Turkey‘s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called snap presidential and parliamentary elections for 24 June, over a year earlier than planned. The background is economic instability, a resumption of hostilities against the Kurds, and the increased use of Turkish troops in Syria and Iraq.
The announcement of the elections coincided with the seventh extension of emergency rule, which has been used since 2016 to crack down on opposition to Erdogan. More than 160,000 people have been detained in this period and a similar number have lost their jobs.
Leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP-HDK Selahattin Demirtas, has been in prison for well over a year, and HDP mayors and MPs have been imprisoned and stripped of their parliamentary immunity. Nonetheless they hope to once more gain the 10% of votes necessary to get into parliament.
On the day after the elections, we will be talking to Erkin Erdogan, joint speaker of the HDP-HDK about the meaning of the results and how socialists should react to the possible second round of the presidential elections. Should we support „anyone but Erdogan“, even if it means lining up with right-wing and Islamist forces.
More importantly, 5 years after the Gezi Park protests, what is the state of the social opposition in Turkey and Kurdistan and how likely are similar struggles in the near future? Everyone is invited to join this discussion.
Come meet fellow English-speaking activists and learn how you can get more involved in events here in Berlin and across Germany. We’ll talk about summer actions, upcoming US elections, what’s the latest with the AfD and much more. It’s also great weather for an evening at the biergarten — everyone is welcome!
We’ll be at the Jaegerklause in F’hain — there’s food and drink for reasonable prices (and the kitchen closes at 22:00!) See you there!
My Feminism is Intersectional
LGBTIQ* Struggles and Reproductive Rights in Africa and the Global North
Anmeldung bis 20. Juni 2018 hier:
http://calendar.boell.de/en/civi_register/133795
Veranstalter/-in: Werkstatt der Kulturen/ Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
While Feminism is an umbrella of movements that recognizes the various conditions in which women live, struggle and love, it is also its own greatest asset to respond to oppression and fight for women’s emancipation, liberation and equality. Intersectional feminism recognizes that certain groups of people face multi-layered identities and face interrelated repressions in life. It is within this frame of feminism that the struggle and activism of sexual minorities in Africa, who face homo/transphobia, discrimination and repression, has to be understood.
In ‘Western’ (Global Northern) discourses in academia, activist interventions or political statements, Africa (as the Global South more generally) is portrayed as patriarchal, traditionalist, homophobic and as being the antidote to a ‘progressive’ West/North when it comes to questions of Gender and LGBTIQ*. These projections ignore the fact that the repression of sexual and reproductive rights in Africa correlates in manifold ways with colonial history and global inequalities.
Therefore, feminist struggles for equal sexual and reproductive rights need to account for the entanglements between the so-called North and South when it comes to both repression and emancipation. We need to take seriously the diverse experiences and expertise of African activists and thinkers and aim for dialogue between African/Afro-diasporic and ‘Western’ activism.
More Information: https://calendar.boell.de/de/event/lgbtiq-africa
Program:
http://calendar.boell.de/sites/default/files/2018-06/Programm_Stand%20050618.pdf
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Die WERKSTATT DER KULTUREN wird gefördert von der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.
Join us for our first-Thursday-of-the-month Stammtisch at Cafe Daddy
AVA Berlin is a diverse, progressive forum for politically engaged US citizens in Berlin. www.avaberlin.org
Protest March
Make Peace Great Again
7 JULY 3 PM – BRUSSELS NORTH STATION
Trump will probably visit our country on 11 and 12 July for a NATO summit. On the agenda: more defence expenditure by all NATO countries, including Belgium. The Trump Not Welcome Platform calls on everyone to reclaim the streets on Saturday 7 July. We refuse to participate in this arms race at the expense of poverty reduction, social protection, the fight against climate change, humane refugee policies, and a diverse society based on solidarity. Will you join us?
Come to Brussels on Saturday 7 July, and say ‘No’ together with us to Trump, his politics, and that of his European counterparts. Let us jointly give a message:
FOR PEACE
Against the purchase of new fighter jets and the militarisation that Trump and the NATO want to enforce. We want to invest our tax money in education, health care, the climate, and international solidarity! For a world without nuclear weapons!
FOR A LIVEABLE WORLD
It’s outrageous: brown coal plants are reopened, and iodine tablets are distributed to protect us against the cracks in the nuclear power plants. We want a solidarity-based and decisive climate policy for a sustainable future.
FOR A TOLERANT SOCIETY BASED ON SOLIDARITY
Racism, sexism, intimidation, criminalisation of those who seek refuge from war and of people who open up their houses out of solidarity … Rights for which the struggle started long ago are under attack. We stand up for the rights of all people, based on the principles of equality and solidarity.
FOR SOCIAL RIGHTS
For the interests of the 99%. No to the politics of self-enrichment of governments that are governed by and for the richest 1%. We’re fed up with austerity measures. Time to invest in our society.
Join us for our first-Thursday-of-the-month Stammtisch at Cafe Daddy
AVA Berlin is a diverse, progressive forum for politically engaged US citizens in Berlin. www.avaberlin.org