Although Franziska Giffey (SPD), the mayor of Berlin, welcomed 108 Syrians in Berlin in June through the state reception programme for people in need of special protection from Lebanon, reality show her party excuses itself and uses delaying tactics. For example, the SPD-led interior administration has refused since July to implement the increase in the state’s Lebanon admission programme from 100 places per year to 500, as agreed in the coalition agreement. Source: taz
Lieferando tries to sack people who set up a union
The Berlin branch of the food delivery service Lieferando has only had an elected workers’ representation for 25 days – and already it is being threatened with being broken up. As Sebastian Riesner from the Berlin-Brandenburg branch of the Food, Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (NGG) confirmed, the company has initiated dismissal proceedings against 14 of the 17 committee members. The management’s accusation is those affected had fraudulently wasted paid working time in their function as election committee members in the preparation of the works council election. Martin Bechert, a labour lawyer representing the Lieferando works council, says that Lieferando has used “criminal methods”. Source: jW
Breakthrough in case examining arson against Ferat Kocak
Only two of 70 alleged right-wing extremist attacks in Neukölln are blamed on ex AfD member Tilo P. (39) and his alleged accomplice. For the rest, there was not enough evidence. This means that a new statement by the ex-girlfriend of Tilo’s btoher can be devastating. The neo-Nazi allegedly committed an arson attack on the car of left-wing politician Ferat Kocak four years ago. According to the report, the 47-year-old from northern Germany accuses Tilo P. of having carried out the attack. Even worse: In an overheard conversation, P. also announced that he wanted to murder the public prosecutor in charge. Source: bz
NEWS FROM GERMANY
We need now a €0 ticket!
The €9 ticket “experiment” has proved to be a huge achievement. The only people who were surprised by this success, apparently, were the managers of public transport companies. This is what happens when millionaires oversee the transport system. After this summer, we know we need more vehicles, more routes, and better conditions for workers. We need a €0 ticket. The S-Bahn is a basic need for everyone, just like a sidewalk or a park, and shouldn’t require a ticket. I’m confident that not a single working-class person would vote for the expensive chaos we have today. Source: ExBerliner
New initiative will cover your public transport fines if you pay €9 a month
Due to high demand, politicians are discussing a successor solution to relieve citizens in the energy crisis and give them cheap access to public transport. While several proposals have been made for a nationwide ticket between 9 and 69 euros, some federal states and transport associations already have successors. Meanwhile, until the government comes to an agreement, a private initiative has launched a temporary solution: at 9eurofonds.de you can pay nine euros per month (or more if you wish) into a fund and if you are then caught fare evasion, the “increased transport fee” is paid from the fund. Source: Deutschland Funkkultur
Massive jump in gas prices
The last pause in Russian gas deliveries has caused the price of gas to shoot up. The price of the TTF futures contract (considered a benchmark for the European price level) for Dutch natural gas climbed by about 72.5 euros to 281 euros per megawatt hour at the last count. It is the fear of a severe recession caused by energy shortages and high energy prices that is worrying investors. In such a situation, investors shy away from the risk of investing in the euro, as a recession would further weaken the common currency. Source: Tagesschau
How prepared is Germany for the impending gas shortage?
People keep talking about how quickly the various gas storage facilities in Germany are filling up. The first 85 percent mark was already exceeded at the beginning of September. Nevertheless, this is roughly only about two winter months’ consumption. Beyond that, other challenges come up: for instance, for many households it will be a blind flight until the heating bill arrives. Although economists still consider it unlikely that Germany will really run out of gas in winter, gas-intensive industries such as glass production, which are based in states such as Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony, are expected to face more challenges. Source: rbb
Germany starts to run out of water
Water is a scarce commodity, and its value has multiplied lately as well as the competition for it. Although Germany has always been considered a country rich in water, climate change makes summers hotter – and drier. As a result, wetlands are drying out, and forests are burning. Rivers fail as traffic arteries because they do not carry enough water for shipping. And just as groundwater levels are sinking, there is growing concern about the water of tomorrow. Water conflicts between cities and their surrounding areas, as well as with industries, already happen – and they tend to further escalate. Source: dw
Tips for Leftist Tourists in Berlin – 2. West Berlin
A beginner’s guide to some of the more obscure monuments in West Berlin
Last May, I wrote an article about lesser-known Leftist monuments in East Berlin. I promised a similar article on West Berlin very soon. As it happens, I got a little distracted. But, better late than never, here are 10 similar objects worth visiting in West Berlin.
