updated on 28.09.2002
| camp reader | home | sitemap | minutes / protocolos | crossover conference (01/2002) | crossover seminar (04/2002) | crossover perspectives (11/2002) | news | ||
| manifesto |
Partimos de la idea que entre todas las relaciones de poder y dominación existe una interdependencia muy estrecha.
Por ello hemos elegido como temas de trabajo para el campo, entre otros, nación, patriarcado, capitalismo, heterosexismo, antisemitismo y racismo, teniendo en cuenta los nexos existentes entre ellos.
Queremos con ello abrir nuevas perspectivas de resistencia.
El programa del campo abarca desde acciones políticas, performances, debates, talleres teóricos, trabajo en la cocina, bailar, música,... recoger y mucho más.
El objetivo de todo esto es brindar una plataforma a gente de diferentes tendencias políticas, encontrar puntos de intersección entre nosotr@s, crear nuevas alianzas, elaborar nuevas formas de intervención, y con ello, dar nuevos impulsos para conseguir una práctica política más radical, emancipadora, libertaria, izquierdista, antiracista y feminista, entre otras.
Por supuesto, seguimos buscando a gente que quiera apoyar y trabajar en el proyecto, y con ganas de dar caña.
¡Una Bienvenida a todas y a todos!
| registration | ridesharing | camp schedule | workshops |
tents (!), plates, knifes, forks and spoons, insultating matress, one roll of toilet paper, material for a spontanious presentation, leavelets, transparents, things for disguising, instruments
you could also support us with:
plastic sheets, benches, chairs, tables, extension cabels, multiple power points, lamps, torches, bicycles, paint, brushes, pencils, markers, dictionaries
there are a few busses leaving from the main train station ("Hauptbahnhof") and some more from the main bus station (Busbahnhor) to the camp. From the maintrainstation you can get to the main busstation by foot or by tram. By foot: at the front side of the mainstation you turn left, cross the "Bahnhofsstraße" at the big cross and then walk this street down until you turn right in to the "Marienstraße". The main busstation is at the left side. By Tram: you take the tram number "1" with the direction "Schmellwitz" . It is leaving in front of the mainstation. You get of at the second stop called "Marienstraße". After you got of the bus at "Spreewehrmühle" you walk in the direction the bus goes. after a few hundred meters, before a hill you have to cross the road. there you will the see the entrance of the camp at the left. The last Bus unfortunately goes at 19h. If you miss the last bus call our infotelephone 0177 7577615 or walk to the Parzellenstraße 79 (at the map next to the green line, near the grey written number 23). There you might get a lift or a shelter.
Busbahnhof to "Spreewehrmühle" - it takes 9 minutes, busnumbers 77,29,21: 6.40h (Busnumber 77),7.00h (21),7.30h(29),7.45h(77),9.20h(77),10.50h(29),11.10(77),11.20(21),12.05(77),12.25(21)12.25(21),13.25(21/77),14.15(29),14.40,15.210,16.25,16.55,17.05,17.30,18.10,18.40,19.00 and on saturdays/sundays:6.10,8.10,9.10,9.50,12.10,12.15,14.15,15.00,18.10,19.00
"Hauptbahnhof/Parkplatz" to "Spreewehrmühle" - takes about 15 minutes: 10.45 (29), 14.05(29), 16.15(21), 16.45(21), 18.55(21) Saturdays/SUndays: 9.05(21), 12.05, 14.55,18.55
red arrow in map: camp site, off the b 97 from cottbus towards guben (direction north east), right after the sign that marks the city limits, large field on the left side. you can take buses no. 21, 22 and 77 from the central bus station, get off at stop "spreewehrmuehle".
green line: how to get to the camp from the central train station
blue arrow: the demo on saturday 10. august starts here.
info phone number for directions: +49-355-43090340
trains from berlin ostbahnhof to cottbus run hourly from 4:47 am to 10:47 pm, last train leaves berlin ostbahnhof at 0:23 at night. the trip takes about one and a half hours.
Start: 12 o'clock, in front of the City Hall ("Stadthalle", Berliner Platz in the center of town)
The focus of this demonstration is the interconnections of labor, gender and migration
In mainstream society, as well as in many currents of the Left, "work" is seen as a universal essence, something that is - supposedly - more or less the same thing in different societies and different historical periods.
