We’ll start with an apology. Last week, because of technical problems, we sent out the Newsletter from the previous week. Sorry for that. We hope that the problem is now fixed. If you don’t get a Newsletter or the wrong one arrives, we also publish the Letter from the Editors every week at www.theleftberlin.com.
Saturday is the International Day of Action against Racism and Fascism, with activities across the world, including in Berlin. At 2pm, the Antifascism roundtable and Aufstehen Gegen Rassismus are calling a rally Close Down the AfD. Hostility and assaults are everyday life for refugees and peoples affected by racism. Exclusion, oppression and police violence determine the life of People of Colour and Black people. State racism helps the fascist right to grow. In many countries, extreme right wing parties are a serious threat. We must stop the extreme right making gains in the EU parliament in the June elections. The protest is outside the AfD-near
Also on Saturday, from 5pm POC art collective and the LINKE Berlin Internationals @berlinleft cordially invite you to the film screening Aisheen, Still alive in Gaza. This is a repeat of the showing which was planned for 10th February. Doors open in oyoun, Lucy-Lameck-Straße 32 at 5pm. Food will be served shortly after 6pm to mark Iftar. The film will be then shown around 7pm, followed by a discussion with Palestinian activists Ramsy Kilani and Fida’a Al-Zaanin. ‘Aisheen, Still alive in Gaza’ is a documentary by Nicolas Wadimoff (Arabic with English subtitles) 86 minutes – 2010. Entry is free but there will be a collection for women in Gaza.
Sunday is the anniversary of the Syrian revolution. To mark the occasion there will be a rally at 2pm outside the Rathaus Neukölln. On this day, let’s amplify our collective voice, declaring that no single voice surpasses ours. Join us in the fight for freedom, dignity, and justice for all. Our demands will be heard, for no one is free until everyone is free! #freesyria #freepalestine🇵🇸 #stopthegenocide🇵🇸 #globalsouthresists #الثورة_مستمرة #الحرية_للمعتقلين_والمعتقلات #الشعب_يريد_إسقاط_النظام
Because of the Syria rally, the walking tour (Anti-)Colonialism in Berlin will be starting at 3.30pm – later than advertised. Germany isn’t well know as a colonial empire. But in just a few decades at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the Kaiser’s troops massacred hundreds of thousands of people across Africa and Asia. Today, Berlin is full of reminders of the city’s colonial past. In our (Anti)Colonialism tour, we look for signs of oppression and resistance. We will be meeting at 3.30pm in front of Akademie der Künste at Pariser Platz. This is opposite the Brandenburg Gate and next to the Hotel Adlon (S-Bhf Brandenburger Tor). The tour will end around 6pm near U-Bahn Rehberge.
Also on Sunday, at 7pm, it’s our latest Palestine Reading Group. This week is our first attempt to look at Palestinian literature, specifically the works of Ghassan Kanafani. You can find the selected reading here. The Palestine Reading Group takes place every week, on either Friday or Sunday (partly depending on room availability). Check the page of Events which we’re organising for the coming dates and subjects under discussion. If you’d like to get more involved in the group, and suggest and vote on future subjects, you can join our Telegram group and follow the channel Reading group. Meetings are currently in the Agit offices, Nansenstraße 2. There is a meeting for moderators (open to anyone who’s interested) half an hour before the meeting starts.
Also at 7pm on Sunday, there’s a showing of the Indian film Court. Join us for a screening of a Kafkaesque walk through the Bombay High Court, in which a young lawyer defends a man charged with abetting suicide through revolutionary poetry. The film will be shown in Bligisaray, Oranienstraße 45 (between U-Bahns Moritzplatz and Kotbusser Tor).
On Tuesday, there’s the latest meeting of Revolutionary Readers – A FLINTA* book club on leftist revolutions around the world. Once per month, we would like to choose a different book about leftist revolutions around the world throughout history and then come together to think critically and discuss/analyse their successes and missteps to better inform our own ability to organise. This month, the group is discussing Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. The text is available for free here. It is also available in libraries around Berlin. This book club is for FLINTA* persons and is open to comrades of all education levels. It takes place in the AGIT Offices, Nansenstraße 2, at 7pm.
There is much more going on in Berlin this week. To find out what’s happening, go to our Events page. You can also see a shorter, but more detailed list of events in which we are directly involved in here.
Two dates for your calendars:
- On Friday, 22nd March, the Berlin LINKE Internationals are organising a public meeting Neosovereignism in the West African Sahel: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger with Prof. Dr. Baz Lecocq, Franza Drechsel (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation), and Dr. Lamine Doumbia. It’s at 7pm in Karl Liebknecht Haus. More information in next week’s Newsletter.
- Please note: the LINKE Internationals Summer Camp has now been postponed to avoid clashing with a big demo against the AfD. Summer Camp will now take place on 21-22 September, still in the Naturfreundehaus Hermsdorf.
This week’s Campaign of The Week is the Palestine Conference which will take place in Berlin from 12-14 April. As Palestinian, Jewish, German and international activists, we will publicly accuse the German government of aiding and abetting the genocide in Gaza. You want to hold German politicians accountable for their support of war crimes? You want to resist the silencing in Germany about the genocide in Palestine? Then make the Palestine Conference possible with your donation! Together we can create the momentum and bring our movement into the offensive.
If you are looking for Resources on Palestine, we have set up a page with useful links. We will be continually updating the page, so if you would like to recommend other links, please contact us on team@theleftberlin.com. You can also find all the reading from our Palestine Reading Groups here.
In News from Berlin, 1,000 demonstrate against Tesla in Grünheide, conference discusses poor delivery conditions for delivery riders, and park planned on the site of Tegel airport.
In News from Germany, Letzte Generation plan a Spring of resistance with new forms of action, Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance to contest local elections in Eastern Germany, rail workers announce a new strike, and writer Deborah Feldman says that Germany’s support for Israel is endangering Jewish people.
Read all about it in this week’s News from Berlin and Germany.
New on theleftberlin, for International Women’s Day we publish an extract from the book Do you Remember Kunan Poshpora?, Rasha Al-Jundi and Michael Jabareen’s photo and cartoon this week are about homelessness in Berlin, Itziar Cedar looks at the German discussion on Palestine from a Catalonian perspective, Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack asks What’s the Story behind Israel’s settler farms?, Maru Sawwan responds to Jeffrey Herf, Nathaniel Flakin asks why are the media suddenly so worried about “left-wing terrorism”?, and Ines Colaco argues that the far right gains at this week’s Portuguese elections do not mean that resistance is dead.
In case you didn’t get last week’s Newsletter, here’s what we published the week before last: Nathaniel Flakin reports on Der Spiegel’s transphobic attacks on a Jewish student for showing solidarity with Palestine, in Rasha Al-Jundi and Michael Jabareen’s latest cultural contribution, they look at “friendly” German neighbours, we show a gallery of photos and videos from last Saturday’s demo for Palestine, Ciaran Dodd looks at Eurovision’s complicity in Israel’s terror, Dimiitra Kyrillou in Athens looks a Greece’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage, and Phil Butland argues that Gaza is a Health Workers’ issue, and that the Syndikat pub was wrong to ban a meeting of Health Workers for Palestine.
This week’s Video of the Week is Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech after his film The Zone of Interest won the Oscar for best film not in English. In his speech Glazer calls out Israel’s use of the Holocaust to justify the ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
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Keep on fighting,
The Left Berlin Editorial Board