Nearest public transport: Nobelstraße / Bergiusstraße (Bus 246)
Photo: Gerhard Schuhmacher. CC4.0
In a remote industrial estate in the East of Neukölln, you can find a branch of the removal firm Zapf Umzüge. It looks like any other bland office, except there in the forecourt there is a huge metal statue of Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Russian revolution.
Klaus Zapf, owner of the company, is himself an interesting figure. He apparently moved to West Berlin to avoid military service and became involved in the 1968 student movement. He lived a frugal life, saying “There are just so many bloody idiots with money around – you don’t need another one.”
There are different stories about how Zapf acquired the statue. Maybe it was a loan guarantee from a Russian businessman. Perhaps Zapf Umzüge were commissioned to take the statue to be destroyed, and decided to keep it. Or it could be that it originally belonged to an entrepeneur who got rid of it because of complaints by the neighbours. Probably none of these stories is true.
This is not an area of town where most people casually go, but is well worth the visit.
Berlin has enough statues and plaques to Rosa Luxemburg to warrant an entire article. Some are quite famous, like the one in Tiergarten, others are in East Berlin and are outside the remit of this particular article. West Berlin monuments include a plaque to Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Mannheimer Straße 27, at the final refuge before they were murdered by paramilitaries working on behalf of the SPD government.
Here, I want to talk about plaques outside two of the many places in Berlin that Rosa lived after arriving from Poland, before the devastation of the First World War and the suppression of the German revolution.
The first plaque, in Wielandstraße, says “In this house between 1899 and 1902 lived one of most important pioneers and representatives of the European workers’ movement. She fought for peace, social justice and the international solidarity of the working class. Five minutes walk away, in Cranachstraße, there’s a sign which is now hidden behind vegetation. The simple text reads “Rosa Luxemburg lived here from 1902-1911. Born 5.3.1871. Murdered 15.11.1919”.
Nearest public transport: U-Bahn Nauener Platz or Pankstraße
Photo: Boonekamp
Resistance continued after the German revolution. In 1929, SPD police president Karl Friedrich Zörgiebel banned all demonstrations planned for 1st May. In response, the Communist Party (KPD) called for “Straße frei für den 1. Mai” (streets free for 1st May). Defying the ban, thousands of workers gathered in Berlin – mainly in Wedding and Neukölln – in groups of 50 to 500 people.
Police fired 11,000 shots at demonstrators and local residents alike. One of the first people killed, Max G, was shot when he looked out of his window to see what was going on. In Wedding, the police deployed machine guns against locals throwing bottles and stones. Sources differ as to how many civilians were killed, but most figures lie between 32 and 38. Around 200 more people were injured. After the demonstration, 1,228 people were arrested, although only 43 were convicted.
This massacre had a fatal consequence. In June, the KPD held its Party Congress in Wedding, where they declared the SPD to be a “social fascist” organisation – just as bad as the Nazis. This, combined with SPD anti-Communism led to the failure of the SPD and KPD to unite to prevent the rise of Hitler. The Nazis never had majority support among the German people before taking power.
A commemeration stone for the victims of the Blutmai stands on the Walter Rober Brücke in Wedding with the following inscription: “Street fights took place here at the beginning of May 1929. 19 people were killed, 250 were injured”.
