September 11, 2015

Voices of women in exile and allies

"The Refugee Movement is the movement that is calling for the rights of all human beings."

"Ausländer, black, foreigner, refugee – you are hit by these names. Since you were born you are called by your name. You are something and all of the sudden you are nothing: you are a refugee. “
Refugee and migrant women in Germany source

With the current refugee crisis in Europe, stemming from the ongoing wars in Syria and the Middle East, we welcome voices from Germany, those of women who live there in exile, and from an organization of refugee women and their German allies:

From international women's space Berlin:

 â€žWe are here because you destroyed our countries“

By INTERNATIONAL WOMEN SPACE, August 15, 2015: "We have been seeing, through the media, a rise of solidarity amongst the Germans towards refugees. There has been article after article reporting about welcome structures in different parts of the country. Different people are creating websites offering temporary accommodation to refugees, others are collecting basic clothes, food supplements and taking to the refugees camped in front of the Berliner Lageso, the state Office of Health and Welfare. The picture shows a situation maybe found in Lebanon, which hosts more than 1 million refugees, or in Greece, a country facing huge economic crisis, courtesy of Germany, and obviously incapable of offering much more than its citizens solidarity.

The reality in Germany is that we are in one of the richest European countries, which has the proper means and structures to welcome refugees if they wanted. The empathy of the citizens is welcome, their efforts too, but if it stops on the charity level we are done as a political movement. The impoverishment of the people who are becoming refugees is not new and the reasons are in history and can be understood by those who want to know why human beings are using desperate measures to come to Europe. Colonialism, slavery and white supremacy thinking provoked the situation. That is why people are coming to Europe, they are escaping from countries destroyed by the politics of western countries."... more

And from Women in Exile & Friends:
"Women in Exile is an initiative of refugee women founded in Brandenburg in 2002 by refugee women to fight for their rights. We decided to organize as a refugee women’s group because we have made the experience that refugee women are doubly discriminated against not only by racist laws and discriminative refugee laws in general but also as women..."