enough. 2022

“Abolitionism” refers to both a theoretical approach and a political and social movement that works to overcome violent state institutions such as prisons and police. In the tradition of the struggle against the enslavement of Black people, abolitionists emphasise the racist history of state apparatuses of violence and their complicity with forms of capitalist exploitation and patriarchal oppression. In a recently published reader, Vanessa E. Thompson and Daniel Loick have made the most important voices of this international movement accessible in German. The event will present central themes and motifs from abolitionist theory and practice.

The input by Daniel Loick and Vanessa Thompson will be streamed. We will show the stream in the Halle at Zentralwäscherei. We will provide a streaming link for people who are not able to join physically.

Zoom Meeting

Meeting-ID: 818 7016 7208
Passcode: 555187

A4 is an association from France that aims to build access to labour in the fields of agriculture and crafts for sans papiers. It is a self-organized collective inspired by values of farmer solidarity, that wants to build bridges between the sea, the city and the countryside.
The association wants to create common spaces of hospitality, sharing, support and mutual aid from below, on an equal footing.

“D’égal à égal” is a documentary about A4’s work, its realities and struggles. We will show the film and four people from the A4 collective will open the space for discussion and questions afterwards.

The film will be shown in French. Translation in English and German will be available for the discussion.

In this workshop, we will shed light on the tendency towards increasingly insecure residence permits in Switzerland and other European countries and further discuss how this state-produced insecurity also serves the interest of providing exploitable labour. Residence permits (such as F status, B status and the new S status) are increasingly limited in time and linked to various conditions (e.g. independence from social welfare). Thus, the persons concerned are under permanent pressure to “integrate” (i.e. to be employed) if they do not want to lose their right of residence. The central point here is that people with an uncertain legal status are more and more exposed to this “integration imperative”, which has a disciplinary effect: Those who do not behave in an exemplary manner and are not gainfully employed permanently run the risk of being deported. In this way, exploitable workers are provided that are forced to take any job, no matter how poorly paid, in order to be able to secure their stay.

In this workshop we will talk about precarious residence from different perspectives. We will inform about the different residence rights as well as the specific situation in the canton of Zurich (with a focus on status F) and then discuss the racialised effects of temporary residence permits and the related exploitation in the labour market together.

In 2019, the Black Lives Matter movement became the world’s largest anti-racist movement, demanding not police reform but police abolition. Black Lives Matter was followed by other anti-racist movements such as Stop Asian Hate and the Blasian March.
Rohan Zhou-Lee is a Black, Asian, queer activist who was and is instrumental in the organisation of these movements. Rohan will tell us about the experience of anti-racist struggles in New York, precisely where intersectionality between different forms of oppression and between different People of Color takes on a revolutionary role. The Left PoC is hosting this event.

“colonial Walk” is a performative walk through the city on the topics of colonialism and racism. As part of the enough action days, we will go to various places in Kreis 4 that bear witness to the violent practice of racial profiling and racist police violence in Zurich.

Don’t forget!
Say their names!

Starting point is the Experi-Werkhalle ­– a safer space for BIPOC*artists and decolonial artistic practices.

The path we will walk is without stairs and the texts are in German and in English.

A discussion on why Frontex and the border regime cannot be reformed. “No Borders” and “Abolish Frontex” are more than just slogans. These slogans are accompanied by a practice of resistance that demands not the reform of the border regime, but its abolition. This happens in various forms and approaches, but they often unite behind the demand of “No Borders” and demand freedom of movement for all. These demands do not stand in isolation, but are linked to climate struggles, socio-economic developments and many other political perspectives. Therefore, in this panel we want to start with current struggles against Frontex and the border regime and then build a bridge to other movements. We want to discuss what the abolition of Frontex has to do with climate struggles and why “No Frontex” must also mean “No War”; or why resistance against the militarisation of the migration regime must always also be a struggle against patriarchy. Different collectives and individuals from the context of “No Borders”, “Abolish Fontex” and climate justice contribute their perspectives and show why we can only abolish the present of capitalism, isolation and exploitation together.

“Breaking Borders to Build Bridges” is a space for voices that are often silenced, voices speaking about 20 years of political activism in a self-organized initiative of refugee women*. It is collectively written by Women in Exile and includes contributions by members of the group, our friends, sisters, children, and supporters. It is written on smartphones, paper, or Laptops, in refugee Camps and Safe Spaces. The publication talks about our history and how we came together as a group. How we have built intersectional bridges within our group and beyond, bridges of solidarity that we keep on building despite our differences. This book gives insights into issues that have been accompanying the group over the years: Reasons to leave home, the discriminatory asylum process, the situation in the refugee camps and the struggle for the abolishment of camps, the right to health care, freedom of movement, empowerment, self-reflection, cooperation with friends, and about renting our own safer space for refugee women*.

