Kompass – AntiRa – Newsletter No. 66 – February 2018

+++ We`ll Come United on Tour for 2018 +++ 9.2.-21.2.18 from Berlin to Bamberg: Kannouta - Filmtour with the Filmemakers +++ 17.2.18 in Munich: Demo against the socalled Security-Conference +++ Refugee-Protests in Deggendorf and Bamberg +++ Charter-Deportations to Afghanistan and Pakistan +++ Protests against GroKo-(big coalition)prevention of familiy reunifications +++ Against the detention in Darmstadt +++ Update on the trial against Ahmed from Röszke11 +++ Alarm Phone: Solidarity Messages for those in Transit- Sea Rescue +++ Central Med: Iuventa, SOS Mediterrannee, Sea Watch +++ Review: Oury Jalloh Demonstration in Dessau ++ Outlook: 17.3.18: Action-Day against the EU-Turkey-Deal; 10.-13.5.18 in Göttingen: Conference of the big coalition of antiracism; June 2018: Education not deportation… Schoolstrike! +++

Dear friends!

Save the date in your calendars: Saturday 29th of September! And the place: Hamburg! We`ll Come United has decided in a well-attended meeting in Kassel to call for a next parade. Get-together for the second time. 29.9.18 as new point of reference for the antiracist movement in 2018. And the mobilization will start - now! Swarming for We`ll Come United! Through an intensified exchange about our daily struggles. To let circulate our experiences of resistance. Against all deportations and for freedom of movement. Against social exclusion and for equal rights for everybody. The many already involved groups will swarm out in a common concept to reach active and interested people in cities and villages, in camps and communities, who did not yet participate. To empower their daily struggles and to invite them: first to come in May to a conference in Göttingen, then in July for a summer school and finally end of September to the streets of Hamburg. 

According the statistics of the federal office (for migration) in 2017 about 260.000 persons achieved a residence permission. With the record number of 430.000 in the last year and all the positive decisions in other EU-countries much more than 1 Million people should have found a first place of arrival through the long summer of migration. They will continue to struggle for their social rights (housing, language, health…) and for a better income (in fair jobs).

More than 230.000 asylum applications have been rejected and additionally to the refugees and migrants, who have been already obliged to leave, another - roughly estimated - 1 Million people without papers or in precarious status have to eke out a living in Europe. They resist against deportations via Dublin or into countries of origin and they want to get to a safe place finally.

In addition we see new arrivals: in 2017 more than 170.000 arrived through the mediterranean sea - in spite of the externalization of the border regime and in spite of the criminalization of sea rescue. The routes remain contested spaces as it was demonstrated again on 16th of January: only on this one single day in the middle of the winter more than 1400 people started from Libya in direction of Italy.

In the same time we do not forget: the death at sea continue unabated. With more dictators and corrupt rulers readmission agreements have been signed in order to intensify the pressure of deportation against the communities. And all over Europe open racists get better organized inside and outside rightwing populist governments.

To sum it up in a pointed way: More than one million people succeeded to get their right to stay and with this experience they struggle for social participation. One more million will not give up to find a safe place and they will oppose to the european deportation policy. Moreover hundred thousands of people are not willing to get deterred by the murderous border regime. We do not dare to anticipate what is the situation in Europe in five years. But the global movements of flight and migration will very probably influence the situation as much as they have done it in the last five years. „Still moving Europe“ - at least for 2018 the struggles of migration will create ongoing moving times in Europe and last not least in Germany.

That is the alive social space, in which self organization and emancipative left can intertwine. In which the efforts are worth to solidify the resistance against deportation and exclusion in direction of solidarity cities. And - to pick up the first sentences again - the idea suggests itself to contribute to the circulation of daily struggles. In the parade we should provide the visibility again, what these struggles do deserve.

For an antiracist 2018,

the Kompass-Team

Contact: kompass-notify@antira.info

P.S.: In Solidarity with the defense of the people in Afrin we call to participate in the protests against the invasion of turkish military. And attached we document a chapter of a recent statement from the umbrella organization of kurdish people in Germany (Nav-Dem): „…But we are all testimonies of a historic resistance. The advance of the turkish army is stucked in spite of the permanent airstrikes and the predominance with all weapons. The people from Afrin in the bigger part are not willing to leave their homes - despite the acute risk of live. On the contrary last weekend hundred thousands of people from Afrin and from the whole federation North-Syria went on the streets and expressed their will to block the war of Turkey by all means necessary. Them and us all know, that in Afrin not only a piece of land is defended against the aggressor. In Afrin a democratic model of the society, a perspective of freedom for Syria and for the whole Middle East will be defended….“

The full text in German: https://anfdeutsch.com/aktuelles/nav-dem-solidaritaet-mit-efrin-auf-neue-stufe-heben-2169