In fact, what is usually called "work" - formal wage labor - is a historically specific, capitalist type of human activity. Dominant discourses work to obscure this.
What's more, by focussing attention on formal wage labor, the existence of many other kinds of activity and types of exploitation is sidelined: kinds of activity - unpaid house work for example - and types of exploitation - the exploitation of feminine "affective labor" for example - which are essential for the cohesion and re-production of society, but which are invisible socially.
By making the so-called sphere of reproduction appear as a-political, private and a-historical, the traditional left division of human activity into "production" and "reproduction" contributes to this "invisibility".
The term reproduction encompasses a wide variety of activities: from bearing children ("biological reproduction"), bringing up children, caring for the aged, the disabled and the sick, cooking, cleaning and other domestic work, to comforting, reassuring and listening ("emotional reproduction").
All these activities have a history - which is not simply dependent on the history of the "mode of production" - and are the subject of political struggles.
"Labor" is not - as many currents of the left would have it - the emancipatory antipode of capital.
But a specifically capitalist form of human activity: compulsory and compulsive, exploitative and alienated.
It's important to be clear about this in an international context. In Germany, a critique of labor is of particular importance.
Millions of people were exterminated in this country in the name of labor. Not only in the name of labor, of course, but also in the name of labor: of honest, clean, German work. It is significant that "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work will set you free") was written above the entrance to one of the most important Nazi concentration camps.
In modern antisemitism, "the jews" stand for a powerful, intangible international conspiracy; for the antisemite, they represent abstract reason, abstract law, financial capital. In Nazi ideology the jews, as parasites on the body of the "Volk", were the antipode of concrete, i.e. good, clean, German labor.
Society has changed, but there are significant continuities with the Nazi past. Regarding the positive valuation of "work", for example. It is true that we live in a POST-fascist society, but it is also a post-FASCIST society.
Capitalist social relations are not gender-neutral, but completely imbricated with patriarchal social relations. There can be no abolition of capitalist social relations without the abolition of patriarchal social relations - because, for example, the exploitation of unpaid educational and domestic labor of women is an important base for the capitalist realization of value; because patriarchal structures delegate the task of turning children - in the course of the process of education - into individuals adapted to the needs of a market society (and thus reproducing the capitalist system) to women; because patriarchal structures are responsible for the fact that women continually reproduce men emotionally (and thus guarantee that they are able to function in the realm of capitalist competition)...
And vice versa, because, although patriarchal social relations have existed much longer than capitalism, modern "western" patriarchy is capitalist to the core. This could be illustrated by looking at the sex industry, in which the patriarchal objectification of women's bodies takes on a specifically capitalist form. Or by looking at the new masculinity of the emergent transnational elites, which is intimately coupled to success in capitalist competition.
This is not to say that patriarchal structures are always functional for capital, nor, that capitalist social relations always stabilise patriarchal structures. There are contradictions within as well as between different relations of power and domination.
We believe that it does not make too much sense to imagine "patriarchy" as a separate "system" that coexists with the other "system" capitalism and interacts with it. We think it's a better idea to think society as a contradictory ensemble of social relations that are simultaneously patriarchal, racist, capitalist - and more.
Over the last few years we have seen - in Prague, Seattle, Genoa - the first major mobilisations of people under the sign of radical, anticapitalist demands in many years. These are hopeful signs, but, in our eyes, they only underscore the necessity of criticising - from within the process of "globalisation from below" - some of the reductionist left ideas that circulate here, and of aiding the development of an emancipatory theory and practice that is up to the complexities of global relations of power and domination, and our implications in them.
An anticapitalism without a radical critique of the state, without a critique of the ideology of "progress", without a critique of labor is worse than useless. It can lead to authoritarian developments and can open the way to alliances with fascists - red-brown alliances "against globalisation" for example, or "national answers to the social question".
Modern antisemitism is a kind of pseudo-anticapitalism, that demonizes the abstract dimension of capitalism (finance capital), while idealizing concrete labor. We should bear in mind that sometimes the way from the reductionist anti-capitalism which many leftists espouse to antisemitic pseudo-anticapitalism is not too far!