Between 1941 and 1945, more than 50,000 German Jews were deported from Grunewald station to Concentration Camps in the East. Grunewald was chosen because its remote location meant that large numbers could be deported without attracting too much attention. It is also located in a relatively rich area, which was more likely to contain Nazi sympathisers.
On the edge of Grunewald’s Platform 17, next to the train tracks, there are iron grates containing the names of the Concentration Camps to which people were deported, the date of each deportation, and the number of people deported. The first date is 18th October 1941, the last 27th March 1945.
Nearby, there is a monument of a concrete wall, containing the hollows of human bodies, next to a metal panel with the text: “In memory of the more than 50,000 Berlin Jews who were deported between October 1941 and February 1945 mainly from the Grunewald freight station by the National Socialist State to its extermination camps and murdered there”.
Photo: Phil ButlandPhoto: OTFW CC3.0Photo: Fridolin freudenfett. CC3.0
Not all deportation trains went from Grunewald. From January 1942 until 1945, more than 32,000 Jewish people were sent from the synagogue in Levetzowstraße to platforms 69, 81 and 82 of Güterbahnhof Moabit, from which they were deported.
A 2½ metre high statue stands on the bridge above the railway. The front of the statue shows a gravestone carrying a Star of David. The back shows a broken and deformed staircase to heaven. This monument was damaged by a bomb attack in 1992 and has been repeatedly covered with antisemitic graffiti.
A little further down the tracks, there’s the Gedenkort (memorial site) Güterbahnhof. This contains a monument showing the path taken by deportees from Synagogue Levetzkowstraße. Nearby, part of the train track is still visible. It now leads into a brick wall.
A third monument stands on the site of the Levetzkowstraße synagogue. This shows a goods wagon next to a ramp on which there is an abstract depiction of a group of prisoners. Nearby, there is a huge iron monument on which is written the dates of 63 deportations and their destinations in Eastern Europe. On the ground there are plaques to the synagogues from which they were taken.
Nearest public transport: Bus Amtsgerichtplatz (M49, 309, X34), S-Bahn Charlottenburg
Around 900,000 Jews were murdered in the Extermination Camp of Treblinka, East of Warsaw. In 1966, Russian sculptor Vadim Sidur made a memorial to the victims of Treblinka, which was erected in Charlottenburg in 1979.
The sculpture contains four human bodies lying on top of each other, stacked in the form of a cross. The body at the bottom is of a woman who is still alive. Like the Holocaust Memorial near Brandenburger Tor, the statue uses abstract form to depict horror which is virtually indescribable.
Next to the statue, there is the following text in Cyrillic and Latin script: “In the camp Treblinka II, over 750,000 people were murdered between July 1942 and November 1943. If you close your eyes to the past, you will be blind for the present. If you do not want to remember the inhumanity, you’ll be vulnerable to new acts of injustice.”
7. Memorials to the 1953 East Berlin Workers’ Uprising
On 17th June 1953, less than 4 years after the foundation of the East German “workers’ state“, workers rose up against their own government. This confused much of the Left, East and West, many of whom thought the uprising was a CIA plot. I have written elsewhere about how Berthold Brecht was similarly conflicted. In East Berlin, no memorial was erected before 1990.
In the West, however, the uprising was used for Cold War propaganda. Less than a week after the uprising, the Berliner Senat decided to rename the street which leads to the Brandenburger Tor Straße des 17 Juni. Western leaders, who did everything they could to put down workers’ struggles in their own country, suddenly became great fans of insurrection.
In Berliner Straße 74-76 in Reinickendorf, there’s a small memorial to demonstrating steel workers from Hennigsdorf. Not far away, there the Urnenfriedhof Seestraße in Wedding. At the entrance of the cemetery, you see both commemorations to Germans who died in the Second World War and a larger monument to 295 victims of National Socialist [Nazi] dictatorship.
But if you go 100 yards forwards, you see a monument accompanying the graves of the 8 victims of Russian bullets who died in West Berlin hospitals. Like all Western monuments commemorating the 1953 uprising, it is contradictory, but the fight that it remembers was a noble one.
