On 11/11/2017 there will be a bus demo to several African embassies and the GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit). The background to this is the increasingly brutal Valetta Process, with which the EU not only wants to close the flight and migration routes from African countries, but also to massively force deportations from Europe. We must take to the streets against this policy – immediately, loudly and with many! Continue reading
Tag Archives: EZ
New: The fairy tale of eye level
We are pleased to announce our new brochure: The fairy tale of eye level. Power and Solidarity in North-South Partnerships
Eye level and partnership are phrases that are often used in North-South, solidarity or ‘development cooperation’. They are meant to signal progressiveness and demonstrate equality. But do the terms extend beyond rhetoric? What are the patterns of thinking and structures in North-South partnerships? What are the perspectives of the so-called southern partners on cooperation?
In the publication “Das Märchen von der Augenhöhe” (“The Fairy Tale of Eye Level”), glokal e.V. has brought together ten activists, committed people and NGO workers from the Global South and North to shed light on different aspects of NGO structures, school partnerships, voluntary services and solidarity work. A theoretical introduction makes the historical-political framework tangible, and a reflection and practice guide supports the analysis and transformation of the reader’s own engagement.
The brochure can be
[hier]
be ordered from us.
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The new fun EZ
With 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
Why children are not Christmas gifts
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.
About apologies…
The development policy scene in Germany has increasingly been dealing with racism in the last ten years. In these processes, collaboration between white organizations and People of Color and immigrant-diasporic organizations often plays an important role. In this, often only selective cooperation, there have been major and minor reproductions of racism again and again in recent years. Most incidents and conflicts do not reach the public and unfortunately often fade away unresolved in the everyday life of the (mostly white-owned) organizations.
One case that made bigger waves was the termination of the project “move global/glocal” by the One World Network (EWNW) in Hamburg in 2010/2011 with the winding up of the team (2010) and the subsequent termination of the project manager (2011). The AG Sporen Lobal (Note June 2016: The blog of the AG Sporen Lobal is now offline. The documentation continues on the site of MEPa North) created the greatest possible transparency about the further handling of the conflict within the EWNW via her blog, showed that the case had not been forgotten and exerted pressure on the association not to let more grass grow over the matter. See also our article from 2013.
Critical shareholders at the BAYER Annual General Meeting
The day before yesterday, different groups and individuals intervened at the shareholders’ meeting of BAYER (the “most valuable” German company) in Cologne. On the page of the Coordination against BAYER Dangers some speeches can be found, including those held on behalf of glokal e.V. on“Profit in the slipstream of a population policy revival in international development policy” and on“Hormone implants and double standards in the global contraception market“.
queer_postcolonial_development_critical
This week in Vienna the website of the exciting project feminIEsta went online. From their self-description:
feminIEsta gathers work results, projects and initiatives that have crossed and crossed the Institute for International Development of the University of Vienna (IE for short, hence: feminIEsta); that took one of their origins at IE, converge there, branch out and network further from IE, or even distance themselves a bit.
feminIEsta intervenes both scientifically and politically in international development (politics) and takes a stand on its dilemmas, its promises, its violence.
feminIEsta applies feminist critique to theories and practices throughout, even if it may and should be argued what this means in detail.
feminIEsta wants to arouse curiosity about strategies that have already been tried and tested and about strategies that are still unrealized and desirable for bringing together development-critical and feminist approaches.
In this sense: Stay rebel and feminIEsta!
All that glitters is not gold. The Rusty Radiator Awards have a bitter aftertaste
While campaigns such as the Golden and Rusty Radiator Awards raise awareness of Western development organizations’ unjust views of the global South, they do not go far enough. Critiques of cliche media representation must be coupled with critiques of fundamentally unbalanced power structures. For an analysis of the mentioned awards as well as video clips such as “Who wants to be a volunteer”, see our essay on pambazuka.
“The (German) One-World Work from a Single Source?”
The Berlin-based association for migrant-diasporic organizations in One World, moveglobal e.V., has published a policy article on the relationship between development NGOs and migrant organizations in its latest publication. In the detailed article, Lucía Muriel discusses, for example, the functionalization of migrants and current challenges in cooperation. In doing so, she finds courageous words and, for example, in the chapter “Attempting a Paradigm Shift,” makes clear demands on the development policy scene:
“We will not continue to tolerate the conditions of a colonial reality that is over 500 years old. This applies to all current discourses and practices, to theories, to debates and to the practice of work. We will no longer allow governmental and non-governmental representatives, full-time and voluntary actors, established or newly emerging sponsors to dictate our perspective on the field of migration and development. In concrete terms, this means that none of the various forms of sole power to shape, define and decide are permissible any longer. Rather, all actors, including those who have been successfully excluded so far, must set out and engage in new forms of cooperation, distribution of resources, and power to shape.” (S.17)
The article is rounded off by an epilogue “How I stand on the bridge-builders’ discourse” and a glossary, and is supplemented in the appendix by a contribution from Andreas Rosen of the Stiftung Nord-Süd Brücken.
The publication can be ordered from moveglobal e.V. for 9 euros.
Film tip: Concerning Violence
Yesterday the German tour of the film“Concerning Violence – Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self Defense” by Göran Hugo Olsson started. The film is a visual underscore of Frantz Fanon’s 1961 anti-colonial manifesto “The Damned of the Earth.” Historical footage is combined with excerpts of Fanon’s text spoken by Lauryn Hill and embedded by a foreword by Gayatri C. Spivak.
The film has been awarded the film prize “cinema fairbinds“The film has been awarded the prize. On the page of the ministry it says: “With the award, the BMZ honors films that in an outstanding way invite current dialogue on particular aspects of the North-South relationship.” With this, the BMZ underlines the importance of colonialism, racism and capitalism criticism for current debates on development cooperation.
A list of all performances in Germany can be found here.