Dear ###USER_name###,
In our last newsletter we spoke about the monsters unleashed: the horrors of violence, different ongoing wars and genocides. So now we ask what to do, where to start in the face of those unleashed monsters?
In a world which tumbles more and more away from diplomacy and towards military buildup, logics of war and nationalism we are trying to hold our ground – but also looking further. In appeal “count us out – breaking free from the logic of war” we call upon a new internationalist vision that unites voices against the logic of war even if they are silenced. This appeal is just the beginning- so stay tuned.
Holding ground is also a practice. And many of us do so. Like the Zapatistas, who are building a hospital for everyone in Chiapas, where they are building a health infrastructure against all odds. While a sense of powerlessness and paralysis is spreading in many places in light of the state of the world, the clinic demonstrates that resistance can be more than just an abstract hope. It makes it possible to envision a care infrastructure based on self-determination and collectivity.
In many places of the world, these endeavours are not possible, making people seek refuge and a life in dignity elsewhere. A painful illustration of that truth was the journey of around 80.000 people who tried to reach the Spanish city Ceuta in Northern Morocco seeking a better life, many of whom lost their lives and were only to be met with violence and arrogance on the European side. While this day once again was instrumentalised for racist anti-migration politics, Valeria Hänsel called out the European side. Everyday new monstrosities are happening, yet we are not allowed to forget the ongoing horrors in Gaza, that are now less and less on the foreground of the news. “A war that never ended”: Riad Othman reflects on the last 3 years in Gaza and the Westbank.
To be able to look further, we need to look back and then ahead. The German philosopher Eva von Redecker tries to explain the global rise of authoritarianism. According to von Redecker, the core of the new fascism is an unbridled claim to ownership, the defense of which stops at nothing. In an interview she explains what it means when “those on the other side are not people, but things” and “enemies are not opponents, but thieves.” A similar question I ask in my text “a spectre haunting us ”, in which I take the revolutions of 2011 as a momentum to re-read the current rupture as a counterrevolution and to open a possibility of thinking further beyond the absolute categories of defeat.
In Courage and solidarity,
Radwa Khaled Ibrahim
Editor of the international Newsletter