During the enough. Action Days 2022, Women in Exile will read different texts from their collectively written book “Breaking Borders to Build Bridges” and open the space for discussions around borders, migration policies, feminism, empowerment, networks, and solidarity.

Pitches In Exile
Exile frequency resonance. The amplitude of decoded voices. The amplitude of voice decoders. An experience of listening to a safer space.

Ina Aimé appears when Nina Emge (FUBU) and Tina Omayemi Reden (FUBU) get together to speculate on resonating spaces and bodies. Their ongoing sonic conversations - at times experimental, at times spoken, at times dancy - surround the possibilities within the intersections of listening practices, community spaces and collective diasporic histories. They mix, remix and quote bodies, sounds and voices into polyphonic assemblages and fictive or actual collaborations.

ENL heisst eigentlich ES NERVT LANGSAM, wollen es aber nicht an die allzu grosse Glocke hängen. Man stelle sich vor: Wirklich sehr ernst gemeint alberne House- und Technobeats, casual Hass auf cis Männer und Weltschmerz in der Afterhour: «Hou mi da use oder hou mi ufe Chopf.» (Alice Galizia)

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IMPORTANT: One person of the collective has a strong allergy to sheep wool. Please do not bring any items made of sheep wool.

Why is it, that we talk so much about rejecting the police, yet we keep calling them? We think it is indispensable not only to use our theoretical rejection of the police and patriarchy as sticker motifs, but also to develop a practice that seeks and works out alternatives. We want both to find a way of dealing with violence in our contexts that is not based on the principles of punitive logic and state violence, and to take responsibility for the circumstances that make interpersonal violence possible even in emancipatory communities. We do not see interpersonal violence as an expression of illness or malignancy, but as socially, i.e. socially made.

In this workshop we want to start with some reflections on the connections between patriarchy, racism, state and violence, analyse the logic of punishment and finally present alternative concepts for dealing with violence in our communities. We don’t want to explain a master plan, but rather get to know existing concepts  with you, exchange ideas and experiences and encourage you to think about the topic yourself. We want to start working together in our own environments to be able to confront interpersonal violence without the punishing state, and in the long run not only to make fire brigade policy when assaults have occurred, but to put an end to the circumstances that make these violent conditions possible in the first place. In the workshop, we try to use words that are as generally understandable as possible, and to explain technical and scene terms. People without prior knowledge are very welcome!

The Zapatistas are an indigenous movement in Chiapas, in the south-eastern mountains of Mexico. They have have been building an autonomous social structure in reconquered territories since the uprising in 1994. In our input we are going  to introduce the political principles of the Zapatista organisation by means of a historical contextualisation and explain to what extent the autonomous territories in the mountains of Chiapas have been able to exist parallel to a neoliberal and racist state structure for a good 28 years. Afterwards, we want to invite to a discussion to reflect on Zapatista autonomy from an anti-colonial perspective and to ask ourselves if and what we can learn from the Zapatista movement in our struggle for another world.

No prior knowledge necessary.

So far there have hardly been any debates about racism within the justice system in Switzerland. Courts and police are seen as unassailable institutions that operate in a sphere of apparent objectivity and neutrality. In this event we will talk about the ongoing court cases of Nzoy Roger, Wilson A. and Mohamed Wa Baile as well as the individual, institutional and political challenges of addressing racism in court. The aim is to show room for manoeuvre for resistance against racism and to inform how these processes can be supported and the issue of institutional racism can be brought into the public sphere.

Presentation of ongoing projects and reading some parts from the book “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated” by Egyptian revolutionary Alaa Abdel Fattah who is currently in prison.

We want to organize exchange with anti-racist groups and people and discuss how we can prevent, document and criticise racist police violence. At the same time, we want to show solidarity with those affected. At this event we will exchange about anti-racist possibilities of action, solidarity and resistance. It is open to BIPOC (people affected by racism) and (white) allies.

How can we bring together different abolitionist perspectives? In this panel we bring together different projects and perspectives of the Action Days.

Main focus: With abolitionist demands we not only want to abolish a state of oppression and injustice, but at the same time build something new. Strong, resistant, transnational and local networks along everyday struggles are an important pillar on the way to a more just society. We need to start creating solidarity-based and functioning alternatives today. These alternatives are both a counter to the capitalist present, but also as a protection against it. If we want a different future, we have to build it now!

Main question: where do you see a perspective of construction in your political practice besides the perspective of abolition?

