Friday evening: Between multiplicity and unity: insights into recent refugee and migrant struggles

For the opening of the third No Border Lasts Forever Conference we want to look back on the last two years of ongoing struggles and changes in the antiracist and the self-organized migrants movements. Amongst these – most notably – an uprising of refugees in form of many strong initiatives, transnationally – even outside Europe – as well as in Germany.

One part of the evening will be a photo-show, to get some pictures of the atmosphere of the struggles since autumn 2012.

Afterwards we will talk about successful initiatives and problems in the daily struggles. We will touch questions about strategies on how to reach a certain development and about tactics of divide and rule of the authorities to split protest-movements. We will take a deeper look on the challenges of mixed organising.

We will discuss on the podium with different activists who took part in various initiatives like Lampedusa in Hamburg, Women in Exile and friends, the protest-camp on Oranienplatz in Berlin, the Non-Citizens Movement, transnational networks like Afrique-Europe-Interact and in support structures like Watch the Med.

We want to welcome everybody and go a first step – and then to continue the discussion in the various workshops on Saturday and Sunday with all of you!

Saturday evening: Which crisis? Which borders? How and why connect antiracist struggles and social fights against austerity.

To the questions of when and where the crisis started, if and how it can be overcome or if it will become a permanent state, there are different answers from different perspectives. Certainly however, the crisis has acted as a global catalyst for increased exploitation, austerity politics and wage cuts. At the same time, rightwing populist and chauvinistic tendencies have an alarming boom in Europe.

In this podium discussion, we want to look at the crisis through the lens of its imapct on migrants and antiracist struggles. We will ask: What is the impact of the crisis on migration in Western and Southern Europe, in countries of transit and origin? How is the border regime connected to the precarisation of working conditions? How can we react to right wing populism and nationalism? How can we react to a public discourse that differentiates between wanted and unwanted migration? What are the consequences for women, especially women migrants? What does the European crisis mean to countries in the Global South? And how can we build bridges between the existing social struggles and antiracist resistance, while respecting its specificities at the same time?

These question will be discussed with activists from Bamako, Athens and Frankfurt.