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open letter to the Voice Hallo you people in Jena, We were informed by a friend that you invited us to a day of discussion. Sorry that we are not around to offer our critique today. Anyways we appreciate your interest in a debate on different political concepts and the problems that came with it. What we will talk about is our experiences and problems with one of the groups organizing the Jena Camp. So this is an open letter to The Voice Afrika Forum: The most general point of critique is the instrumental understanding of solidarity you work with (towards those you think of as supporters, at least). This is not to question the political aim of your campaign for free movement, which we do not only find more than legitimate from a perspective of human rights but also inspiring in a more fundamental political sense, in understanding the authoritarian mechanisms of power-keeping in globalizing nation-states and thinking about how to get rid of them. We are supporting this campaign and respect that you organize as refugees to better your situation. We also think that practical cooperation can not wait until we educated ourselves so well, that we do not functionalize each other any more. For sure there´s a fair amount to critizise on the side of other organizing groups of the camp as well. If people from your group felt degraded to a public proof of migrant participation, this should have been an issue in further preparation of the camp. That this didn´t happen, has a history though. Some words to the background of our position. As part of the organizing group we got in contact with your group after the first Grenzcamp in Rothenburg. At that point in time our group in Berlin tried to get some discussions going among the groups preparing the next Grenzcamp. We found these discussions necessary on the way to an anti-racist policy that is able to put an end to traditions of either paternalistic helpers or romanticist idealists (projecting a revolutionary subject on the most oppressed instead of taking the opportunities they have as less oppressed to fight oppression). One key question in that debate was on how we are to address the population. Do we seek support from them as we inform them and confront them with the contradictions of their own living situation next door to elementary injustice, or do we speak to them as those responsible for racism? The other question was on our position as activists towards, for and together with refugees. We thought that getting straight our own motivation in this struggle is important for not blindly reproducing the old dominant structures. The discussion failed, which fostered a set of developments. One was a kind of undisputed everything-goes policy practiced on the following camps, up to the point where communication broke down and the concepts started to stand in the way of each other. During the last demonstration at the airport in Frankfurt some tried to inform the public and show those imprisoned that we are around, while others wanted to attack the prison and a third group planned to cause confusion in order to create public pressure. OK. So far this is nothing that must bother you as a group doing lobby work. So what´s the point? Discussions with your group, as far as we experienced them, consisted of informing reports resulting in urgent appeals to support your struggle to better your present situation. That was it. An exception we heard of was the information table you had at the Anti-Castor-Camp in Nahrendorf during the Protests in March 2001, where you positively related to the anti-nuclear resistance and linked it to your struggle. Our personal experience was different. As it was presented to us again and again the outer cover of your campaign, as it was shown to everyone on any marketplace, we asked ourselves what we should do with this. Being informed on the campaign your aim could not be just to inform us over and over again. Neither could it be that you wanted to persuade or activate people already active. So we drew the conclusion that you talk about this for not talking at least with us about something else - that you do not want to discuss your hopes and dreams, motivations and perspectives with us. Since you think that you can reach the abolition of Residenzpflicht it is your strategy right now, to exclusively fight for this aim. As a strategy this is nothing you want us to discuss. This is legitimate but we would prefer to be openly confronted with it. About a year ago at another ocassion in the Volxbühne a person of your group gave some reasons why he thinks white people should support the campaign and this was in a sense a confrontation. The argument was built upon the historical fault of the colonizers and the privileges deriving from it. By living these privileges every European is guilty still. Not surprisingly in a location like the Volksbühne then most people grumbled their agreement. This spokesperson of your group knew very well to make use of the type of discourses the Left adopted from the protestant churches. Unfortunatelly, these discourses in both communities mainly have the function to avoid really changing things. In the long run, this half-hearted support coming from a bad conscience will not serve your interests very well, as it only performs colonial roles once more in a new shape: apolitical-flashbulb helpers accompanying imperialist warfare and uncritical lipservice paid without any practical output, but to please oneself in the morning mirror. Furthermore this type of support has to be spured each time anew and in case of even the lightest pressure it will break down. Here you are at a point of deciding which position you want to take towards white activists, comparable to the one we described in the beginning concerning our relation as activists towards the public in general. Either you have at least some hope that it is possible to communicate across borders to come to a better society together one day or you don´t have this hope. If you don´t believe that white people could have good reasons to share wealth and use privileges for the liberation of all people, why are you talking to us dreamers at all? Even if your struggle in many cases turnes out to be for sheer survival, our support could grow much stronger if we would also talk about how we can fight for a good life while trying to end conditions that prevent that. Don´t get us wrong: We do not blame you for not bringing up the issues that the left in this country seems unable to discuss for a long time. The problem with your organization is that you act as if the only choice would be either long blablas on utopias while people were deported undisturbed in the meantime or immediate action without any discussion. The unquestionable setting of your strategy and the logic of forces of circumstances, by which you push aside other debates, makes it difficult to work together with your group, if one is not willing to uncritically follow. We think that this is not a good way to work together. The tunnel-like perception of one´s own policy is well known to us, but exactly to change this, we´d like to have an open debate without apportioning of blame. We think that also in our structures we should learn to treat each other different from stupid power relations. We should not adept to the smuggy habits of politicians or push each other into closed categories – whether these were thought to be based on race or class or religion or gender or size of feet or whatever. On one of these other terrains we found the positions of some of your group a bit unreflected, to put it mildly. During the conflict you had with the women from Weimar your spokesperson reacted to the accusations in such a classical manner that he would for sure harshly criticize in a conflict related to the color of skin. We do not talk about the rights and wrongs of the actual accusation here. What we talk about is the over-generalizing and defamatory way a kind of neurotic "anti-sexist movement" was polemically created by your spokesperson even weeks and month afterwards. This lack of analysis and willingness to relate different struggles to each other also created a distance to your organization. This is not the end of the world and not the end of cooperation, and maybe you even prefer that limited kind of relationship. What you get is what you give, it´s as simple as that than. As long as you are not interested in us as potential comrades but just as supporters you will be just that, not comrades but the ones we support. Uschi & Sandra
`05.05.2002`