With the following groups:

• Direkte Solidarität mit Chiapas
• Bezgranica, Polen
• Women in Exile
• Feministisches Streikhaus Zürich
• Ignite
• World Without Prisons
• #copwatchCH

Welcome!
Wilkommä!
Bienvenu!
Benvenuti!
Bainvegni!

Welcome to Swiss Quality Torture!

We are very pleased that you are interested in our product SWISS QUALITY TORTURE. SWISS QUALITY TORTURE is the gold standard in international torture. Because Swiss torture meets the highest Swiss quality standards and is used in all cantons for a wide variety of closed institutions. In prisons, psychiatric wards and camps. Torture is carried out in this country by means of solitary confinement. Due to the excellent infrastructure and favourable legal situation. In Switzerland  it is possible  to isolate people to a large extent for an indefinite period of time. Due to the consistent deprivation of stimuli and the minimisation of all human contact, the inmates experience depressive moods, stress, loneliness, apathy, daydreaming, concentration problems, high blood pressure, digestive disorders and other individually varying negative effects. Quantitative studies have empirically proven the following effects of Swiss Quality Torture:

I am afraid without being able to say exactly why
I am hyper-vigilant and hypersensitive
I am tired and exhausted and wide awake at the same time
I want to commit suicide
I am completely desperate
I feel as if my environment and I are one
I am afraid of dying
This is how the detainees drive themselves mad! SWISS QUALITY TORTURE: Clean, discreet and highly effective.

The archivists’ collective of the Resistance Archive provides insights into individual dossiers on leftist and migrant struggles against camps, internment, deportations, borders and repression. Thus we show for example show materials on the resistance against the deportation of Chilean refugees in Seebach (1985), the hunger strike of refugees in the federal camps of Gorgier (NE), Interlaken (BE) and Klosters (GR) as well as the “Refugium I”, the occupation of the Neumarkt theatre in solidarity with the refugees (1989). In the 1990s, in turn, the struggles against the coercive measures in the law on foreigners were combined with struggles against urban development in districts 4 and 5 in connection with the closure of the drug scene at Letten and the construction of PROPOG (Provisional Police Prison) on the Kasernenwiese.
We invite you to dig through the leaflets, thesis papers, media releases and newspaper articles from the 1980s and 90s and to enter into conversation about ruptures, irritations and connections.

From September 17 to 18 we will show images that are related to the issues of violence and the process of coming to terms with it. The exhibition will be opened by Joanna Beltrán Girón, professor of psychology at the City University of New York, who will speak on trauma, repression and liberation with a liberation psychology approach.

Disputing memories, their erasure and amnesia are concepts to which people affected by violence are exposed. Both the violence perpetrated and the attempts to dispute memories occur in a power differential that is both interpersonal and institutional. In this power differential, it is the narratives from above that prevail, at the expense of, and in part by actively repressing, the memories, stories, and interpretations of those affected from below. The structures of violence rely on silence, on being silenced; direct violence presupposes the unconscious or semi-conscious opportunistic collaboration of the public. Silence, then, means that only the narrative from above can prevail and the narrative of those affected are erased; it itself also functions violently. It means the suppression of the affected person and his or her story to protect those from above who depend on violence to maintain the power differential over which they exercise violence.

The opening event of the exhibition will take place on Saturday at 6 pm.

No More Racism - No More Profiling - No More Fear

Together against police checks. For a Basel of solidarity!

Police checks are an everyday occurrence on the streets of Basel. People with certain skin colours, with certain styles of dress, who stay at certain places, speak a different language in public spaces, behave in a way that is unusual to the police: they are all checked.

We are a committee of people who have moved to Basel from far away or close by, or who were born here.
In order to be able to act together, we have founded the No More Committee. We are part of a struggle and a change!

We want to live in a society where everyone is allowed to be where they want to be, where there are no differences in opportunities depending on where a person is born, where there is no inequality so great that people have to leave their families to survive.

The Justice4Nzoy campaign is fighting for justice for Nzoy Roger. The 37-year-old Zurich citizen was shot dead by police in Morges (VD) on 30 August 2021. This was murder with a distinctly racist background. The authorities have so far been unable and apparently unwilling to solve this case. The campaign consists of relatives, friends and supporters of Nzoy who demand justice: We declare war on state racism in all its forms!

The alliance “Wo Unrecht zu Recht wird…” was formed in early 2017 as a reaction to the increasing repression against rejected asylum seekers in the canton of Zurich. The alliance has since organized a series of actions and events to actively counter the silence surrounding these violent politics. Regular visits to the camps are an important part of this. A network of legal supporters has also grown out of the alliance.

Website

We are a collective of people vo da who one day decided to come together to publicly address the issues of discrimination and racism together and clearly name incidents/structures.

