeting of We'll Come United (WCU) in Frankfurt at the beginning of February. How can the network, which we have built up in the last two years, be further developed and especially the self-organized structures be strengthened? How can we transmit our gained visibility into more efficient struggles against the deportation regime? What role will WCU play as a germanwide player in the Anti-Ra movement and what new alliances will it seek? What priorities will be set in future mobilizations? Along these questions WCU has set the first course for 2019 and agreed on swarming and mobilisation in Saxony this summer. The upcoming state elections on September 1 will lead us to expect an increased polarization of society. The "indivisible" alliance will mobilise to Saxony on 24 August, groups of the "NSU Tribunal" are planning a tribunal in Chemnitz for the weekend before. WCU wants to take part and be at the start with parade elements on 24.8 in Dresden. Continuously - "against the whole right racist shit!“ - local structures and activists in camps and communities should be visited, supported and encouraged.
More than 40 activists from Spain, Italy, Tunisia, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Germany came together at the transnational meeting of the so-called "Palermo Charter Process" in Barcelona at the end of February. Almost all sea rescue organisations, the Alarm Phone, Welcome to Europe, Seebrücken and representatives of progressive city administrations participated. How can the (re)opening of ports be enforced and sea rescue decriminalised? Is there a need for a civilian rescue centre because the MRCCs (Maritime Rescue and Coordination Centres) in Rome and Valetta have become collaborators of the deadly border regime? How can refugees and rescued persons stuck in Southern Europe be assisted in transit to desired destinations in North-West Europe? How can we imagine "Buses of Hope", for example, from Palermo to Düsseldorf or Berlin? How to proceed in and with the Solidarity Cities? These were the key questions in Barcelona, which are now being discussed in transnational working groups with a view to practical implementation.
A small delegation of the meeting visited "Top Manta" afterwards. This is the name of a self-organised project, especially of Senegalese street vendors in Barcelona, who - started in 2015 as a grassroots trade union initiative against expulsion and illegalisation - now run their own shop for T-shirts and hoodies. With "Top Manta" - "on the top of a blanket" - they have created their own brand: with an expressive logo that simultaneously symbolizes their arrival with boats (Pateras) as well as their survival strategy as street vendors.
From Frankfurt to Barcelona, from local to transnational, against exclusion and deportation in the cities as well as against left-to-die and pushbacks on the sea: we will remain persistent in and with the flight and migration movements that drive the everyday struggles for freedom of movement and equal rights for all.
In the preparatory hand out for the meeting in Barcelona, it was formulated as follows: '...It is difficult for us to assess how things will continue in the Mediterranean and the EU over the next few months and next summer. In any case, we have to continue and better coordinate our initiatives to strengthen collective forms of transnational resistance. ... We now need concrete practices ´für Corridors of solidarity` from the Sea to the Cities ..."
In this sense, with solidarity greetings,
the Compass Crew