8. Death of a Protestor
Address: Bismarckstraße 35
Nearest public transport: U-Bahn Deutsche Oper
Photo: Lorem ipsum CC2.0
On 2nd June, 1967, Christian pacifist student Benno Ohnesorg attended his first political demonstration. It was outside the Deutsche Oper, where the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, was attending a performance of the Magic Flute. Demonstrators were attacked by both SAVAK, the Iranian intelligence service, and the German police. Ohnesorg was shot and killed by the police.
10,000 people attended Ohnesorg’s funeral where student leader Rudi Dutschke made the following address: “June was a historic date in the German universities. For the first time since World War Two huge strata of students mobilised against the authoritarian structure of this society. They experienced this irrational authority during the demonstration.” The West German 1968 started in June 1967.
In 1971, Alfred Hrdlicka created the sculpture “Death of a Protestor”, which is currently opposite the Deutsche Opera building. Next to the sculpture there is a plaque which contains the following text about Ohnesorg: “His death was a signal for the nascent student and extra-parliamentary movement, which particularly linked their struggle for radical democratisation in their own country with those against exploitation and oppression with those in the Third World.”
After the SPD won the 1969 General Election, the 1968 movement started to retreat from the streets. The SDS student organisation had already effectively disintegrated after its conference the previous December, and apart from a few fleeting strikes, resistance dropped.
Frustrated by the decline in militancy, some young activists turned to terrorism, most notably in the Baader-Meinhof Group (aka Red Army Faction, RAF). The RAF understood itself as a communist, anti-imperialist urban guerilla group engaging in resistance against a fascist state. The media named the group after two if its leaders – Andreas Baader and left-wing journalist Ulrike Meinhof.
The RAF was best known for a bombing and kidnapping campaign in the 1970s. Support extended way beyond the radical Left, especially in student circles, including even my German teacher, later a member of the Conservative CDU.
In 1975, the “first generation” RAF leaders were tried in Stammheim prison. Meinhof died of hanging in her cell in 1976, Baader of gunshot wounds in 1977. Other group members also died in jail, all allegedly by suicide, although this was hotly disputed. 7,000 people attended Meinhof’s funeral, and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir led the protests against her death.
Most Berlin cemeteries contain a plan near the entrance showing where you can find the famous (and some not so famous) people buried there. Not so, the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof III in Schoeneberg. In a seldom visited part of the graveyard, with no great ostentation, there is a simple gravestone bearing the words “ulrike marie meinhof 7.10.1934 – 9.5.1976.”
10. Korean Peace Statue
Address: Bremer Straße 41
Nearest public transport: U-Bahn Birkenstraße
Photo: C. Suthorn CC-by-SA 4.0
The Peace Statue in Moabit is a memorial to the so-called “Comfort women” – girls and women who were forced to act as prostitutes in Japanese brothels during the Second World War. It is intended as a symbol against all sexual violence. An estimated 200,000 women and girls were raped and forced into sexual slavery during the Asia-Pacific wars of 1931-45.
The bronze statue, by South Korean artists Kim Seo Kyung und Kim Eun Sung, was erected on 28th September 2020. It shows a girl in a Korean dress, sitting next to an empty chair. The girl casts a shadow in the shape of an old woman. The statue also depicts a bird of peace and a white butterfly, symbolising rebirth.
On the day after the statue was erected, the Japanese cabinet secretary and government speaker Katsunobu Kato called on Germany to remove the statue. Japan’s foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi made a similar demand to his German counterpart Heiko Mass. The Korea Verband, which is responsible for the statue, was ordered by the district authority in Berlin-Mitte to remove the statue by 14th October 2020. Resistance, including demonstrations in Moabit, have kept the statue in Moabit.
You can read more about the Peace Statue in this interview.
