23.08.2024 – 25.08.2024, Leipzig

At a glance
Guests: 161 (not even kidding)
Days: 3
Panels: 3
Workshops: 5
Concerts: 2
March: 1

Artists: 6
Workshop hosts: 5
Panelists: 9
Arrests: 1

Official name of event: soliSARity Festival
Unofficial name of event: Smashtival against borders

Why this festival?
We wanted to create connections between and give a platform to people who fight for the right to come, to stay and to return. We felt the need to address some of the underlying political issues behind search and rescue at sea, so we choose as overarching themes of the festival anti-racism and freedom of movement, taking a firm stance against Fortress Europe.

That is why we could only start the festival from the experiences of Parwana Amiri and Eric Mbiakeu, refugee activists who grounded us sharing about their fights, their journeys and their resistance. And we could only end it with zeyo.mann, who embraced everyone with his rap and Arabic lyrics.

What happened in between?

• A panel on pushbacks and pullbacks (to remind that, you know, the land of human rights and Nobel Peace prize, Fortress Europe, is indeed the perpetrator of a racist border regime rooted in and re-enacting its colonial history);
• A panel on deconstructing smuggling (because we need to build a different cultural hegemony and re-appropriate the names stigmatized by the state -in line with the motto of the festival: “What is the crossing of a border compared to fabricating the border?”)
• A workshop on deconstructing that informal army that the European Union quietly put up, Frontex,
• A workshop on printing T-shirts so we can show what we stand for just by walking
• A workshop on how to support our ship, Nadir, when she is actively involved in operation,
• The screening of zeyo.mann documentary, “ABBAS”
• Exhibition by “now_you_see_me_moria”, with the powerful images that refugees in Moria and in other camps took , often illegally, to denounce that system of segregation and oppression that is the camp system.

The location, the vibes
We wanted to make connections, lend our platform to racialized people, have our joy filter our anger. The location was just perfect to do so: a spacious garden with an outdoor stage, a bar, a kitchen -those fried plantains rocked it-, two inside rooms. In the other days of the year, an aggregation center and lab for progressive events in the neighborhood. Anyways, the name would have been enough for us to choose it: Wolkenschachlenkwal.
Making the atmosphere more comfortable for us all was our external dixi toilet, exclusively for which the fest team used a funding from UNHCR. Relevant report will be duly submitted to the donor.

What we learned from this festival?
That self-management works: our event would not exist if it was not for the many people who came together and took over the organizing of its different parts.
That our festival is not ours. Individuals external to RESQSHIP became unofficial part of the organizing team. This is the spin we want to give to “solidarity and resistance”, making things happen together, and next year we want to make those connections even stronger (yes watch out, there will be a next year).
And that if we can make an event like this festival work, we can make other actions work as well. An occupation, a crew at sea, an action against deportations -we are not short of ideas.

Did you say an arrest?
Yes. We brought the rage and joy of the festival to the streets, going towards the city center, shouting our demands. We don’t pretend that our demands were small, but we didn’t burn anything (with great regret of the march organizers) and we did not deserve to have one of our comrades stopped by the police on spurious and ridiculous charges. It was a provocation and tout le monde knows it was.

A big shout-out to:
Our comrades of the kitchen structure
The friends from Mehrweg e.V.
Parwana Amiri
Eric Mbiakeu
Hermann Ntankeu Yoba
Mahmoud Keshavarz
zeyo.mann, Jay Jules, 2ersitz, Gloria Blau, Filo&Eisman, Bedroom June
Alarm phone, Captain support network
now_you_see_me_moria
No border medics, Equal rights beyond borders
Andreas
All of you who came and participated!
The hedgehog

CC-BY-SA Paula Gaess: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBGWvG

4th – 6th July, Berlin 

Almost exactly 10 years ago people on the move, many from Syria, started to walk on the highways from Hungary towards Germany. Their direct, spontaneous action forced open the closed internal borders of Fortress Europe.

We remember and take inspiration from that event. Scirocco Festival encourages defiance, it presents practical “toolkit of resistance” to oppose racist and discriminatory practices inside the border regime, such as camps and deportations.

Scirocco refuses the normalization of violence against people without the “right” papers. It opens a space to envision alternatives radically different to the present where we live, and by doing so it projects a different political horizon. Let’s think together and connect with each other to resist border violence!

Workshop 1: Camps and Housing

We’re the voices they tried to silence. The survivors they couldn’t break.
We’ve slept in shelters that felt like prisons, fought racist bureaucrats in their own offices, and turned our trauma into unshakable resistance. Today, we’re bringing that FIRE to the festival!
Come close – we’ve got real talk you won’t hear anywhere else:
Shelter survival hacks they don’t teach you. How to outsmart the system that wants to break you. Stories that will make you laugh, rage, and rise up
This ain’t no sad victim story – this is MIGRANT POWER in action. We’ve got a whole arsenal of tips, tricks and truth bombs to share. Ask us anything – we’ve lived through it all.
See you in the front row. Bring your anger, your good mood, your questions, and your power. Let’s turn this festival into a movement!
Workshop hosts: activists from Migranos Movement, with support from Solid Base

Workshop 2: Police and deportation

Racially profiled ID checks and deportations, one possibly leading into the other, are some of the most visible manifestation of Fortress Europe and its internal borders. What are the rights of people in these situations, what can be done to oppose this form of violence? The workshop aims to equip people with tools and knowledge, both when they are witness or subject to these practices.
Workshop by: Uzi! Who needs a law degree when you’ve survived two deportations like Uzi? With dozens of proceedings across the social code, asylum law, criminal law and the German Civil Code, Uzi has more practical experience than many a judge. If deportation were a sport, Uzi would have long since won Olympic gold. So buckle up – theory was yesterday, now comes real-life madness.

Organizers
The festival is co-organized by activists engaged with either Open Dreams or RESQSHIP, as well as individual activists.

Open Dreams is a cultural and polical association created by people with a migratory background.

RESQSHIP is Search and Rescue association, operating a sailing vessel, Nadir, in the central Mediterranean sea.

A big shout-out to:

Migranos Movementa self-organized, migrant-led initiative in east Germany, that empowers refugees and combats everyday racism by raising awareness of camp living conditionsl and live in Nazi areas and fostering community solidarity.

Solidbase: fighting with refugees since 2014 against the German
camp system and for a dignified life in shared apartments and apartments!

Lohmühle comrades for hosting us!