Our three days long refugee conference came to an end. The most important aspect of this conference was that from beginning to end, all its planning and organization were all under the initiative of refugees. Compared to our previous conference, the number of refugees in the total number of participants was significantly higher. However the number of participants of the conference in general was lower than what we expected. Many speakers also asked “why the participation to the conference is low”.
Already one of the aims of our conference was our movement to pull itself together, breathe and gain dynamism again. In fact the low attendance to the conference is not a thing that cannot be understood. The state wants to suppress our movement. Yet they could not manage to completely liquidate our movement however by dividing our power, they made it a bit disorganized.
Sustaining the dynamism of the movement depends on two factors. First of them is organization, second is the space. Without an organization, it is impossible to maintain the movement’s continuity. Without a space of the movement, it becomes hard to gather strength and reach everybody at any time.
As a result of the attacks of the state towards to the refugee strikes, refugees went to places far away from the center and nearly all the places given to refugees evacuated by police force. We are finding places for housing to the hundreds of people who became homeless through our supporters. These places are also temporary.
Also refugees from other cities had come to the refugee conference. From the active refugee groups, in the form of committees participation to the conference is ensured. The atmosphere of the conference was quite political. For example, a refugee friend gave examples from revolutionary symbols such as Lumumba and Thomas Maissere in the speech.
In the conference, many problems such as the communication problems, organizational problems and publication activities has been discussed. As a result of the discussions by splitting into various groups, we have worked on more concrete planning in small sessions. Finally, we formed working committees that would realize these plans.
In the refugee conference, there were resisters that we met before but also there were ones that we met for the first time.
Our resistance place in Oranienplatz will be made active again. We have already started to do it before by forming groups. For the activities to be more productive, more refugees should make Oranienplatz their beaten track. The refugee resistance is not limited to finding housing alone. In fact sometimes when our people find places to stay, they stay away from the resistance. Temporary sleeping places carry no meaning for a free life. Therefore since the beginning we said that we have no other ways to creating pressure other than to continue the resistance on street.
Although our refugee resistance has some negative aspects, it in fact proceeds by noting important gains. For example as a result of the pressure created by our movement, some little reforms are made. A refugee who demands an asylum will have the right to work after three months. The food packages given in the refugee camps are removed, from now on everybody will be paid monthly. Also to some extent the ban of travel has weakened. On the other hand, some institutions of the state are discussing to budget for creating shelters for refugees.
While there are some reforms due to the pressures created, at the same time new laws about isolation has been passing. The authorities at ministry of internal affairs expressed that there is a serious increase in the number of refugees in Germany and functioning of the laws about deportation is quite slow. They declared due to this fact, they need a new law which would make it possible to execute the deportation sentences faster.
They couldn’t execute the evacuation sentence that the municipality agreed. The court decided that the school should not be evacuated. However this doesn’t mean that they won’t excavate. The just don’t want to create again a social reaction by making a police operation in great scale again. That’s all. They just want to carry out a tactic that is extended over a period of time.
Our effort to disseminate our dynamics that we created by beginning from the lowest class of social classes continues. Our collaboration and works with students’ movement, the struggle against dispossession, grassroots unionist movement and artist movement also go on. The struggle associations that we formed together with these groups both create a dynamism for them and makes it possible to create a social pressure against the state. This pressure leads to stops on the state terrorism against our movement.
We made our media group to operate more active. As the media group, we have published a publicity declaration. We are working on works such as internet usage, writings and shooting movies. We made publishing and distributing more effectively the magazine that we had published a proof of it, one of the main topics of the conference.
The supporters of the refugee conference were not the old supporters. There were lots of new people and all these friends acknowledged the initiative of the refugees. They respected the fact that all initiative is in the hands of the people who resist.
The supporters who were chief cooks and bottle washers cooked both vegan, vegetarian and meals with meat. By this way, an equal situation, respecting everybody’s choice is formed.
We shoot the short movie that we screened on the conference also by ourselves. As well the musical performance was made real by our efforts.
A law committee who gave some legal information also attended the conference. People made presentations about the ways to carry out the struggle through law, rights and legal system.
In the end of the conference action calendars and new meetings were set. People contacted with each other. The participants of the conference left it contentedly.
Many of the resisters that we were together in various protests are in different cities. Thanks to the conference, we fulfilled our longings with comrades that we haven’t seen each other for years.
Long live our Humanization and Collective Struggle
17.11.2014
Turgay ulu
Berlin
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