Streik dem Krieg!
Militarisation is ramping up! Germany is pouring 100 billion euros into the military while gutting health, education, and culture. Weapons are being churned out and exported like never before. Politicians talk about security, but inflation, unemployment, and hopelessness make daily life anything but secure. Germany’s defence minister says, „We need to become capable of war.“ But who is „we“? Who’s going to fight in these wars? The nation or the class? Which class has to go to war and which class profits from it? What does it mean to think about class in war? How can we shut down the war machine? Where’s our power? Is striking the ultimate weapon against war? What power do we hold in our workplaces, on the streets, in universities, and in schools?
We will discuss all this with our invited guests: The Dock Workers Collective CALP block arms shipments from Genoa (Italy) and are organised antifascists in the city. They will share their successes, repressions, and strategies at FESTIWALLA. Rheinmetall Entwaffnen has been organising street protests and other actions for years to oppose the arms industry, particularly Rheinmetall in Germany. From September 3-8, 2024, the Rheinmetall Disarm Camp will be held in Kiel. The Student Coalition Berlin is at the forefront of the current anti-war movement in Berlin. Since the Columbia occupation on April 17, students have set up tent camps in over 200 locations in the USA – with tens of thousands of participants across the country, it is the largest campus movement in the USA since 1968. Since than thousands of young people have now transformed universities internationally into places of political action. They are demanding: Stop the genocide in Gaza and the ongoing (neo)colonial violence in Kurdistan, Congo and Sudan! In Germany, too, the protests continue. More and more teachers are showing solidarity, but the repression is also historic. Benedikt Hopmann is a lawyer, who tackles the issue of political strikes, banned since Nazi Germany. He’ll break down why this ban exists and who’s fighting to overturn it now. In addition: The S.K.E.T. Ensemble (Theater X) will give a theatrical introduction to the topic of anti-militarism and students will question your knowledge about Germany’s militarization!
