Author Archives: glokal

The new fun EZ

brave typesWith the slogan “Brave types – extremely help” the Hamburg campaign Viva con Aqua writes out at present a journey to Uganda as price for a profit play. The tender text states:

“You will fly from Germany to Uganda accompanied by a Viva-con-Agua staff member on 18.03.2016. […] In Kampala you will meet Nobert Latim and Papa Shabani, co-founders of the crew Viva con Agua Kampala. You will accompany them in their everyday life and get to know other friends, artists and supporters of Viva con Agua in Uganda. Together you are preparing for the upcoming World Water Day on 22/03/2016: Some music and art activities and WASH workshops are planned in the Moroto project area. On 23.03.2016 you will travel back to Kampala with the Viva con Agua activists. On the two following days, workshops, music and art events, incl. Song and video shoot planned. All this will then culminate in the WELOVEYOUGANDA Music- & Artfestival #2 on Saturday, 26.03.2016. On 27.03. you will take the return flight from Kampala (Entebbe), so that you will be back in Germany on 28.03.2016.”

Actions like these are to be questioned not only under racism-critical points of view, but even development-politically very much. You could dismiss it as a barely noteworthy Twitter ad and pay no further attention to the action. However, we observe, Continue reading →

Karl May does not want to hand over scalps

For several years there have been demands from Ojibwe and other Native American Nations to the Karl May Museum in Radebeul near Dresden: several scalps that are in the museum collection should be returned. The museum had agreed to the repatriation of the human remains last year, but has now revoked this.

Red Haircrow, Native author and activist in Berlin, writes the following:

“The Karl May Museum is absolutely in the wrong, and no amount of their posturing, blustering or supposed concern for “doing the right thing” makes their attitude okay. They’re wrong. The scalp(s) need to be returned. This is an yet another ugly example of how the collecting of “native goods/items/remains” or cultural appropriation through Indian hobbyists or by museums and the like can cause international issues and continue historic trauma to Native Americans or other indigenous peoples.”

Beyond the Karl May Museum, there is also a current debate in Dresden about the handling of human remains in state museums, including in the Saxon Parliament through two small questions(here and here).

#exceptions

spontaneous poster advertising for #ausnahmslos in Erfurt, via twitter

spontaneous poster advertising for #ausnahmslos in Erfurt, via twitter

After the racist media reports in the aftermath of New Year’s Eve in Cologne, a group of feminist bloggers and authors have launched the call #ausnahmslos. Together with hundreds of signatories, they are calling for “Against sexualized violence and racism. Always. Everywhere.” and formulate demands to politicians and the media.

The appeal can be co-signed here.

 

Why children are not Christmas gifts

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The Berlin-based association“ProNats e.V. – Verein zur Unterstützung arbeitender Kinder und Jugendliche” published an article shortly before Christmas with demands on development policy organizations. Under the title“Why children are not Christmas presents – 12 demands on fundraising campaigns“, they criticize the way children from the Global South are presented in the fundraising of German development cooperation from a child rights perspective and formulate concrete demands ranging from “presenting children as actors” to ending child sponsorship programs.

 

 

Hunger strike in the Butzbach correctional facility

Since yesterday, prisoners in the Butzbach (Hesse) correctional facility have been on a hunger or go-slow strike, demanding, among other things, the right to unionize, the minimum wage and payment into the pension fund for their work in prison. These demands are joined by more than 140 signatories of a statement of support, 45 of them from Hesse as well as trade unionists and academics from India, South Africa and Brazil. Continue reading →

From subject back to object?

Whether in France or among left-wing activists in India, the world is enthusiastic about Germany. The self-profiling as “welcome world champion” and “refugee helper” has above all one effect: It drowns out the tightening of laws and the repression policy against migrants as well as the hate speech and violent attacks of “concerned citizens”. Government policies and the right have shifted the public discourse on migration and asylum to the right, trampling everything that refugee and migration protests have built, reformulated, re-set, fought for in recent years. Read more

A Revival of Explicit Population Policy in Development Cooperation: The German Government, Bayer, and the Gates Foundation

In this article, Susanne Schultz and Daniel Bendix trace the efforts by the German government, the pharmaceutical company Bayer, the population lobby, and the Gates Foundation to promote the hormonal contraceptive implant Jadelle. The authors conclude with a call for activists to fight for contraceptive safety, in the spirit of earlier challenges to implants, like Norplant.

Beyond #refugeeswelcome: The Spectre of Racist Violence and Lessons from Refugee Resistance in Germany

This text by Joshua Kwesi Aikins and Daniel Bendix reframes the current debate about refugees in Germany by contrasting Germany’s recent history of racist violence and limitations of asylum laws with the resistance and agency of refugee movements across Germany. Both provide an important lens to re-examine the simultaneous heralding of “welcome culture”, a sharp rise in arson attacks on asylum centers and the current legislative roll-back of refugee rights in Germany. In bringing these perspectives together the text offers a corrective of both the current image of Germany as a welcoming champion of refugee rights and the problematic notion of refugees as objects of German policies and civil society “help” rather than subjects with a long history of resistance in Germany. Read more

Distant headaches over welcome world champions and other confusions

Chandra-Milena Danielzik argues that the current mainstream discourse in the FRG aka the self-profiling as ‘refugee supporter’ and as ‘welcome culture winner’ (co-)enables the legitimization of repressive asylum and migration policies. It also asks about failures of the German, White Left in recent years and to what extent today’s reactions are (in)adequate. Continue reading →