What are the impacts of the border system on mental health? We want to go beyond a theoretical and abstract way to talk about borders to bring the discourse back to the real effects that borders have on real people.
“Mental health” immediately gets closer to the humanity of the people affected by the border system, since it refers to their personality, feelings, emotions. It supports a more rounded narrative of people on the move, without reducing them to a statistics or to some global trend. It highlights often forgotten consequences of the racist border system, running counter to its project to dehumanize the very people who defy it. The workshop on mental health aims to do just that.
When you come to the festival, remember to bring cash. Not only for us—we don’t have any tickets to sell and the entrance is free. Any donations will go to repay the festival and support Nadir, the search and rescue vessel of RESQSHIP. Mostly, with cash you will be able to buy the food vouchers that the government gives to the people, trying to take away their agency, so we can return cash to them. Remember also to bring some clothes or other items for the winter: comrades from Balkanbrücke will collect them.
In the evenings we will host concerts, because if we cannot dance to it, it is not our revolution.
This edition of the Scirocco Festival builds on the previous two. The first year we looked at what borders are, who makes them, who is really a criminal (remember our slogan?: “What is the crossing of a border compared to fabricating the border?”). Last year we mentioned practical ways to defy the border system, understanding police violence and the camp system and how to react to those.
Something didn’t change across the editions. Remember Scirocco, the warm wind blowing from the South in the central Mediterranean sea, facilitating dangerous sea-crossings? That wind still has no passport.
For more info, check https://sciroccofestival.noblogs.org/
