Squatting in Defense of Queer Autonomy
Getting involved in a self-organized space means evolving in a place that changes, transforms, and varies; it allows us to make mistakes, to challenge what we think is immutable, to try something new.
Assertions of the basic human freedom to move, and to stay.
Getting involved in a self-organized space means evolving in a place that changes, transforms, and varies; it allows us to make mistakes, to challenge what we think is immutable, to try something new.
The example of Hamburg shows how antiracist protests against European asylum policies can link up with local struggles like the fight around skyrocketing rents and the right to the city.
Testimonies from refugees in Tunisia about their protest sit-in at the UNHCR in Tunis and its violent eviction
Before the girl left, Katya and her guest hugged tightly. The girl ended up in Germany. “I was constantly thinking about what is it like to live when your city has been wiped off the face of the earth,” says Katya.
While all of them face intersecting forms of visible and invisible violence, making border crossing even more dangerous and lethal for women, we know that women on the move are more than what they are reduced to, and that they bear a power and a strength that no border is able to defeat.
Measures being taken to slow the spread of the Coronavirus have restricted access to refugee shelters and camps. But organized refugee women continue to reach out to residents, people who are locked up and lack access to information about the ongoing pandemic.
Legal or not, we will never stop trying to fly, free like the birds in the sky.
There’s a big difference between our approach and how the charities work. You can talk about people’s miserable conditions of life. But why are those problems there in the first place? Why are the police going around beating people up in Calais? Why are people hiding in tents in the woods? It’s because of the border.
We are never expected to be active in shaping our lives. We are like shadows which don’t really exist. People do things to us without asking. Open Doors is just a small step to show what we are capable of.
“People are stepping up to take responsibility in their communities and their own lives in a way that in my short life I have not seen. So yes, I absolutely think there’s a revolution going on here.”