June 3-9, Germany: Blockupy Düsseldorf!

photo of Blockupy Frankfurt

via Blockupy Düsseldorf Facebook event (with German translation and full schedule)
for background, see here and here

Transnational call to action in Düsseldorf, June 06.-09.
International solidarity in our common struggle

We are calling for massive protests in Düsseldorf this June against the crisis regime of the European Union. We are activists representing a multitude of movements and struggles from different European countries and elsewhere, who have risen up in the past months and years to protest the assaults on our freedoms, jobs and livelihoods that have become fiercely intensified in the global crisis. We have joined together and shared our struggles and experiences, and we have realized that in a multitude of local forms, we are fighting the same fight. Like never before, our movements are starting to strengthen each other: a truly transnational opposition is beginning to emerge.

The metropolis of Düsseldorf after Frankfurt am Main ist the second most important city for banking and stock exchange in Germany. Around 170 banks have their headquarters or offices in Düsseldorf. Also, many companies are seated here: Monsanto Germany, L’Oréal Germany, Vodafone Germany, Metro AG, E.ON, Rheinmetall, Henkel, E-Plus and the ERGO Insurance Group. We resist the attempt to play the employees, the unemployed and the precarious in Germany, Greece, Italy, France or other countries off against each other with nationalistic slogans. We set a sign for solidarity with all people and movements which defend themselves against attacks on their lives and future for months. We will demonstrate against the policies of EU and the Troika, we will blockade the banks and occupy public places in Düsseldorf – we are BLOCKUPY!

We are protesting the widespread impoverishment and denial of democratic rights occurring in the Eurozone as part of a global systemic crisis. In the periphery of the EU we are experiencing the extreme effects of politics pushed for by the governments of Germany and France and enacted by institutions representative of global capitalism: the ECB, IMF, EU, and their imposed technocratic governments. Millions of us have been impoverished and driven to misery by austerity and structural adjustment programs, the denial of labor rights and the slashing and privatization of public services, such as education, healthcare and welfare. We are experiencing the looting of human and natural resources by supposedly democratic institutions!

Yet these processes are only the most evident sign of the precarization of working and living conditions experienced in all of Europe and beyond. Our social uprisings, traversing the internal borders of the EU, are the expression of indignation acting outside every form of political representation. As representative democracy fails, we leave it behind, creating our own democratic practices in everyday struggles against exploitation.

We are experiencing global migration as another clear sign of the refusal of this transnational system of exploitation, its border regimes and violent wars. It is devastating our earth and basic livelihood. The situation is urgent: we are facing a human-made climate disaster!

Yet in Europe and beyond, we are also experiencing the emergence of political movements that are challenging the everyday exploitation of people and the earth, the social fragmentation, precarization and racism that pretend to divide and then weaken us. By creating connections among these movements and making ourselves visible and powerful, we are attempting to practice a real democracy right now. In Frankfurt, we have the opportunity to make these connections real, and to empower local struggles on a transnational level. We will blockade a crucial center of global capitalism, learning from what we watched in Oakland and the Occupy movement in the United States, who in turn learned from the revolutions across North Africa, the Middle East and the Indignados of Southern Europe. Let us bring our movements together in solidarity to continue the fight! Let us not miss this opportunity to set the agenda to reinvent our common future!

Wednesday, 06.06. arrival and night-dance-demonstration
Thursday, 06.07. take the squares, assambleys, actions, walks
Friday, 06.08. shut down the system for a day ;-)
Saturday, 06.09. final demonstration

FOR A TRANSNATIONAL MOVEMENT TO END PRECARITY AND IMPOVERISHMENT!
FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY, FREEDOM and REAL DEMOCRACY NOW!