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open letter to the Voice

Hallo you people in Jena,

We were informed by a friend that you invited us to a day of discussion. Sorry that we are not around to offer our critique today. Anyways we appreciate your interest in a debate on different political concepts and the problems that came with it. What we will talk about is our experiences and problems with one of the groups organizing the Jena Camp. So this is an open letter to The Voice Afrika Forum:

The most general point of critique is the instrumental understanding of solidarity you work with (towards those you think of as supporters, at least). This is not to question the political aim of your campaign for free movement, which we do not only find more than legitimate from a perspective of human rights but also inspiring in a more fundamental political sense, in understanding the authoritarian mechanisms of power-keeping in globalizing nation-states and thinking about how to get rid of them. We are supporting this campaign and respect that you organize as refugees to better your situation. We also think that practical cooperation can not wait until we educated ourselves so well, that we do not functionalize each other any more. For sure there´s a fair amount to critizise on the side of other organizing groups of the camp as well. If people from your group felt degraded to a public proof of migrant participation, this should have been an issue in further preparation of the camp. That this didn´t happen, has a history though.

Some words to the background of our position. As part of the organizing group we got in contact with your group after the first Grenzcamp in Rothenburg. At that point in time our group in Berlin tried to get some discussions going among the groups preparing the next Grenzcamp. We found these discussions necessary on the way to an anti-racist policy that is able to put an end to traditions of either paternalistic helpers or romanticist idealists (projecting a revolutionary subject on the most oppressed instead of taking the opportunities they have as less oppressed to fight oppression). One key question in that debate was on how we are to address the population. Do we seek support from them as we inform them and confront them with the contradictions of their own living situation next door to elementary injustice, or do we speak to them as those responsible for racism? The other question was on our position as activists towards, for and together with refugees. We thought that getting straight our own motivation in this struggle is important for not blindly reproducing the old dominant structures. The discussion failed, which fostered a set of developments. One was a kind of undisputed everything-goes policy practiced on the following camps, up to the point where communication broke down and the concepts started to stand in the way of each other. During the last demonstration at the airport in Frankfurt some tried to inform the public and show those imprisoned that we are around, while others wanted to attack the prison and a third group planned to cause confusion in order to create public pressure.

