Category Archives: Uncategorized

No expansion of police powers in DNA analysis!

In a great hurry, security politicians are currently striving to drastically expand police powers in DNA analysis before the end of this legislative period. In a statement, 25 civil society organizations are protesting this highly questionable move. They criticize a misguided information policy, the violation of data protection rights and fear racist sentiment. Continue reading

Tribunal | Dissolve NSU Complex

The tribunal has emerged from and is supported by the nationwide action alliance “NSU-Komplex auflösen” as well as by a large number of people who want to get involved against racism for various motives. A prominent position is held by those affected by the NSU terror, whose viewpoints carry particular weight. Anyone who identifies with the goals of the Tribunal can participate. All people, groups, associations, institutions that want to support the Tribunal are invited to contact and participate.
The NSU Tribunal will take place in Cologne from May 17-21, 2017.
Program here
Press review here
Indictment here

New publication: The tip of the iceberg

The tip of the iceberg
Fundraising by International Aid Organizations – Criticism and Alternatives

published by glokal e.V. and Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland e.V.

Starting point for the project
(De-)Colonial Images
is the developmental donation advertising, which shapes the consciousness of the viewers through its placement in the public space and in the media. The imagery portraying the crises in the Global South is characterized by a colonial continuity. The bodies of Black people and people of color are shown in passive, suffering, dependent positions and reduced to these.

From different positions, groups and organizations came impulses for an examination of donation advertising and public relations work of aid organizations. Here, however, the focus was firstly on criticism, and secondly, the discussion was limited to development actors within the scene.

With the project (de)colonial imagery we wanted to go one step further by inviting the artists Rajkamal Kahlon, Isaiah Lopaz and Lena Ziyal to design alternative advertising posters. These were displayed on billboards in central locations in Berlin’s public spaces.

In addition to the artistic contributions of this project, this publication also gathers the voices and counter-designs of activists, scientists and artists.

Download the e-publication here

Welcome without paternalism

Help and solidarity in support work

Since the so-called summer of migration in 2015, the topics of migration and flight have increasingly become the focus of attention for society as a whole. Across Europe, many new groups formed to support and facilitate the reception of people fleeing their homes. But some refugee self-organizations criticize: “The help was good at the beginning. But food and clothing are not enough.”

In the 80-page publication, we address the phenomena of flight, migration, aid and solidarity from a variety of perspectives. glokal e.V. has been offering seminars on racism criticism, discrimination sensitization and empowerment for years, also for refugee support groups. From this experience, we address problems that often arise in support groups and what approaches exist to overcome them. We expand the thematic framework, which mostly talks about flight, migration, power and racism. The self-organization of refugees in Germany since the 1990s is dealt with in detail. In reports and interviews, refugee activists and other people with refugee experience analyze the system of isolation and camps, as well as support structures.

Finally, a detailed reflection and practice guide supports readers from support groups in analyzing and transforming their own engagement.

The brochure can be
[hier]
be ordered from us.

We call on the University of Frankfurt to take a stand on civil disobedience

Two days before Christmas, we received a reply from the Equal Opportunities Office of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main to our letter dated 18.12.2016. We are pleased about the clear words: distancing from AfD and the Junge Alternative; insight into worrying press work; acceptance of responsibility for the support of right-wing agitation; assessment of the satisfaction of the workshop participants and the quality of the content of the workshop; statement on the perception of the cooperation with glokal e.V.; and offer for a clarifying conversation, possibly with the university president.

However, we do not believe that the “real[] scandal” is “Young Alternative damaging work against racism and other forms of discrimination through false statements” in light of the dispute with the university and the Equality Office. What else could be expected from a right-wing group? It is therefore all the more the responsibility of a society-shaping institution such as the university to actively counteract a general shift to the right in politics, social groups and the sayable. Not to do so is the scandal.

In this regard, we fail to understand why the Equality Office cannot make a clear commitment to the need to exercise civil disobedience to racist practices such as racial profiling. And how does the university, which has established an Angela Davis Visiting Professorship in Gender and Diversity Studies, view this? Angela Davis, who sees herself as part of the Occupy movement and for whom lived resistance is the linchpin of her theory and practice, was “on the one hand surprised, but at the same time also concerned, during her stay in Frankfurt in 2013 on the occasion of the professorship named after her, how much the problems with racially motivated violence and discrimination, e.g. with regard to “racial profiling” […] are similar in the German and U.S. context” (http://www.cgc.uni-frankfurt.de/angeladavis-bericht.shtml). After the Cologne police – well aware that their actions are well received by current racist discourses – carried out mass racial profiling on New Year’s Eve 2016, thereby violating the Basic Law, it is all the more important to act decisively against institutional racism.

Insight and an apology to us as an association and to the speakers directly affected is necessary and good. However, Goethe University must go beyond the isolated dialogical moment and face up to its social responsibility. In this sense, we ask the university to take a position on the practice of civil disobedience in a post-colonial, post-national socialist country and to engage in a public debate about this.

The racist police selection on New Year’s Eve in Cologne must be followed by political consequences

In its press release of 10.01.2017, the Antirassistische Initiative e.V. strongly condemns the racist segregation of visitors to the Domplatte on New Year’s Eve and their denigration by the Cologne police and demands consequences for those responsible. Continue reading

(De-)colonial imagery with the artists Rajkamal Kahlon, Isaiah Lopaz and Lena Ziyal

“Isn’t the best subversion to distort codes rather than destroy them?” (Roland Barthes)

As part of the project (De-)coloniale Bilderwelten(about the project) we invited the international artists Rajkamal Kahlon, Isaiah Lopaz and Lena Ziyal to creatively translate global injustice in a discrimination-sensitive way from their respective artistic perspectives. From this, posters have been created that inspire people to (political) action.
more

Statement of glokal e.V. on the incidents at the University of Frankfurt

Requested by the Equal Opportunities Office of Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, two speakers from our association glokal e.V. held a workshop on November 10, 2016 entitled “Racist? – Not me! Racism-critical sensitization in the university context”. One of the participants was Jonas B., who – as it turned out afterwards – is an assessor of the Young Alternatives (youth organization of the Alternative for Germany/AfD) in Hesse. Four weeks after the workshop, he wrote a youtube clip entitled “Experiences from the racism workshop” (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHSdSj-Vsc) and addressed the public with the Junge Alternative via press release
(Link: https://www.facebook.com/JainFrankfurt/photos/a.185144411899079.1073741828.154473238299530/240384756375044/?type=3&theater).
In it, our speakers are accused of having called for violence against police officers in the workshop.
Continue reading

“You have been attacked in my rescue country”.

On the occasion of the anniversary of the Mölln arson attack, writer, activist and active glocal member Doğan Akhanlı delivered the Mölln speech this year. On the initiative of the Arslan family, the victims of the attack are commemorated every year around November 23. For several years, the speech has been held in exile, this year in Cologne. The moving speech in which Akhanlı draws a bow from Mölln to the politics of remembrance and the reappraisal of the NSU murders can be read here.