A Very Big SALUTE to the Refugee Resistance in Ellwangen

Yes, Rechtsstaat!“ Unsere Freund*innen von The VOICE Refugee Forum bringen einen wichtigen Aspekt in die unsägliche Debatte zu Ellwangen, den Protesten von Geflüchteten gegen Abschiebungen, den nächtlichen Überfallkommandos der Polizei in den Lagern sowie zu dem Punkt der Beschädigung unseres Rechtsstaates.

 

The VOICE Refu­gee Forum

A Very Big SALUTE to the Refu­gee Resis­tance in Ellwangen

With a strong and powerful fist rai­sed towards the sky, we The VOICE Refu­gee Forum salu­te the bra­very and cou­ra­ge of our fel­low refu­gee brot­hers and sis­ters, for vali­ant­ly pre­ven­ting the call­ous and inhu­man depor­ta­ti­on of a Togo­le­se refu­gee and defen­ding his right to human dignity.

Sin­ce the inci­dent last Mon­day and the unsub­stan­tia­ted Poli­ce alle­ga­ti­on of “attack and vio­lence” by refu­gees, the Ger­man main­stream and tabloid media have lite­ral­ly gone into over­dri­ve to report on it. Yet, they are unable to report what the refu­gees are say­ing and expe­ri­en­cing. Any sur­pri­se? Not at all, becau­se this is obvious­ly an attempt to broa­den and advan­ce the under­ly­ing anti-refu­gee poli­tics and poli­ci­es of the Ger­man govern­ment, deli­cious­ly but dan­ge­rous­ly spi­ced with racist moti­ves and nar­ra­ti­ves. The press is refu­sing to report on the unhe­alt­hy, hor­ri­ble and unbe­ara­ble con­di­ti­ons that refu­gees are forced to live in, whe­re refu­gees are crammed tog­e­ther like slaves on slave ships. They are fai­ling to report that refu­gees are being depor­ted with vio­lence by the Ger­man aut­ho­ri­ties to count­ries (inclu­ding Ita­ly and others in Euro­pe and bey­ond) whe­re neither the safe­ty of their lives nor their human digni­ty can be gua­ran­teed. Is it any won­der that attempt­ed and actu­al sui­ci­de by refu­gees are on the increase as a result of the hope­l­ess­ness and lack of per­spec­ti­ves they are ser­ved with in this “Rechts­staat”? Whe­re is the press on the­se issues? The­re is a dea­fe­ning silence!

…unsub­stan­tia­ted Poli­ce alle­ga­ti­on of “attack and vio­lence” („Seve­ral inju­red after huge poli­ce ope­ra­ti­on at ‘rebel’ asyl­um home“ https://​www​.the​lo​cal​.de/​2​0​1​8​0​5​0​3​/​h​u​n​d​r​e​d​s​-​o​f​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​-​d​e​p​l​o​y​e​d​-at…)

Yes, rechts­staat! The feck­less poli­ti­ci­ans are head over heals trip­ping them­sel­ves on the way to see who can wear the badge of ‘the nastie­st’ to the refu­gees. They are racing to the rot­ten bot­tom in con­dem­na­ti­on of a legi­ti­ma­te resis­tance to oppres­si­on, vio­lence and inhu­ma­ni­ty in the name of rechts­staat and hos­pi­ta­li­ty that ‘must not be tramp­led on’. How cyni­cal, disin­ge­nuous and hypo­cri­ti­cal of you to even men­ti­on rechts­staat and hos­pi­ta­li­ty with your ‘lager’ men­ta­li­ty and how you tre­at refu­gees in tho­se filt­hy camps. We are not even going into your shame­l­ess, dubio­us and cor­rupt col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with dic­ta­tors all over Afri­ca inclu­ding Togo whe­re this refu­gee fled from in the first place. You are so upright with your rechts­staat that you reach agree­ments with and pay the­se dic­ta­tors who in turn employ militi­as to bru­ta­li­se and maim men, women and child­ren see­king refu­ge from the dan­ge­rous situa­ti­on that you faci­li­ta­te with your eco­no­mic inte­rests. If the expe­ri­ence in the­se camps is what you defi­ne as hos­pi­ta­li­ty, we hear­ti­ly invi­te you to check into one of the­se camps (yes, the­re is still enough space for you and your fami­ly) and enjoy it. If you are too coward­ly to take that offer, we ask you in very clear terms to take your hos­pi­ta­li­ty and sho­ve it!!!