OK. So far this is nothing that must bother you as a group doing lobby work. So what´s the point? Discussions with your group, as far as we experienced them, consisted of informing reports resulting in urgent appeals to support your struggle to better your present situation. That was it. An exception we heard of was the information table you had at the Anti-Castor-Camp in Nahrendorf during the Protests in March 2001, where you positively related to the anti-nuclear resistance and linked it to your struggle. Our personal experience was different. As it was presented to us again and again the outer cover of your campaign, as it was shown to everyone on any marketplace, we asked ourselves what we should do with this. Being informed on the campaign your aim could not be just to inform us over and over again. Neither could it be that you wanted to persuade or activate people already active. So we drew the conclusion that you talk about this for not talking at least with us about something else - that you do not want to discuss your hopes and dreams, motivations and perspectives with us. Since you think that you can reach the abolition of Residenzpflicht it is your strategy right now, to exclusively fight for this aim. As a strategy this is nothing you want us to discuss. This is legitimate but we would prefer to be openly confronted with it.

About a year ago at another ocassion in the Volxbühne a person of your group gave some reasons why he thinks white people should support the campaign and this was in a sense a confrontation. The argument was built upon the historical fault of the colonizers and the privileges deriving from it. By living these privileges every European is guilty still. Not surprisingly in a location like the Volksbühne then most people grumbled their agreement. This spokesperson of your group knew very well to make use of the type of discourses the Left adopted from the protestant churches. Unfortunatelly, these discourses in both communities mainly have the function to avoid really changing things. In the long run, this half-hearted support coming from a bad conscience will not serve your interests very well, as it only performs colonial roles once more in a new shape: apolitical-flashbulb helpers accompanying imperialist warfare and uncritical lipservice paid without any practical output, but to please oneself in the morning mirror. Furthermore this type of support has to be spured each time anew and in case of even the lightest pressure it will break down.

Here you are at a point of deciding which position you want to take towards white activists, comparable to the one we described in the beginning concerning our relation as activists towards the public in general. Either you have at least some hope that it is possible to communicate across borders to come to a better society together one day or you don´t have this hope. If you don´t believe that white people could have good reasons to share wealth and use privileges for the liberation of all people, why are you talking to us dreamers at all? Even if your struggle in many cases turnes out to be for sheer survival, our support could grow much stronger if we would also talk about how we can fight for a good life while trying to end conditions that prevent that. Don´t get us wrong: We do not blame you for not bringing up the issues that the left in this country seems unable to discuss for a long time. The problem with your organization is that you act as if the only choice would be either long blablas on utopias while people were deported undisturbed in the meantime or immediate action without any discussion. The unquestionable setting of your strategy and the logic of forces of circumstances, by which you push aside other debates, makes it difficult to work together with your group, if one is not willing to uncritically follow. We think that this is not a good way to work together. The tunnel-like perception of one´s own policy is well known to us, but exactly to change this, we´d like to have an open debate without apportioning of blame. We think that also in our structures we should learn to treat each other different from stupid power relations. We should not adept to the smuggy habits of politicians or push each other into closed categories – whether these were thought to be based on race or class or religion or gender or size of feet or whatever. On one of these other terrains we found the positions of some of your group a bit unreflected, to put it mildly.

During the conflict you had with the women from Weimar your spokesperson reacted to the accusations in such a classical manner that he would for sure harshly criticize in a conflict related to the color of skin. We do not talk about the rights and wrongs of the actual accusation here. What we talk about is the over-generalizing and defamatory way a kind of neurotic "anti-sexist movement" was polemically created by your spokesperson even weeks and month afterwards. This lack of analysis and willingness to relate different struggles to each other also created a distance to your organization.

This is not the end of the world and not the end of cooperation, and maybe you even prefer that limited kind of relationship. What you get is what you give, it´s as simple as that than. As long as you are not interested in us as potential comrades but just as supporters you will be just that, not comrades but the ones we support.

Uschi & Sandra

05.05.2002