It's just as important to point out that a non-feminist anticapitalism is based on a flawed analysis of capitalism and will therefore not be able to abolish capitalist social relations.
And an anticapitalism that treats antiracist struggles as a secondary contradiction also belongs on the garbage heap of history!
Let us not forget: In the soviet union an anticapitalism without critique of the state, critique of labor - let's not even mention a critique of patriarchy - led into a brutal industrialising dictatorship, that did not change anything essential about the form of labor, the form of technology, the reification of human relations, economic and emotional exploitation, etc. The soviet, chinese and other pseudo-socialisms brought the idea of socialism into disrepute all over the world, thus seriously harming left politics in general.
The value of capitalist labor is determined by patriarchal and racist social relations. Women all over the world are paid less than men. But "work" - in the sense of socially necessary tasks - is not just wage labor. As we mentioned before, women's unpaid work is essential but rendered invisible. Economic exploitation goes hand in hand with the emotional exploitation of women in public and private settings. The exploitation of "sexual labor" is not only gender-specific but also heterosexist. By "sexual labor" we mean the way in which personal capacities and emotions are integrated into the labor process; for example, certain ways of presenting oneself in terms of clothing and behavior, how someone conducts conversations, reacts aggressively or stays calm, etc. Sexual labor in a capitalist system organized around compulsory heterosexuality and gender binarism means the compulsion to present gender and heterosexuality in an unambiguous manner.
We want types of labor and kinds of exploitation that have been obscured and marginalized, in mainstream society as well as in the left tradition - from precarious waged labor, unpaid housework by majority society women, badly paid domestic work by migrant women (who are often illegalized), different kinds of sex work, to emotional labor in various kinds of relationships - to become more visible socially.
Not unlike the category "working class" in the history of socialist (i.e. anarchist, council communist, leninist, and other) movements, the idea of a unitary collective subject "women" has served, within feminist movements, to mask important differences of interest and relations of domination among women. This concept has been criticized sharply, particularly by black feminists and feminists from the "global south" and is no longer adhered to by any (pro)feminist current that we can take seriously. Global alliances of women can only be unities constructed across major differences; this process of construction is no simple task; and gender does not have to be the primary focus of political organising for all women at all times (whatever "woman" is supposed to mean exactly).
Just as workers' struggles have to be waged against capital and for the rights of workers, but should, in the long run, exceed the pursuit of particular class interests, radical, feminist struggles target the oppression and devaluation of women, but, beyond this, they also criticize existing, lived kinds of femininity as patriarchal constructions. And radical, antiracist struggles are waged, in the first instance, for the rights of people oppressed and marginalized by racism, but in the long run the struggle is against the sorting of people into so-called races as such. Of course we are dealing here with the basic political question of what a useful approach to collective subjects (often also called "identities") ("workers", "women", "blacks") should look like, faced with the fact that people are always positioned in many relations of power and domination at the same time, that their identity is multiple, and what's more, it can be contradictory, change from situation to situation and be interpreted differently in different contexts... We don't have a short answer to this question. To deal with it theoretically and begin to answer it in practical terms is one of the main goals of our project.
A central point for a profeminist-anticapitalist-antiracist... and generally crossover kind of politics would have to be, as we suggested earlier, the question of the distribution and organisation of so-called reproductive labor: domestic work, caring for children, old people, sick people, cleaning, etc. Beyond this, of course, the goal must be the abolition of capitalist / patriarchal / racist exploitation and the transformation of the current organisation of socially necessary activity in general. The second wave of the women's movement in the "global north" demanded a redistribution of reproductive labor between men and women. This assault upon patriarchal privilege was, all in all, successfully beaten back. Like all movements that suffer a defeat, the feminist movement was, to large parts, integrated into the system and its impetus rerouted into a modernisation of the system. The social ascent of a certain group of mostly white women is now made possible by delegating so-called reproductive tasks to migrant, often colored women. The modernisation of patriarchal capitalism thus extends existing differences among women and partly even deepens them.
