ANTI-RACIST, ANTI-COLONIAL, ANTI-CAPITALIST, QUEER PRIDE FOR LIBERATION
24.07.2021
This year QuARC and friends have organised something historic: the most diverse and representative queer pride demonstration ever to take place in Berlin.
The Internationalist Queer Pride for Liberation on Saturday 24th July brings together Berlin’s radical queer, anti-colonial and anti-racist communities under the banner “none of us are free, until all of us are free”.
On the same day as the official CSD parade in central Berlin, the Internationalist Pride will wind through Neukölln and Kreuzberg, stopping for speeches, and to mark locations which speak to a wider queer experience than the Pink-washed, corporate mainstream event. From racial profiling and gentrification to police brutality and white supremacism – these are examples of the struggles that for us represent the true spirit of pride.
For those who can’t join the demo on the streets, a simultaneous livestream will take place via twitch.tv/QuARC_Berlin, featuring speeches, performances, interviews, and solidarity statements from around the world.
Our liberation will be intersectional. We stand together; Black people, People of Colour, Roma and Sinti, Jews, migrants, Muslims, people without housing, sex workers, disabled people, precarious workers, trans* people, refugees and asylum seekers, intersex people, and Indigenous peoples everywhere. From Latin America, to the Philippines, to Palestine, to Tigray. From Western Sahara, to Kurdistan, to Kashmir. From the factories to the farms. From the urban to the rural, for climate justice and animal liberation. We are wholeheartedly committed to challenging the structures of white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. We will not allow corporations to commodify our sexualities and make profit off our backs while they continue to inflict grave economic and social injustices.
The march is made up of many self-organized blocs, including queers with disabilities, an anti-Bolsonaro bloc, queer Palestinians, a Jewish Bund bloc, Kurdish queers, Syrian revolution queers, an Abya Yala – Sudaka – Latino block, and many more. Protestors will carry signs reading: “LAND BACK”, “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi”, “Palestine is a queer issue” and “sex work is work” while marchers carry giant papier mâché roses and fists through the streets. The protest will be loud, with chants of “Palestina, Kurdistan! Intifada, serhildan!” and “Hoch die Internationale Solidarität”.
Beginning at Hermannplatz at 17:00, protesters will gather and listen to speeches from Migrantifa, a queer Palestinian activist, and a Trans* sex worker. From there the march moves up to Kottbussser Tor to hear queer activists from the DW Enteignen campaign speak against gentrification, followed by solidarity statements from the Jewish Bund and MAD and Disability pride. Next the march heads to the recently renamed “Audre Lorde Strasse” for speeches from trans Kenyan activist Marlize Andre, and solidarity statements from the organisations “Bloque Latino Americano” and the queer polish activists of “Constellation of Liberation”. From there, the demo will move to Oranienplatz for a closing speech from activists involved in the squatter refugee movement of 2012 about the migrant and refugee struggles in the city. The whole event will come to a jubilant finale with a program of performances and music until 22:00.
Who is Quarc?
QuARC formed and continues to organise out of a need for a more representative, internationalist politics among the 2SLGBTQIA+ left in Berlin. A politics that represents an understanding of how structures of racism, colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism intersect, and why solidarity with anti-colonial struggles the world over is a crucial foundation of any effective organising.
co-hosting organisations:
Bloque Latinoamericano Berlin
Network of Latinamerican social and political organisations in Berlin. Leftist, Feminist, and Internationalist.
Migrantifa Berlin
By migrants, for migrants. Yallah!
Jewish Bund
Jewish Antifascist Bund Berlin based Bundists fighting for social justice, labour rights and doikayt in the 21st Century.
Palestine Speaks
Coalition for the rights of Palestinians and against racism
Constellation of Liberation
Berlin-based, Polish speaking, Queer-Feminist collective
Berlin Migrant Strikers
Migrant and precarious self-organisation in the global metropolis
BDS Berlin
BDS Berlin is part of the world-wide BDS movement, which supports the Palestinian civil-society call in 2005.
Berlin Against Pinkwashing
Activists challenging the instrumentalisation of LGBTQI* issues by Israel to mask its human rights violations in occupied Palestine
Quotes and statements:
“The transgression of sexual and gender boundaries is only the beginning of radical queer politics. We say: Enough with capitalist corporate CSD. Enough with homonationalism and pinkwashing of the racist German state. Enough with the white German hold of queer politics and spaces of Berlin!” – an activist from Jewish Bund
“All our fights are interconnected. All and any fights against fascism, imperialism, and fundamentalism, against capitalism, are all part of our same internationalist fight for liberation. This is why we are here today. This is why we will keep talking about Palestine. This is why our name is CoLiberation – we believe we need each other to achieve liberation. So let’s liberate each other! And to use one of the main slogans from the Polish protests – you will never walk alone!” – an activist from Constellation of Liberation
Contact: quarc-berlin@riseup.net