Caravan Diary: Friday, July 13    <->

While our bus was already in Italy, around 20 people from the Caravan stayed in Carinthia at Eisenkappel to take part on a gathering and discussion with people from the area. The chief of the Partisan museum, Peter Kuhar came in the morning to see how we were doing, we exchanged a couple of words and made an interview. He donated 1000 Schillings, so thank you Mr. Kuhar. A bunch of people from Vienna arrived for a visit on Persmanhof to take participate in the party.

During the day we prepared food, cleaned everything up and created opportunities for presentation to introduce visitors to the Nobordertourproject: The room in the cellar was used for showing videos on TV and tourspots on the computer, upstairs we put up posters and in the backyard, people could sit with us in the caravan-cars to watch pictures and our homepage on the computers.

Around 4pm people from the area arrived, and just in time the Klagenfurt statepolice showed up to ask us some questions and attempt to pressure the group for a list of names of the people wanting to go to Italy. What the hell does that mean? Besides that, every 2 hours a policecar showed up to check who's at the place.

Well, the party began quite convenient; visitors looked around and were invited to see the homepage in the cars, they ate barbecued food and salads and listened to a jazzband playing in the backyard.

The discussion about "article 7", "minority rights in Austria and migrant's rights" started an hour late, but the topics turned out to be very interesting: Tina Leisch moderated and asked the first question, regarding borders and why there are differences between the old (so called Volksgruppen) and newer ethnic groups. Marjan Sturm (Head of the Zentralverband der Kärntner Slowenen) spoke about the difficulties between personal political perspectives and duties as the head of the Zentralverband, because state politics by themselves always try to create hierarchies between different minority groups (for example ethnicity disability sexuality and other minorities). Arif Akkiliç mentioned the difficulties concerning cooperation between Turks/ Kurds and Majorityaustrians. Concepts are existing to combat racist state politics, but in practice efforts often fail, because people who are discriminated against in everydaylife, for example in the field of housing or employment, have other worries or concerns to consider than joining initiatives such as the Nobordertour.

Nevertheless all the participants stated that it is very important there exist projects, for instance, the Nobordertour to offer different alternative society concepts, even if they seem romantic and idealistic to some members of the public.

The evening was a balanced mixture of education, interesting blending of ideas and great fun. It was not always easy for everyone to step across his or her own inner barriers regarding state politics relating to individual ideas about transmigration, multiculturalism, and societal concepts. The issues being presented by the noborder group were not always the primary concern for those people at the meeting and others from the local area.

We received information that the Schengen borders would be closed at midnight this current evening and immediately after this we heard that our bus was stopped at Portevenero and surrounded by special police units with machine guns.

Another intense day ended with long discussions about the tour, responsibility and police repression and how these topics were influencing our groups dynamics.

Wer ist mehr? Kdo je vei? Und wer ist minder? In kdo je manj? EinFestPraznik Freitag, 13. Juli 2001 Permanhof Pri Permanu (Leppen/Lepena) Bad Eisenkappel/Zelezna Kapla 16.00 Musik / Glasba - Natural Colors (Villach/Beljak) - Video: Volxtheaterkarawane NoBoborder NoNation - Essen und Trinken / Jedaia in pijaia 18.00 Diskussion / Pogovor "Artikel 7 für alle? Wo sind die MigrantInnen in Kärnten? Was fordern sie in Wien? Wer definiert wen als minder? Warum? Pässe und Nationalitäten: welche und wozu? Grenzüberschreitungen einst und heute." Ilen 7 za vse? Kje so priseljenci/ke na Korozkem? Kaj zahtevajo na Dunaju? Zakaj kdo koga opredeljuje kot manjvrednega? Zakaj so potrebni potni listi in kaj pomenijo nacionalne pripadnosti za preko- mejno sodelovanje?" - Mitwirkende/Sodelujejo: Dr. Marjan Sturm (Klagenfurt/Celovec), ZSO / Zentralverband der Kärntner SlowenInnen Karoline Haderlap (Leppen/Lepena) Arif Akkilic (Wien/Dunaj), Bündnis für eine Welt ohne Rassismus Mag. Gini Müller (Wien/Dunaj), Volxtheaterkarawane noborder nonation Darij Zadnikar (Ljubljana/Laibach), Urad za intervencije / Büro für Interventionen Anschliessend: nato Fest / praznik Veranstalter/Prireditelji: Persmanhof & Volxtheaterkarawane noborder nonation & SPZ