WHY WE DO THIS:

We are doing this for you, who are also victims and know all too well the hurts and degradations involved and may have inevitably learned to suppress them.

We are also doing this for you who are not affected and who are aware of the problems or would like to become better.

We are also doing it for those who would be affected in the future if everything continued as before.

We do it because we, as part of this society, want to contribute to a happy and just environment for all.

We do it for a common Switzerland.

Collective Climate Justice is a collective of committed people from different backgrounds. From our point of view, governments and profit-oriented corporations are neither willing nor able to stop the climate catastrophe and the mass destruction of the environment.

The cause of the climate catastrophe is global fossil capitalism, which has made the prosperity, wealth and associated privileges of Western industrialised countries possible through the exploitation of fossil fuels. Effective strategies against the climate catastrophe must start with the power structures and the profiteers of this system. In this sense, Collective Climate Justice is part of a global struggle for justice, solidarity and sustainability. With diverse actions we confront the polluters and those responsible for the global climate catastrophe, disrupt their actions and denounce the profit-seeking indifference of politics and business.
In addition to larger and smaller actions, (climate) camps have sprung up in various places in recent years. For a short time, the camp provides a place to live together, learn and try things out.

From climate catastrophe to structural racism to patriarchy. We live in a time of many crises and injustices. For us, it is clear that the principle of climate justice requires a unification of different struggles. The solution to multiple crises needs an intersectional approach.

Website

migraKollektiv condemns the hypocritical debates about migrants. By ignoring the responsibility of industrialised countries and focusing on migrants as a “problem” these debates manipulate the perception of society. It does not matter whether a person has fled a natural disaster, hunger, war or a lack of prospects, all of which are the consequences of global capitalism. Refugees and migrants have the right to a secure residence status and a dignified life.

Integration, multiculturalism, strangers, foreigners - these are some of the most persistent conceptual ghosts of our time. Wherever political, economic, cultural or social conditions, social practice and theory are concerned, these ghosts are inevitably at hand. Concepts make politics.

The migraKollektiv has a clear stance against racism and any kind of discrimination. Together with the local population, we want to develop and implement effective forms of resistance against it.

For the most part structural and social problems are to be solved at the political level. The migraKollektiv is in a discussion process that is not yet completed. The migraKollektiv directly addresses the needs of migrants, where they have a space to define, represent and realise their interests and needs.

The objective of the A4 Association is to build a dynamic of reception, training, access to work, and administrative support for people with or without papers, urban or rural, in the fields of agriculture and crafts.
Our project aims to develop a network of training, exchanges, facilities, and farmer solidarity by linking existing areas and initiatives. 
The project was born from encounters between people who want to learn, work and live in a dignified way within agriculture or craftsmanship. 
We want to create fair and respectful working conditions for all. On the one hand, we are responding to the plight and insecurity of refugees who have difficulty finding places to live and work.
On the other hand, we want to respond to the decline of institutional support for the farming sector, the disappearance of agricultural and artisanal professions, and the lack of young people and usable land in the sector. 
We want to build bridges between the sea, the city, and the countryside. To create common spaces of hospitality, sharing, support, and mutual aid at eye level.

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The Autonomous School Zurich is a project against racism and injustice. It is a meeting place where you can get to know other people.

The ASZ is a self-organised school, collectively managed. It is independent from the state.

The Alarm Phone is a network of activists, many of whom have been active at Europe’s external borders in networks such as Welcome to Europe, Afrique Europe Interact, Borderline Europe, Noborder Morocco and Watch The Med for many years. The activists of the project are based in Tunis, Palermo, Melilla, Tangier, Cadiz, Marseille, Strasbourg, London, Vienna, Zurich, Berlin, Geneva, Izmir and other places.

In the short term, Alarm Phone wants to use an emergency number, documentation and information work to ensure that rescue operations are carried out promptly and human rights violations are prevented. At the same time, it is clear that the deaths of migrants at sea could already be an issue of the past if border and visa regulations were dismantled. Without radical change, it is obvious that many more deaths will follow the recent tragedies in the Mediterranean. Our long-term goals are therefore open borders and freedom of movement for all. The history of the last 20 years in the Mediterranean shows that increased militarisation of migration routes only leads to more deaths. Even when routes to Europe are blocked by new surveillance technologies and increased policing, people continue to make their way - but they are forced to take longer and more dangerous routes. We want to create a Mediterranean of mutual solidarity, with open borders for all human beings.

Bezgranica(noborders in polish) is a grassroots group that has been continuously conducting home/base and solidarity work with people on the move on the border with belarus. For almost a year now covers an area of about 50 kilometers of the border line on the migration route there. As a group deeply rooted in anarchist and freedom values, together with the local community, it takes up the struggle for a world without borders.