Category: Campaign

Demo against GEAS on April 10th at 6pm @Votivpark

On April 10, the EU Parliament will cast its final vote on the reform of the “Common European Asylum System” (“CEAS”). What is being glossed over as a “reform” is ultimately paving the way to largely undermine the individual right to asylum. Among other things, systematic de facto detention of people on the run through so-called “border procedures”, the legalization of pushbacks to supposedly “safe third countries”, the tightening of the Dublin system as well as special provisions through the Crisis Regulation, etc. are being decided. People seeking protection and people on the move are already being subjected to systematic violence by the European border and migration regime. Be it through the support of authoritarian regimes in “migration defence”, the criminalization of sea rescue, pushbacks along flight routes, chain deportations or incarceration in detention centres. With the “reform”, the EU is cementing a policy that it has been pursuing for a long time: Practices that violate human rights are being legalized and the criminalization of migration is being further normalized.

In solidarity with all those affected by these violations of rights, we will take a stand against this racist policy on April 10 at 6pm @Votivpark, 1090 Vienna and say: Brick by brick, wall by wall, make the fortress europe fall!

For years, the same sad spectacle repeats itself in regular intervals: as soon as the so-called “Middle East conflict” escalates, so does antisemitism on the streets of Vienna. Led by associations whose sole purpose is to wipe out the only Jewish state, an alliance of “left-wing” anti-imperialists, Islamist fundamentalists, neo-Nazis and Turkish right-wing extremists is formed, who see that an opportune moment has come to finally deal the death blow to the hated “Zionist entity”. The anti-zionist agitation against Israel is not just a criticism of the state and the nation. Quite the contrary. Not coincidentally, does it project all the atrocities of modern statehood only on the one single Jewish state, which serves as an anti-semitic object of projection to distinguish good from evil rule, instead of wanting to abolish all oppression.

Those who claim “Palestine solidarity” are not concerned with the liberation of Palestinian civilians from the conditions in which humans are degraded, enslaved and abandoned. Rather, they replicate this bondage in the name of “national liberation” or trivialize Islamist terror as anti-colonial resistance. The supposed commitment against the suffering and for the rights of the Palestinians is only put forward as long as it can be used as an accusation against Israel. And thus, in these circles, people like to keep silent about the inhumane practices of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority against their own population. Silence is kept about the suffering of those who are held in tent cities for generations as refugees without rights and as bargaining chips against Israel. Silence is kept about the other Nakba, the expulsion of 450,000 Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991, in revenge for the PLO’s commitment to the mass murderer Saddam Hussein. Silence is kept about the situation of the Palestinians in Jordan or Lebanon, who have to live there under inhumane conditions. Silence is kept about the instrumentalization of Palestinian suffering by reactionary movements and regimes like Turkey, Iran or Syria. These movements feed on the imagined cohesion against “the Jewish oppressor” and in the same breath express fantasies of extermination against other minorities, such as Êzidis, Alevis, Armenians and Kurds.

What happened in Israel on Saturday, October 7, was the worst attack on Jewish life since the Shoah. Since then, never have so many Jews been murdered in one day as on this Saturday. The murderers proudly filmed their acts and in some cases broadcast them via livestream. People were shot en masse, raped, abducted. Families were tortured and murdered along with their children. What transpired on that Saturday was an anti-semitic pogrom. Hamas has put into practice what it has formulated as its political program for decades: The destruction of Jewish life.

It demonstrated to us what the destruction of Israel would mean: The end of Jewish life in the Middle East. This pogrom was significantly financed by the Iranian Mullah regime and its allies. What began in Germany and Austria as National Socialist work of extermination finds its continuation as eleminatory anti-semitism in the charter of Hamas, the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories circulating everywhere and the threats of extermination of the Iranian regime against Israel. The massacre in southern Israel was as if the darkest epoch in human history had reached across time into the present and torn people out of it.

The ideology behind it is wreaking its bloody havoc throughout the region; in addition to minorities, it is primarily women and queer people who are the first to suffer. They are victims without a lobby who attract the punishment and persecution of those who choose to subordinate themselves to God or fatherland. We witness it in Iran, where protests of people fighting for their freedom and against the terror of the guidance patrol, patriarchy and oppression are bloodily suppressed. We witness it in Afghanistan, where under the renewed terror-reign perpetrated by the Taliban any emancipation is nipped in the bud. But we also witness it in Gaza, where Hamas is in power, where any emancipatory organizing, like those in unions or as social protests, are brutally crushed. Where thousands of civilians are now dying in a war that the reactionary rulers in the Middle East are keeping alive because pointing the finger at Israel serves to maintain their power.

In solidarity with all the people who are fighting for real liberation in the Middle East and around the world, we want to march on Saturday. Our thoughts are with all those who were murdered or abducted, with their relatives and friends, with Jews in Europe and elsewhere, who now have to fear that the wave of anti-semitic violence will spread here as well. Our thoughts are with those people in Gaza who find themselves in a situation not of their own choosing, who are exposed to the military strikes of the Israeli army as well as the terror of the Islamist rulers.