The alle­ga­ti­on of aggres­si­on, attack and vio­lence by the poli­ce as wide­ly repor­ted in the media is so far, not­hing more than a bogus cla­im as the­re is up till the moment of wri­ting, no evi­dence to sub­stan­tia­te tho­se claims. While the poli­ce mana­ged to mis-inform and the press ran with the mis­in­for­ma­ti­on that the refu­gees inju­red scores of poli­ce offi­cers – sup­po­sedly, offi­ci­al­ly the Poli­ce could only con­firm that only one offi­cer was slight­ly inju­red (see Taz, 3.5.18 „Was geschah in Ell­wan­gen?“ www​.taz​.de/​!​5​5​0​0​5​84/). Worse still is the alle­ga­ti­on of wea­pons that the refu­gees sup­po­sedly had which also tur­ned out to be flat­ly fal­se. Unable to pro­ve that the refu­gees were vio­lent as alle­ged, the Poli­ce resor­ted to rede­fi­ne and equa­te vio­lence with coer­ci­on. Per­haps the Poli­ce need to be remin­ded of what vio­lence is: vio­lence is when you chai­ned Oury Jal­loh to the mat­tress in a poli­ce sta­ti­on in Des­sau and bur­ned him ali­ve. Vio­lence is when you for­ci­b­ly pum­ped eme­tics into Laye Con­de and kil­led him in a poli­ce sta­ti­on in Bre­men, just as Ach­idi John in Ham­burg. Vio­lence is when you fatal­ly shot Domi­ni­que Kuma­dio near his apart­ment in Dort­mond just like you shot and kil­led Chris­tie Schwun­deck at the Job Cent­re in Frank­furt, and Mariam­me Sarr in Ascherf­fen­burg. Vio­lence is when poli­ce­men raped women (who were to be depor­ted) and film­ed it, in poli­ce sta­ti­on in Bre­men. Got it? The list goes on!!!

In our view, two things are par­ti­cu­lar­ly worth not­ing here. First, it is important to put the­se into some per­spec­ti­ves and under­stand that this is a careful­ly pre-plan­ned and coor­di­na­ted effort by the aut­ho­ri­ties to break the resis­tance of refu­gees to depor­ta­ti­on. Moreo­ver, it is to pro­vi­de a poli­ti­cal cover, legi­ti­mi­sa­ti­on and jus­ti­fi­ca­ti­on for the unwar­ran­ted vio­lence and bru­ta­li­ty that the poli­ce are most likely to exert in any future depor­ta­ti­on attempts. They have admit­ted this much in public and their action on Thurs­day con­firms this. But it remains to be seen if the public will rise in sup­port of human decen­cy and respect of the ves­ti­ges of refu­gee rights in this coun­try or they will sub­mit to mani­pu­la­ti­on and be con­ned by the­se sinis­ter machi­na­ti­ons. For anyo­ne who has been inves­ted in any way in the per­va­si­ve and now-fading refu­gees wel­co­me, it is time to shed that super­fi­ci­a­li­ty and get real and show some soli­da­ri­ty with the­se mali­gned refugees.

Second, the­re is not­hing cri­mi­nal about the desi­re to live a safe and secu­red life irre­spec­ti­ve of how Ger­ma­ny and others may view it today. Mil­li­ons of peo­p­le migra­ted from Germany/Europe to seek bet­ter and secu­red lives in other count­ries and con­ti­nents and so it is not­hing new. Refu­gees are in this coun­try exact­ly for this reason and “We are here becau­se you des­troy our count­ries”!!! So any attempt to deny us the oppor­tu­ni­ties to rea­li­se this is sure to be met with resis­tance. This is why refu­gee resis­tance is gua­ran­teed to con­ti­nue in Ger­ma­ny irre­spec­ti­ve of the poli­tics and poli­ci­es of the German/European aut­ho­ri­ties or the num­ber of poli­ce­men and women and their vehic­les. It is in this spi­rit of resis­tance that we SALUTE the cou­ra­ge­ous action of refu­gees in Ellwangen.

Long Live the Resistance!!!