A related aspect of this modernisation of global patriarchal capitalism is the development of a new regime of migration, which we have been witnessing over the last 15 years. The global elites are attempting to push through the free movement of goods and capital while simultaneously restricting the autonomy of migration. There are first drafts for a General Agreement on the Movement of People (GAMP, analogous to the GATT, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) that augur badly, while organisations like the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) and others try to get the international streams of migration under control. In the context of the process of european unification, meanwhile, a novel, supranational system of domination is taking shape. The european policy on migration creates a "migratory space" organized on the model of concentric circles. It is in the process of developing a graduated, cascade-like system of obstruction of migration, that is at the same time a selective immigration system. For the future, we can expect a migration management by way of flexible immigration quotas and -criteria, flanked by supplementary measures of control, integration and antidiscrimination.
There is a consensus among relevant political actors in Germany about the necessity of controlling migration according to criteria of economic utility. The row over the "Zuwanderungsgesetz" (so-called "immigration law") is primarily show biz, and the debate on migration that is being staged in the German media at the moment mainly serves to win points in the elections in september by mobilising popular racist feelings.
By abolishing the status of "Duldung" (a status where one's application for asylum has been rejected, but one's presence in the country is officially tolerated), the "Zuwanderungsgesetz" will drive even more people into illegality. This seems to be intentional.
Besides its catastrophic effects on the situation of refugees, the "Zuwanderungsgesetz" is particularly negative for migrant domestic workers. It seems to be intended that they continue to have no rights and thus be available extremely flexibly, that their work should continue to be treated as unqualified and remain invisible socially.
We object to a division of labor which distributes work according to sexist and racist criteria, and which relegates the activities of domestic workers at the lowest level of social valuation.
What we find especially hypocritical is that in recent years there have been an increasing number of actions against illegalised sex workers (police raids followed by deportations) under the pretext of "fighting the traffic in humans". Here certain elements of a feminist discourse (on the traffic in women) are being used to justify a racist policy. The term "traffic in women" must not be abused to legitimize strategies of migration control and repression against illegalized sex workers. The most important precondition for truly combating the traffic in women would be to give women more rights and to improve their economic position.
From what we have said up to now it should have become clear that we do not believe in a reformist improvement of the existing system, but that we are of the opinion that the fundamental revolution of all social relations in a drawn-out historical process of social transformation (towards the goal of a never-finished project of a society without domination) is the only real solution.
This in no way denies the usefulness of making concrete demands - as long as the longterm goal is not lost sight of, and as long as not too much energy, which could better be used to organize actual social movement, is put into institutions, parties and the like.
So, here are some demands - connected to some of the issues we touched upon in this text - that we find sensible:
We demand:
That domestic labor be recognized as socially relevant work and made visible in the public shphere.
An end to sexist and racist ascriptions - on the labor market, and beyond that in relation to all socially necessary activities, including those not treated as commodities.
Human rights and labor laws must apply to all and legal action must be an option for everyone, independent of their residence status.
Access to health care, education and other social services for everyone.
The recognition of gender and sexuality based persecution as reasons to be granted asylum.
Legal residence status for female immigrants independent of their marital status.
Improvements in the legal situation of illegalized sex workers.
The legal right to recover lost wages for illegalized workers, too.
Equal pay for equal work!
Abolition of the residence restriction laws!
The right to legalization!
Reparations for the crimes of German colonialism (for example in the former German southwest Africa).
Reparations, to be paid by German corporations, for their role in stabilizing the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa.
Immediate payment of reparations to all forced laborers of the Nazi regime.
Lo que queremos:
Nuestro punto de partida es la convicción de que todas las relaciones de poder y de dominación que forman parte de la sociedad son inseparablemente conectadas, se compenetran y muchas veces se estabilizan unas a otras, de lo cual queremos sacar consecuencias prácticas.
Nuestro fin es contribuir a la formación de una nueva constelación de tendencias políticas. Para nosotr@s, "nueva constelación" significa:Que las (pro)feministas que mantienen posiciones antisexistas no tengan que luchar contra la resistencia activa o un pasiva de la mayoría, sino que el antisexismo sea evidente, y que por fin los hombres hagan una política pro-feminista ellos mismos.
Queremos el final de la dominación de la cultura heterosexual dentro de la izquierda radical, que ve a los gays como una cosa extraña y divertida a la vez, que ignora la existencia de las lesbianas y para la que la gente transsexual no es nada más que objeto de curiosidad científica.
