Kompass-newsletter No. 95 - 06/2021

„Speech of Mölln in Exile 2021" +++ 4/5 June: Days of action against deportations from Afghanistan +++ On the start of the trial in Chios on 11 June: #FreeTheMoria6 +++ 16 June in Wiesbaden: Rally against deportations +++ 18/19 June: Border Abolition 2021 +++ 19 June: Star for Hanau - Rally - Ride for Remembrance and Investigation +++ 19/20 June: Action Day Seebrücke +++ 25/26 June in and online from Palermo: from Sea to Cities Conference +++ +++ Aschaffenburg/Hanau: acquittal in trial for calling for citizens' asylum +++ Alarm Phone Report: Between Moving and Mourning - the struggle along the routes to Spain continues +++ Transnational Strike Platform: The Clash on Mobility in Transnational Europe +++ Reviews: 15. 5.: Demo of the Initiative Family Reunification Eritrea; 21.5. - Afrique Europe interact - transnational for freedom of movement instead of deportations +++ Outlook: Zapatistas on tour in Europe this summer; 15. to 19. September in Palermo: Convergence

 

Dear friends,

the introduction to this newsletter starts differently than usual. We are documenting the first lines of the "Speech of Mölln in Exile", which Naomi Henkel-Gümbel (survivor of the attack in Halle in October 2019) and Newroz Duman (active in the Initiative 19 February Hanau) held together in Hamburg on 18 April 2021 - in memory of Yeliz Arslan, Bahide Arslan and Ayşe Yılmaz, the victims of the racist arson attack in Mölln in 1992. 

At the end you will find the link to the entire speech in written form and also as a video recording. We hope that many will read it again or watch it afterwards and see the impressive way in which personal experiences in the fight against racism and antisemitism are brought together here.

"We are the radical diversity itself; the beautiful, the other, the visible, the possible. But how did we become that?

We all carry the most diverse stories with us: our own, the inherited, the dreamed of, the lost, the aspired to, the fought for....

The most diverse stories, and yet we are united by the fact that we are here today. But what is this something that unites us?

Our everyday life has been broken by violence and exclusion. So much so that we have had to fear, perhaps still fear, for our own lives and those of our loved ones. This fear - for some it turned into a pain over the loss of a loved one. (...)

What drives one? What drives one to fight for clarification against the reluctance of institutions and the wider society? To fight on despite all the injustice experienced, even afterwards?

There are many motivations. For some, it is sheer anger that drives them. Anger that this act could happen at all. That the fear, the pain, the loss are not acknowledged.

Others are driven by a sense of responsibility or even guilt towards their loved ones. Responsibility to investigate and to commemorate them.

Others it would help to cope with what they have experienced. Even if it can't heal the scar, it helps them to find a way to deal with their pain.

For some, it is all the reasons combined. But regardless of what exactly drives us, whether it's anger, responsibility, coping or all three, we have one thing in common: we didn't give up - we didn't go into invisibility. ...."

The full speech and a video recording can be found at the following link: https://gedenkenmoelln1992.wordpress.com 

With solidarity greetings,

the Kompass Crew