Berlin Court Finds Deutsche Welle Unlawfully Dismissed Journalist Farah Maraqa
Palestinian journalist wins court appeal in Berlin on all counts
Yesterday, Monday 5th September, Palestinian journalist Farah Maraqa won her court case against Deutsche Welle for unfair dismissal. Farah won on all counts – Deutsche Welle must now re-employ her and pay all court costs (nearly €40,000). We hope to publish an article on Farah’s case on theleftberlin.com later this month. Until then, here is a statement by the European Legal Support Centre which has been advising Farah.
Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Farah Maraqa won her lawsuit against German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), which dismissed her and other 6 journalists in February 2022.
Following a hearing on 20 July 2022, the Berlin Labour Court ruled today in favour of Farah Maraqa, ordering Deutsche Welle to reinstate her and to pay for the costs of the legal dispute. This suggests that the Court recognised that Farah’s termination, based on a controversial investigation and unfounded allegations of antisemitism related to reports published before her employment contract, was illegal.
This comes after the judge had proposed a settlement between the journalist and DW in the form of a joint statement. DW never commented nor replied to Farah Maraqa’s proposal of a statement that includes a public apology, a retraction of their allegations and reputation rehabilitation.
It is the second lawsuit that DW has lost after they terminated the contract of 7 journalists from their Arabic service. On 7 July 2022, the Bonn Labour Court found that DW’s dismissal of Palestinian journalist Maram Salem was unlawful. In another case, DW settled. All the remaining cases are still pending.
The dismissals were presumably based on a controversial investigation report led by Ahmad Mansour, who was criticized by several experts as biased, and used the IHRA working definition of antisemitism (IHRA-WDA) and its problematic examples to assess social media posts and reports as antisemitic. This manifests an anti-Palestinian sentiment and leads to a significant chilling effect on any journalist who would cover Palestine/Israel.
The ELSC is proud to have provided support for Farah Maraqa who stood firm in her convictions and had the courage to take DW to Court.
It is a relief that the judge ruled in Farah’s favour and held Deutsche Welle accountable for this illegal dismissal. We hope this sends a clear message that they should stop their censorship practices. This case illustrates how the institutionalisation of the IHRA-WDA can lead to severe infringements upon freedom of expression and freedom of the press. At the same time, it is another confirmation that pushing back – including through legal action – is effective and is a necessity in order to uphold these rights.
said Giovanni Fassina, Director of the ELSC.
So far, it appears DW management has refused to acknowledge their mistakes and has instead anchored its prejudiced positions in a new Code of Conduct published on 1 September 2022. What is new in this binding Code is that it obliges DW employees to “maintain restraint in the content and form of our social media and other publications in both a professional and private context”. It also mentions Israel twice when referring to commitments against racism and antisemitism, including: “Due to Germany’s history, we have a special obligation towards Israel.”
It is not clear what obligations this statement implies for DW employees, nor whether it means unwavering political support the Israeli government, which would raise important questions related to the independence of the press. The Code also repeatedly warns employees of potential consequences if any violation of the Code is observed, including dismissal.
Additional note: The motivations of the judgement will be available mid-October.
Federal Gods – Book Review
A new British-German book of prose-poetry is an empathetic response to the 2015 “refugee crisis”,
Federal Gods is a politically charged work full of poetic prose that conveys the human realities of what is inadequately called the refugee crisis. Clare Saponia has a gimlet ear for weasel words, especially as wielded by states and institutions, but she additionally conveys the depths and emotional intensities involved in the universal longings for security, connection, and a future in desperate and distressing circumstances. The title is a translation of a made-up word, Bundesgott, which Saponia says she created, “to express the exalted, seemingly arbitrary power of the political elite.”