Our thoughts are with all those who are now affected by racism and violence. For it is precisely those states in Europe that demand more deportations and police after Islamist attacks, that at the same time profit from trade with Islamist regimes externalizing their own anti-Semitism and projecting it onto migrants. No matter how irreconcilable European right-wing extremism and Islamism may seem, they are two sides of the same coin and they feed on the racist division produced by the dominant discourse.

Our thoughts are also with the people in Rojava, who are currently exposed to the war of aggression of the Turkish regime, a close ally of Hamas, far away from all media publicity.

Our solidarity goes exactly to those who stand up for life and against death, who wish for a world without violence, without domination, coercion and oppression, without anti-semitism, racism, nationalism and islamism – whether in Israel, Palestine or elsewhere! Because, as the feminist revolution in Iran has already shown us: Freedom is not Eastern or Western, but universal!

In November 2023, the international police organization Interpol will hold a General Assembly in Vienna to mark its 100th anniversary. Police and government leaders from 195 member states – a total of over 1,500 representatives – want to celebrate this anniversary. For us – a broad alliance of civil society and left-wing organizations and groups – however, this is no reason to celebrate, quite the contrary.

Already united in anti-communism, anti-Semitism, anti-gypsyism and racism in 1923, the agency continued to exist under the leadership of the Austrofascist regime. Under Nazism, Interpol sat in the house of the later Wannsee Conference; the agency was presided over by Reinhard Heydrich, Arthur Nebe, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, all high-ranking Nazi war criminals. Even after the end of World War II, Interpol was still led by former Nazis. Today, Interpol -officially an association that has never been ratified by a parliament, an association that receives millions in funding from organizations such as FIFA, the tobacco company Philip Morris, and a host of pharmaceutical companies- is at the forefront of international repression. Interpol assists national police forces in prosecuting political activists. Many countries rely on the agency to prosecute political opponents: Turkey against Kurdish structures, Bahrain against investigative journalists, but also Austria, Germany other European countries against left-wing activists.

We want a completely different world. We want to discuss and reflect on alternatives to Interpol and the police in general. We want to fight for this completely different world with events, lectures, rallies and demonstrations about security in public space, the authoritarian character of the police, about harassment and violence against homeless people, about increasing repression against climate activists, about a feminist critique of the institution police and much more. More info -on events and everything else- soon at: https://linktr.ee/abolish_police

We are witnessing a diffuse interaction of economics, national security and social upheavals in Austria and Europe. Our time is shaped by phenomena which can be described as an expression of uncertainty – the crisis ladden developments of capitalism are becoming ever more apparent. The easy answer of many people to these developments is the longing and desire for a “strong leader” which should bring about stability. “Rather less freedom than chaos” is the commonly accepted notion.
This desire is activated and accelarated by many different sides, the authoritarians are in the offence: no matter if FPÖ, “Bloc Identitaire”, Turkish or Polish nationalists, islamistic and jihadi groups: they all promise a different political order meaning an uncompromising governing for their own “nation”, respectively. This “nation” is defined along the lines of nationality, ethnicity and/or religion.
The activation and acceleration of this desire is also due to the government: we are witnessing a normalization of political demands which used to be occupied by right-wingers. Not only the tightening of national security policies, massive surveillance, the reduction to the point of abolition of the right to seek refuge, but also the general authoritarian worsening of governmental action is mostly, if not being applauded, at least accepted as a new kind of normality.

In times of an obvious crisis, refugees – and others, which are not perceived as part of the national community – have to serve as the originators of societal problems. And when “foreigners” are made responsible and blamed for everything, the state is called upon as a protector of the national community.
But the state cannot prevent crises in capitalism from arising. It will not save us, because the state is part of the problem/issue/calamity. And it uses its force and authority, through laws, increasing armament and intimidation, if its legitimacy is challenged in crises ladden times. It needs to distract from its obvious helplessness in the face of global economic developments.
Antisexist, antiracist and antifascist fights continue to be necessary, but our critique needs to start at the root of the problem. Patriarchal capitalism as a complex system, which influences many different areas of all of our lives and regulates the rules of our daily interactions, must be attacked. The values of our inhumane achievement-oriented society are so extremely deeply rooted that it’s almost impossible to imagine a different practical experience let alone the possibility of a different society.

The campaign ” Escape the lethargy/helplessness/impotence” wants to encourage and mobilize everyone to organize activities and events against capitalism, the state and its authoritarian forming. If we want to escape the rat race of lethargy/helplessness/impotence, the continuous battles of defence, increasing isolation, separation and marginalization, we need a broad and strong radical left, capable of acting! Only if we organize ourselves and express our critique in actions and words transparently and comprehensibly, make it accessible to people and thus grow as a radical left, is change conceivable.

For a great life for everyone!