Speech on the demonstration for transnational solidarity on the 6th of March 2020

Due to an unjustified escalation on part of the police at the Demonstration for transnational solidarity against racism and war, one of our activists could no longer deliver her speech. Nevertheless, we would still like to share our message on the occasion of the terrible occurrences.

Antifa means climate protection, whether in Lesbos or in Rojava!

The climate crisis is a RACIST crisis!
And it is being answered in an authoritarian and fascist way! The pictures of Lesbos cruelly show what Kurz meant by stating that the government of the Conservative Party (ÖVP) and the Green Party (GRÜNE) would “protect the climate AND borders”! They actually show what Kurz meant by saying that “it won’t work without ugly pictures”. Politicians dismiss those images as exaggerated rumors – by Erdogan, the dictator in Turkey. But not only that, they wanted to pay him even more money as to keep people seeking protection away from Europe! What we are currently experiencing ist the beginning of a time when democracy and human rights are no longer taken into account; a time which is all about only protecting ourselves, our prosperity and our privileges!

The climate crisis is a consequence of colonialism!
Europe’s prosperity is based on the exploitation of the colonized countries, the enslavement and killing of local populations. The superiority of white Europeans, the racism with which these murders were justified, persists until this day!

It is racism that people seeking protection experience on the borders of the “fortress Europe”, and by which they are traumatized when they are threatened, attacked and shot by fascists and the police.

The climate crisis is not a new phenomenon, but yet another consequence of unhindered environmental destruction! Ecosystems in the Global South have been collapsing since colonialism! The fact that it is becoming politically important now is simply because its consequences have finally reached the centers of capitalism, but people at the “periphery” have ever since been living with all the consequences.

This day, we were not allowed to go on the planned route through Wipplingerstrasse because of the OPEC conference that is currently taking place there, in which fossil capitalism is being further negotiated. Capitalism has always been based on fossil energy, wars, exploitation – of human lives. Of course, there are also OPEC countries like Libya, where people are being imprisoned in inconceivable conditions.

After the success of new climate groups last year and after the Green party came to power, it must become clear now at the latest, finally, and clearly, why demands for climate protection are not progressive if they are not linked to other struggles: struggles against racism, fascism and anti-feminism – for a good life for everyone, for climate justice!

Climate crisis, flight and migration must be treated as parts of one. We demand freedom of movement of people instead of goods. Climate justice does not have any borders.

System Change, not Climate Change! says it loudly and clearly: climate protection and Antifa belong together, always and everywhere! Anything else is “business as usual”, or a relapse into barbarism.