She was a volunteer at Wilmersdorfer Rathaus, Berlin in 2015 when first 500, then 1150 refugees arrived with hopes of starting new lives in Germany. Her first descriptions ache with pain and poignance as children are given instant coffee and there are no beds to sleep on. The contradictions clash against other like brittle waves – the heartfelt frenzy of welcome is perceived by Saponia as a frantic yearning to break free of the unbearable burden of the opposite in German history. This fervent aspiration cannot, however, ameliorate the state apparatus that looms all around the recent arrivals. She represents well both her own revulsion at the ubiquitous, nationalistic iconography against the determination to belong of the refugees: “The symbolism makes me heave. To you it’s a magic cloak.” and “You see eagles everywhere, tattooed to buildings and costumes and paperwork you can’t read. The cult you want to join but have neither keys nor clues.”
As the book goes on (it is written chronologically) Saponia presents individuals she encounters, vividly depicting them with a searing tenderness that pervades the whole work. There is Jayla, Samid, Nikro, Hanin and Zaid, a cancer survivor who shows her his scar and his wife Intesar with “titles and letters after her name”. Here and elsewhere, Saponia portrays the conflicts and tensions within the group, based on either geopolitical animosity or simple, brooding jealousy. This has authenticity and communicates the troubled rage of some asylum seekers alongside the wishes to conform or assimilate. Her capacity to get under the skins of not only those she aims to help but also the xenophobic haters has a novelist’s skill. She writes of an individual aspiring to get to Britain, not being aware of the “faraged gut of my birth isle” and that in the mind of the racist, “Hell is not the others but a dangle of white inferiority.” She is sharply aware of the combined assistance and inadequacy of teaching language skills in this context, “You have histories I cannot heal with haben und sein.”
Federal Gods has a filmic dynamism, full of astutely drawn realities, human compassion and complexity. It added to my understanding and perspective on what people go through and are prepared to face in their efforts to find a life beyond hatred. Although not stinting on the anger and pain, it resounds with our capacity as humans to empathise, to see ourselves in another’s plight, to be literally border defying. Clare Saponia achieves this with her writer’s ability to enter the thoughts and feelings of another and communicate their yearning on the edge of exhaustion.
Federal Gods is published by Palewell Press, ISBN 978-1-911587-60-6 and if you want to avoid the usual online book purchasing sites why not support a local Berlin-Neukölln bookshop and order it here at BuchHafen to be picked up at Oker Strasse 1, 12049 Berlin. [North Berlin editor’s comment. English books can also be ordered from St. Georges Bookstore, Wörther Straße 27]
Everyone complains about cis white men, yet they are the ones who get to have a roof over their heads
Finding accommodation in Berlin is not easy for anyone, but for marginalised groups it is much worse. We need networks of solidarity
As the city of Berlin continues to be gentrified, the number of people affected by the housing crisis in Berlin is rising. Even though more than 50 percent of Berlin residents with voting rights voted for Deutsche Wohnen und Co. to be expropriated, nothing has transpired. The politicians have not only failed to stop gentrification or find any kind of long-term solution for solving the housing crisis, but have also contributed to the criminalization of the people who are most affected by the crisis: undocumented people, people without housing, migrants, BiPoCs, unemployed people, and people without German citizenship (who, by the way, do not have voting rights).
3.75 Million Euro = one year of rent for 780 people
Since March this year, the SPD have invested 3,75 Million euros in building a police watchtower at Kottbusser Tor, which is historically and politically one of most important neighborhoods for migrants, workers, and so-called “guest workers” in Berlin. The planned surveillance facility at Kotti is supposed to “guarantee the security of the residents ” but will only open new avenues to criminalize marginalized people and commit racial profiling and police violence In Kreuzberg.
All this is taking place while Kotti remains one of Berlin’s “KBO- Kriminellbelastete Orte”, a status which legally gives the police the authority to control anyone at any time without any reason. Like all the other KBO, the victims of the police watch at Kotti will be in the first line of people who will be racially labeled as “dangerous”: black, indigenous, people of color, and especially undocumented people.
3.75 million euros is enough money to pay 780 people’s rent for one year or to start new housing construction projects, schools, and care centers for children and the elderly. So instead of even trying to solve the gentrification problems by tackling economical issues, the government is turning the migrants and people with low income out of their neighborhoods: happily and legally gentrified ever after.
