Welcome United Parade 29.09.2018

Call to WELCOME UNITED (source: https://www.welcome-united.org/en/call/)

Against deportation, exclusion and racist agitation –
for freedom of movement and equal rights for all!

We know already that September 29, 2018 will be the most beautiful day of the year. It will be our day. We are many, we are different and we struggle every day on our doorstep. We’ll all come together in September. We will come to Hamburg by car, train and bus. From villages and towns, from camps and shelters, from welcoming initiatives and aid organizations, from construction sites, schools and universities. With soundtrucks, performances, lyrics, music and carnival we’ll chase away the cold, the racism and the heartlessness from the streets of the city. Together we’ll draw a picture on the streets: the picture of our friendship, the picture of a diverse and fearless life in solidarity. When we move, the world moves!

Call for the anti-racist parade in Hamburg, September 29, 2018

United against racism

Against the lies!

The stories that are told to us every day are unbearable. They’re an insult and they’re lies. They say the refugees are the problem while they drown in the Mediterranean. They say the limits of “integration capacity” have been reached, while a racist mob rages in the Bundestag and on the streets without restriction. They calculate that the “costs of integration” are rising, while we are denied lang

courses and work and huge sums are spent on deportation bureaucracy and harassment. They talk about violence – and children are kidnapped right from their beds and school classes in order to deport them to completely foreign countriesIt is easy to scold and exclude us, because many of us are at the bottom anyway. We fled war, hunger, poverty and misery. Many of us came because the global capitalism destroyed our lives. Our families cannot come because our love and our longing do not matter. The government plans to close the borders and put us in new camps. We surely do not want pity, we are humans, not victims. But we say: All this shows how democratic this democracy really is. Not the boats on the Mediterranean are a danger to us all, but the racism raging and murdering all over Europe.

Let’s name the problem: it’s racism!

In 2017, more than 3,000 people died or disappeared in the Mediterranean because they tried to reach Europe. Their death was barely a mention in the news. The dead remain unnamed. In Germany, 2,200 attacks on refugee shelters were reported during the same period. 180 times refugee supporters were attacked. Muslims and Muslim institutions have been attacked 950 times. 1,453 anti-Semitic offenses were registered. Over 5.5 million eligible voters  in the last general election voted for the openly racist

AfD. And we will not forget the NSU for a long time, which was able to kill people undisturbed for years.

That’s what we think about when it’s being discussed that Germany is becoming more dangerous. Let’s talk honestly – who sits in the shelters and hears when the windows are clinking at night? Who gets harassed at the immigration office? Who is being exploited in illegal jobs and in unpaid internships? Who cleans the plates, the toilets and the homes? Who lives and works here for decades and still remains only a “guest”? No, for us it’s not the end of an intact cozy world, just because the AfD now was able to enter the Bundestag with 13%.

The truth is different!

We get up now. Again and surely not for the last time. Against this racist insanity, against this twisted world, against this heartless homeland, against the walled community, against the policy of exclusion. We do not separate and do not let us split. Whether “German” or “foreigner”, whether “refugee” or “Saxon”, whether from Dortmund or Damascus, from Afrin or Athens, from Kabul or Kassel: That does not matter to us since long time. No, it’s about us all. It’s about how and in which society we want to live together.

We have already started to build another world. We started with ourselves. Our doors are open. No matter where we come from, we know each other, we have our phone numbers, we have become living points of contact and information, we have become experts and friends. With each task that we accomplish together, with our mutual support we gain new strength. Whether at the authorities, or on the lifebo

at in the Mediterranean, at the job center, at the apartment viewing or in the school.

We will not stop to fight against old and new structures of power and the worldwide system of colonialism. We defend our bodies and our dignity – against sexism, racism and every form of violence!

Tear down the boundaries, break down the borders!

What we experience together is important and big. “Welcome United” in Berlin in September 2017 was a celebration and a beginning. We have demonstrated for our voice and our rights, but more importantly – we have redefined ourselves: who and how many we can be. And we have shown that we can move cities and neighborhoods, our friends and neighbors, borders and horizons. Let us continue and start over. No fear anymore. No frightening. No loneliness. No servility. We enter the streets because we want a future. A future for all.

That’s why we want to reunite for a big parade of anti-racism and solidarity in Hamburg. It might be the time of egoism, cold and racism. There might be more beautiful times; but this time is ours. What needs to happen now has already begun. We are many – and much more than we

think.

We call for a nationwide demonstration on the 29th of September in Hamburg.

Join the parade

for participation, equal rights, and solidarity! 

We’ll Come United!

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