NTGent presented School of Resistance: For a Politics of Justice! livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 September 2021.
For years now, the situation at the external EU borders has been deteriorating. All means are used to prevent refugees from arriving in Europe, through the failure to provide assistance, through illegal pushbacks and torture and violence. Those who manage to enter European soil are deprived of all their fundamental rights in inhumane camps or deliberately driven into illegality. But when injustice becomes right, resistance becomes a duty! On the weekend of the German federal elections the IIPM, the NTGent, the Schauspiel Köln, and the School of Political Hope host together with #LeaveNoOneBehind and numerous organizations from all over the world a school of resistance for a new politics of humanity and justice. A workshop program, three hybrid panels, a solo rally, a concert, and the launch of a joint fundraising campaign will enable approaches to the embattled realities of migrating people in Europe.
To find alternatives for a more sustainable and more humane future, Milo Rau, the IIPM, and the NTGent together with numerous partner organizations from all over founded in May 2020 a symbolic institution of the future: the globally networked School of Resistance, a platform for experts of change. After fifteen editions so far, the School of Resistance is now landing in Cologne, Germany, to meet the demands for a just migration policy. Over two days, workshops with activists will develop sustainable alliances between activism, art, politics, and the legal system. How can civil society resist a criminal policy? How can it use the means of the law and create new, alternative spaces of solidarity? Talks with experts, human rights lawyers, artists, and activists explore a variety of concrete paths to a politics and aesthetics of justice. In collaboration with the network #LeaveNoOneBehind, we support the campaign “Human rights are #nonnegotiable”, which is organized by Seebrücke, Sea-Watch, Pro Asyl, and many others.
The weekend will open with a presentation of the joint fundraising campaign of the #LeaveNoOneBehind and IIPM network. How can the system of dehumanization, illegalization, and exploitation of refugees be shaken up with legal means? The fundraising action supports lawyers to bring responsible politicians and officials to court.
The discourse on the borders and the erosion of the current legal system will also be the focus of the panel: Global Society? Human and Civil Rights in the Post-National Age. On the basis of the catastrophic situation at the European external borders human rights lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck together with the cultural scientist Mithu Sanyal, the writer Navid Kermani, and the activist Anbid Zaman examine the transformative potential of human rights as a response to the migration movements of the 21st century. How do we protect existing law and test new forms of equality for all?
Afterwards, the Schauspiel Cologne transforms into the global broadcasting studio of the School of Resistance. Art activist Milo Rau and human rights activist Omer Shatz debate with the Congolese lawyer Céline Tshizena (The Congo Tribunal), the activist Mourad El-Keddani, representative of the Belgian Sans-Papiers, and the activist Parwana Amiri (Lesbos) the situation of refugees at the European external borders and the future of a politics of justice at the intersection of art, justice, and activism.
The panel Human Rights Are #NonNegotiable. Activism, Solidarity, and Justice will highlight on September 25, the evening before the Bundestag elections, the responsibility of German politics in the crimes of the European border regime. What are the possibilities to actively take action against it? The activist and politician Tareq Alaows, the migration expert Maximilian Pichl, the lawyer Corinna Ujkašević and the sea rescue worker Mattea Weihe discuss the demands of migration policy initiatives and compare them with their own work. What can a civil society in solidarity do and which strategies of mobilization are effective?
In addition to the panels, there will be a workshop program with the School of Political Hope and numerous local and international migration activists on the question of how to resist. How can we build social movements and civil disobedience, how to use the means of law and art, how to defend the rights of women and the LGBTQIA* community? How can we locally and transnationally organize (migrant) communities? In the Assembly of Solidarity at the Keupstraße Memorial all these struggles come together—to a diverse voice of resistance!
Support the campaign “Human rights are #nonnegotiable”.
Read the Cologne Declaration for a policy of justice and humanity.
Friday 24 September
Global Society? Human and Civil Rights in the Post-National Age
12: 30 p.m. - 2 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 18:30 - 20:00 CET (Ghent, UTC +2)
With: Wolfgang Kaleck, Navid Kermani, Mithu Sanyal, Anbid Zaman
Moderation: Dorothea Marcus
Practices of Art and Justice
2:15 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 20:15 - 21:15 CET (Ghent, UTC +2)
With: Parwana Amiri, Mourad El-Keddani, Milo Rau, Omer Shatz, Céline Tshizena, Community Theatre Kabul
Moderation: Eline Banken
Saturday 25 September
Human Rights are #Non-negotiable. Activism, Solidarity and Justice
12: 30 p.m. - 2 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 18:30 - 20:00 CET (Ghent, UTC +2)
With: Tareq Alaows, Maximilian Pichl, Corinna Ujkaševic, Mattea Weihe
Moderation: Rebecca Link
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