Call for a Europeanwide Caravan, connecting the Bordercamps with Counter-Summits.
NO BORDERS - AN EUROPEAN NETWORK
The freedom of movement will be worlds big theme of the next century.
With the increasingly restriction harmonization of asylum and
immigration policy in Europe, there have been several attempts in the
last few years to improve the networking between anti-racist
grassroots organizations.
Under the slogan "more control, more exclusion, more deportations",
different European groups called to demonstrate against the meeting
of heads of EU governments in Tampere/Finland in October 1999, where
the coming into the force of the Amsterdam Treaty was discussed as
another stepping stone towards fortress Europe. In different
EU-countries, demonstrations and direct actions were organized
against the European project of deportation and exclusion. On the
basis of this common practical experience and due to the increasing
interest in cross border cooperation the no-border networking began.
Two practical campaigns are central to these cross - border activities:
1. Networking and public campaigns
A wide and open discussion about the call for "NO borders" is
necessary. The process of neoliberalism and migration leads to new
terms of production of knowledge. Examples like the Dokumenta
11-Platforms show nowadays need for new political reflections and
visions in the cultural discourse.
A common (english speaking) mailing list has been set up and many
grassroot groups, even from outside Europe, are actively using this
networking project to exchange information and discuss migration and
borders. The common website
www.deportation-alliance.com connects
campaigns against airlines that take part in the deportation business.
2. Direct Action and bordercamps
During the last three years, activists have created new forms of
resistance against the brutal and often deadly border regime of
fortress Europe with different actions and bordercamps. This new
approach has been taken up and developed further in the noborder
network, and this year there will be a chain of bordercamps and
political meetings, where direct actions could support the demands in
showing open resistance.
Therefore the Austrian noborder-platform decided to set up a European
Publixtheatre-Caravan with the campaign-slogan "NO Border - NO Nation
- No one is illegal", which will connect this summer's places of action.
EUROPEAN PUBLIXTHEATRE CARAVAN: NO BORDER - NO NATION - NO ONE IS ILLEGAL
This year in summer 2001 we will face a Europe-wide series of
interconnected political and cultural events, which symbolize todays
discourse about problems of migration and globalization. Each social
event is a place and festivity of resistance and as well an
opportunity to place demands and take part in an open discussion
about the right for movement and the call for no borders.
The noborder-caravan will be a mobile campaign for information about
the right "no one is illegal" and the need and experience for direct
action in public space. We will try to set up a caravan with a
couple of buses and cultural activists for europeanwide
no-border-campaign. There is a rumor that this summer there will be
different kinds of no-border-caravans from different european
countries, who will travel around. We would like to combine nomadic
traveling, with direct political action, exchanging experiences,
documenting , mediaworking and making of political-artistic
festivities.
The noborder-caravan should be a political and artistic project and
a process of social action-theatre, a new form of cultural discourse.
The noborder-caravan will be organized within the Austrian
noborder-platform and its mailinglist.
The Austrian platform is
called "
For A World Without Racism" and is working within the international noborder-network.
Join the campaign and the caravan!
We call for political fantasy and creative people, who have interest
to work between arts, media, and (direct) politics (action), and
support the European Publixtheatre-caravan with its campaign "NO
borders NO Nation - NO one is illegal".
We are looking for people who
want to support in taking part and responsibilities for the campaign
and caravan, doing mediawork, public relations and networking,
helping organizing the campaign, getting equipment, ask for
financiers, and prepare festivity actions.
The next organization-meeting will be on Tuesday June 5 (then 12, 19), 2001
6.30PM, at ARGE, 1010, Vienna, Schotteng.3a/1/59. If you're interested,
you can also send a mail to
noborder@no-racism.net
Timetable
Planned routes between End of June and September:
Carnival Caravan:
- The caravan will start by the end of June in London to go to Tarifa (July 19-23) and Genova (July 19-23). Further destination - like a joint caravan with PublixTheatre - will be discussed on the journey.
Publixtheatre Caravan:
- 30.-3. July: Salzburg: WEF (World Economic Forum- European Economic Summit)
- 4.-8. July: Slovenia: Bordercamp
- 12-18. July: Bialystok/Krynki/ Poland: Bordercamp
- 19.-23.July: G8-Summit in Genova: Italian Groups including Ya Basta
will take this as an opportunity to mobilize counteractions with a
focus on migration, effectively creating another bordercamp there.
- 25.7.-5. August: The fourth bordercamp of "Kein Mensch is
illegal"/Germany will take place at the internal Border Frankfurt
airport.
Bordersounds Tour:
- August: Starting from the G8-summit in Genova, this tour will go along the eastern borders of Schengen (Italy - Slovenia - Austria - Hungary - Slovakia - Czech Republic - Germany - Poland)
Organization and Finances
We need to organize peoples responsibility in the campaign, the
networking process, the buses and the equipment for the tour.
List of equipment: 1-5 buses. (In one bus should be a media-working
place): banners, decoration, computer, videocameras, Soundsystem,
Light. Videobeamer, Videowall, Infomaterial, sleeping-places, cooking
ect. For detailed information on missing ressources, please take a look at the
newsletters.
To finance the whole project we need at least 15.000 Euro (petrol,
car-reparations, material, food) We are glad about contacts with
marketing experienced people and we will also ask cultural
institutions (theatre and museum) to support the project with money
and give place for information. The bank-account for donations for the PublixTheatreCaravan is:
VolxTheaterKarawane, PSK, 000 786 538 43, BLZ 60.000, Verwendungszweck:
"noborder" (die Bankverbindungen der anderen Karawanen bitte den entsprechenden Homepages entnehmen).
Aims
- Taking part of the public actions and festivities with direct and
cultural protest (with streettheatre, soundsystem, radioprogram...)
- Mobile campaign with banners, info-points, movies, information
- Processing of documentation, video, indy-media-information, networking
On a national level the campaign should be presented internet,
newspapers, radio, public places, theatres, cinemas, university,
museums, festivals.
Contact:
noborder@no-racism.net