Para nosotr@s, esta nueva constelación también significa la participación evidente de inmigrantes y judíos y gente de color (independiente del lugar de nacimiento), en la que las formas de comportamiento y el idioma de la sociedad de la mayoría no impongan la norma, en la que la gente blanca antirracista se enfrente de manera práctica con sus propias tendencias de racismo y declare sus estrategias, en vez de hablar solamente en favor de y sobre l@s llamad@s oprimid@s.
Además: queremos formar alianzas en las que la forma de hablar y de actuar no estén determinadas por las normas de la clase media. No se trata de decir que un cierto grupo sea el ídolo y el otro sea una mierda sino poner en duda las normas existentes.
No creemos que sea posible acabar con las existentes estructuras sociales por algunos simples cambios de comportamiento. Llegar a ser conscientes de cómo hablamos y de nuestras formas de comportamiento así como el intento en sí de cambiar cosas nos parece importante como primer paso en esta dirección.
¿Quiénes somos nosotr@s?
El grupo que se dedica a preparar el crossover camp del verano se formó en la conferencia crossover en Bremen en enero. En parte, nuestra red cuenta con gente nueva que vino a la conferencia; ótr@s ya formaban parte del proyecto original de organización de un campo de verano antisexista y antirracista, y luego participaron en la preparación de la crossover conference de Bremen.
Much@s de nosotr@s nos conocemos de la escena radical de izquierdas y feminista de Alemania y Polonia. La mayoría tiene pasaporte alemán. De momento, somos mujeres y lesbianas en un 90%. Venimos de generaciones políticas diferentes. Nuestros orígenes sociales y de clase actual varían también. Pero al margen de esto, nuestra red no es tan heterogénea como nos gustaría que fuera.
"crossover" - el nuevo nombre del proyecto:
En la conferencia en Bremen nos dimos cuenta de que el nombre original del proyecto (campo de verano antirracista, antisexista) no daba reflejo completo de nuestras ideas porque se refería solamente a dos relaciones de dominación.
"crossover" significa cruce y/o punto de intersección. Con este nombre queríamos expresar que los sistemas de poder y de opresión (el patriarcado, el capitalismo) no son conceptos aislados sino que van inseparablemente entrelazados.
Como nombre, preferimos una definición positiva de lo que queremos y una descripción de nuestras estrategias en vez de lo que rechazamos (anti-...). Por ejemplo, preferimos una referencia positiva al feminismo. (en vez de "anti-sexismo").
Nuestra forma de organización:
Desde agosto del año pasado, el grupo del antiguo proyecto del campo se veía más o menos una vez al mes en lugares diferentes, en Berlín o en Bremen, y una vez en Varsovia. En esta nueva fase del proyecto, con gente del grupo repartida por toda Europa, desde Polonia hasta España, hacemos reuniones regionales y nos comunicamos por e-mail.
Una organización por separado, coordinada por inmigrantes y gente de color dentro de una red común nos parece una buena idea como alternativa a una cooperación estrecha entre nosotr@s.
Por supuesto, ni siquiera cabe ponerlo en cuestión que mujeres y lesbianas que quieran autoorganizarse tanto en la preparación al campo como en el mismo, tienen nuestro apoyo.
Queremos prestar atención especial a cómo es el trato entre nosotr@s dentro de la red. Sobre todo, queremos evitar esta típica postura macho que se ve mucho en la escena de izquierda radical. Pero ésta no es la única forma de dominación con la que queremos acabar. No presumimos de haber encontrado la solución, es decir que estamos abiert@s para nuevas ideas y formas de comportamiento.
Idioma:
Somos conscientes de que las distancias y exclusiones se pueden crear a través del idioma. Queremos usar un idioma que la mayoría de l@s participantes sepa hablar, para evitar problemas de comunicación e impedir también que, de éstos, se produzcan jerarquías de información y de poder. Una razón más para crear una atmósfera que facilite preguntar cosas y soltar críticas.
Transnacionalidad e idioma:
Como queremos usar un idioma que domine mucha gente, esperamos que muchos de los talleres y foros de debate sean en inglés. Nuestro fin es tener traductores y traductoras para todos los idiomas que estén presentes.