Who gets to build a home in Berlin?
It’s no secret that Berlin’s housing market is deeply classist and racist. When applying for an apartment, the most important factors are your income, name, race, and nationality. The situation is, of course, far more complicated for (documented) people whose former residential address is a refugee camp, outside of Germany, or a homeless shelter. This power dynamic doesn’t limit itself to apartment-hunting; it’s more or less the same situation with finding rooms in shared flats.
Everyone who has suffered from the housing crisis in Berlin is aware of the power imbalance between the Hauptmieter (main tenant) and untermieter (subletters of the other rooms), even within a small household. As a result, many people end up in precarious, overpriced or insecure living conditions. For marginalized people, the right to have a home can always be questioned or taken away, and the need for a home can be instrumentalized to reinforce systems of unequal power imbalances. How can we change this?
Resources(s)-sharing as political praxis
Everyone complains about cis white men, yet they are the ones who get to have a place to sleep at night. When it comes to choosing a flatmate, white middle-class subletters share their “resources” with other white middle-class people.
Systematic racism and class discrimination means not only having no chance to certain but also ascertain social capital. It means being barred from getting an apartment or a room to rent due to low income, name, race, or citizenship, and also, crucially, having less access to the people who do have access to those resources and who, as a result, are less likely to share them. This gap is reflected in social groups (even my own), and is one of the reasons why the housing crisis threatens marginalized communities to such an extent that it can lead to homelessness.
So should we just rent our room and the problem will be solved?
Yes. And No. Of course, the housing crisis will not be solved by individuals who are ready to share their limited resources. This is not an invitation to take on the state’s responsibility instead of demanding structural change.
What is needed are networks of solidarity that reflect one’s political possibility and try to actively break the cycle of power dynamics. When the state fails to produce at any kind of solution for the most basic human right to live, it is the responsibility of its citizens with more access to find alternative solutions.
This does not and should not mean we should take the responsibility of the government and massive investor companies and try to find individualized solutions within our limited resources. Quite the opposite: we should keep fighting and demanding equal access to housing for everyone while finding different points of access to political power to make changes. And this is one of the biggest challenges in many leftist movements.
There need to be short-time strategies in place to minimize the harm and pressure on minorities and the most intersectionally marginalized groups while fighting for the broader change: After protesting on the street for housing rights, a person should have a place to go to sleep. There should be measures to provide safety for people without documents or migrants during such protests. To include and unite movements and people, we need to prioritize the needs of the most marginalized group(s)..
Resources(s)-sharing as an alternative to classical governing hierarchies:
In the last few days, a new initiative:”9 euro fonds” has been started. The initiative started its work after the new government in Germany decided to cut off the 9 euro public transport tickets. The 9 euro funds are supposed to pay the fines of the people who have been penalized for riding public transport without a ticket.
The initiative is problematic for a few reasons: the most important is that most of the racialized, undocumented and/or migrants cannot afford to get a fine in the first place because it would impact their freedom, residency permits, or security. There are thousands of people in Germany who are in prison because of their inability to pay these fines.
Another initiative that fights against the criminalization of riding public transport without a ticket is Freiheitsfonds. The “Freedom Fund” initiative frees people who are in prison across Germany from using transportation without a ticket.
These initiatives, while far from perfect, give political agency back to civil society. Mobility shouldn’t be a luxury – it should be a right to be given to people independent of their financial ability and the 9 euro fund will not solve that. Nevertheless, it is an important step toward learning alternative ways for self-government.
Another good example is the solidarity fare share for sharing resources for the communities from the Neighbourhood anarchist collective. The Neighborhood Anarchist Collective (NAC) strives to grow the anarchist movement by taking action directly and locally by providing a welcoming environment for education and participation.
This is something we should learn from a lot of communities and organic movements around which their solidarity resource-sharing has always made them survive because sharing is not (only) caring, it’s political praxis.
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