Edad y "necesidades especiales":
Nos parece importante tener una estructura mezclada también contando con la diferencia de edad de la gente. Por eso estamos pensando en ofrecer "cursos para principiantes"; por otra parte, intentaremos buscar un lugar donde el alojamiento no tenga que ser necesariamente en tiendas y así contar con gente que, por razones cualquiera, ya sean de salud u otras, no pueden o no quieren dormir en tiendas. Por eso, el lugar ideal sería contar con una casa para asambleas con campo al lado.
¿De qué va a ir el campo?
Tenemos pensado que haya gran variedad de temas. Entre otras cosas, para nosotr@s esto significa tratar nociones como nación, patriarcado antisemitismo, heterosexismo, capitalismo y racismo. Nuestro discurso parte de la convicción de que existe una conexión entre las relaciones independientes de dominación. Por ejemplo, se tratará la relación intrínseca entre masculinidad, heterosexismo y ser blanc@. Depende de vuestras contribuciones, cuáles de las innumerables conexiones posibles sean tema a discutir. Es imposible en un texto tan corto como éste, explicar todo lo que, para nosotr@s, se puede entender bajo estos lemas. Nuestra intención es imprimir una colección sobre textos contribuidos.
No somos una universidad de verano, pero tampoco un campo simplemente de acciones, sino que queremos crear un crossover entre teoría y práctica. Nuestra intención es a largo plazo la supresión de la separación entre trabajo intelectual y acciones, presencia en la calle, donde teoría y práctica vayan relacionadas en todas sus formas: desde el baile, escribir, defensa personal hasta acciones directas.
¿¿¿Cultura en el campo???
Esperamos que en el campo de verano haya performance (cine, música, artística), cultura subversiva y subversión cultural. No sólo porque nos gusta - lo que sería ya razón suficiente- sino porque para nosotr@s, cultura significa un espacio político, un espacio en el cual la sociedad repite y reproduce de manera multiforme y, a veces cargada de conflicto, el total de su conocimiento, sus normas y valores, sus estructuras de pensar y sentir. Por eso, participar en la producción cultural es parte de la resistencia radical, con el fin de minar de manera subversiva las formas de dominación de la vista, el oído y de precepción.
Much@s de vosotr@s diréis que este programa es irrealizable. Nosotr@s tampoco creemos que se puedan alcanzar todos nuestros fines en el primer encuentro. Partimos de la base de que se trata de un proyecto a largo plazo que requiere tenacidad y perseverancia. Pero hasta ahora también nos lo estamos pasando bien.
¿Qué significa organización del campo?
¿Estrés, trabajo duro, servicio para los participantes que consumen?
No somos aficionad@s al trabajo, tampoco queremos llegar a serlo. Queremos que nos guste lo que hacemos. Repartimos el trabajo según los intereses y las capacidades temporales diferentes de cada un@.
Autoorganización:
Contamos con la auto-responsabilidad de l@s participantes del campo. El grupo que se encarga de la preparación se retirará el segundo día del campo y pasará la organización de todas las tareas a las manos de l@s participantes. Apoyaremos a los nuevos grupos que se encarguen del trabajo. El transcurso y el éxito del campo es cosa de tod@s.
Participación esperada.
Nuestras capacidades nos permiten poner en práctica sólo una pequeña parte de nuestros fines. Tampoco hemos alcanzado el grado transnacional y transétnico que queremos obtener para nuestra organización. ¡ Por eso esperamos que haya mucha participación transnacional radical en la preparación del campo!!! (¡Nunca es tarde para participar!!)
¡Hasta pronto!
El grupo que se encarga de la preparación
p.d.: Hay una lista de discusión vía e-mail en inglés y una lista de direcciones e-mail de gente en general interesada en el proyecto.
La mayoría de los protocolos de los encuentros transrregionales de la gente que componía el proyecto original, se pueden leer en nuestra página web en inglés y alemán.
La dirección es: www.summercamp.squat.net
Nuestra dirección e-mail: summercamp@squat.net
Dirección de correos: Summer Camp c/o A6-Laden, Adalbertstr. 6, D-10999 Berlín.
| top |