Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Update Blockupy Frankfurt

May 17: Taking the squares

May 17: Taking the squares
On Thursday, May 17, we will take over the Gallusanlage and Taunusanlage areas as well as other central plazas near the city center of Frankfurt in critical masses. Starting in the morning, a cultural and political program will take place at various places. From these places at the latest, or as soon as we get off of the busses, train, subway or S-Bahn, we will swarm out and find our way to these areas, pitch our tents and in doing so, occupy these places. In these occupied places, diverse protest events as well as assemblies and plenaries at which we will collectively decide on our further moves and actions. These tent villages will serve as assembly and event spaces, as well as sleeping places. Moreover, they provide us with a good point of departure for the blockade action in the financial district
on the following day.

With this action, we are expressing the real claiming of public spaces as well as our connectedness and solidarity and the inspiration we have experienced through the struggles at Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Syntagma Square in Athens and the many Occupy camps throughout the world. As is the case with all occupation actions, the "take the squares!" action will have a strong element of
improvisation. However, an infrastructural base will exist. Community kitchens and portable toilets, water supplies, etc., will be in place – although these might not be immediately available during the occupation action. Subsequent to the successful occupation, we will all have to work together to achieve a situation of "security" and provisions at the tent villages. But it should be repeated once again: we will be in the center of Frankfurt, where there accessible infrastructure already exists.

Pack your tent and whatever else you need (see packing list)! Be in place on Thursday at 2 pm at the latest and participate in the take the squares swarming! At 6 pm, the final information meetings will take place in the tent villages at the occupied areas. At 8 pm, the delegates' plenaries for affinity groups to prepare for the blockade action will take place. Be there and get involved! We are all the action!

May 18: Block the ECB & Flood Frankfurt with autonomous actions
Block the ECB
Early in the morning on May 18, demonstration groups coming from multiple directions in the city center will begin to move in order to block all entrances of the Eurotower. To accomplish this, we will use mobile blockade fingers to flexibly react to police concepts and actions, and we will – if necessary – obstruct the adjacent streets in order to make it impossible to access the ECB.
Creative resources

The blockade groups that are making preparations have agreed on a common action consensus. The consensus mentions that each blockade finger will carry diverse objects and symbols in line with thematic concentrations in order to simultaneously visualize the diverse elements of our resistance against the authoritarian crisis regime. We will use shopping carts, cooking pots and hospital beds to criticize the impositions and cuts of social policies as well as policies of privatization in the healthcare system. Cardboard military tanks will symbolize the militarization of society and show the connection between war and crisis. Boats and ladders will symbolize resistance against the border regime. Giant marionettes will refer to the precarious labor relations of (not only) migrants. The protest against education policies will be present in a book block made of oversized books. We will use ventilators, stilts and yucca palms to express the struggles against global climate change. We will use barrels, white protection suits and masks to expose the countless disastrous ecological catastrophes, such as Fukushima and Deep Water Horizon. We will use all of these symbols and objects – which will also include red-and-white barrier tape and woolen thread – in order to effectively set up and hold onto substantive blockade points.

Flood Frankfurt with autonomous actions

For example, an encirclement of Deutsche Bank is in preparations. In front of both DB towers, the bank's special role in speculation in food and land grabbing will be brought to light – in conjunction with an action in Bremen on April 17, 2012. Street theater will allow us to advertise "toad migration" in the front yard. With loudspeakers, sirens, large banners and gas-filled balloons, we will make our protest visible and audible – even in the highest floors of the tower.

Climate activists discuss how they understand Flood Frankfurt with three suggestions: in the Frankfurt city walls, a "boring tower" will be constructed to investigate a "secure nuclear waste repository" for atomic waste in the salt deposit underneath the financial city plaza;  the metal-cast bear in front of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange will mutate to a "polar bear", symbolic of the destruction of nature perpetrated by the regime of capitalist growth logic;  pestering the "uranium society", which is engineering the extraction of highly-toxic uranium in Niger and Namibia for the nuclear corporation Areva: how much do you earn by poisoning the African population with radioactive "Yellow Cake"? There are many ways to think about how to make visible the ecological crisis of capitalism and those who engineer it and profit from it, right in the "global city" of Frankfurt.

Be it a surprising go-in in a bank branch or a temp employment agency, be it a flash mob at a financial investor or at an arms business, be it a bold action to put up posters on a bank construction wall or on the glass front of a airline company involved in deportation – we hope and are planning on many diverse creative and independent forms of action on May 18 in which we – as already took place in the morning with our symbols – express the resistance and struggles in different social and political fields. Whether announced or not, whether as recognizable demonstration or as inconspicuous congregation, all actions should contribute to the transformation of the financial center into a colorful and loud zone of protest for the entire day.

Blockade working group for Blockupy Frankfurt

May 19: Demonstration
Character and aims of the demonstration on May 19

The demonstration on May 19 is the closing element of the European action days in Frankfurt from May 16-19 against the crisis dictatorship. We will convene at 12:05 near the Main Train Station, at Baseler Platz. Loud, diverse and resolute, we will progress through Frankfurt and we will reach the closing rally at 5 pm at Willy-Brandt-Platz, directly in front of the European Central Bank (ECB). We intend to collectively carry our protest against the austerity dictatorship to this actor. Together, as thousands of participants from many European countries, we will send a clear and visible message of international solidarity against the authoritarian crisis management and the policies of impoverishment of the troika, consisting of the EU Commission, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The international demonstration will denounce the destructive policies of the troika as well as the German Federal Government that acts as its motor. Their politics oppose the will and the needs of the population.

To visualize our protest, we will carry diverse thematic messages on banners and signs. We will express our grievances and make demands. In addition to conventional banners, we will have symbols that call attention to everyday situations and struggles. For example, ladders and rubber boats symbolize the perilous efforts of illegalized migrants to cross highly-militarized EU borders; cardboard tanks criticize war, militarization and the corporations that profit from it; oversized dolls and shopping carts throw light on the precarious working relations of millions of people; barrels and protective gear visualize the countless devastating ecological catastrophes, such as Fukushima and Deep water Horizon. Our imaginations have no limits.

At the demonstration, we intend to show the size, strength and diversity of our colorful and broad protest and make the networks, initiatives, parties and individuals participating in Blockupy loud and clear. The demonstration will represent the loudness and multilingual assemblage of the many persons who expressed their protest and resistance in the assemblies, sit-ins and creative actions of direct democracy in the streets of Frankfurt on the previous days.

Course of action and route of the demonstration
The demonstration symbolically begins at 12:05 Middle European Time in the proximity of the Frankfurt main train station (Baseler Platz) with an opening rally, and should end at 5 pm with a central closing rally at a stage in front of the ECB. In between, the demonstration will circle the Frankfurt city center in one line of demonstration. When we reach Deutsche Bank, the line will divide into two and symbolically surround the Frankfurt financial district from two sides, meeting to unite again at the closing rally.

At the rallies and during the demonstration, various groups and guests will state their reason for protesting. Voices will be heard from Greece, Italy and North Africa, as well as from attac, Occupy, labor unions, the interventionist left, and the party Die.Linke. The demonstration will end with an Iries Révoltés concert.

For a free right to demonstrate
During the demonstration, we intend to create a situation that is transparent for all participants and in which they consider and support each other in solidarity and collectively advocate for a successful demonstration. All persons are welcome and should feel safe at our legally registered demonstration; this especially applies to persons in wheelchairs and families with strollers. We intend to arrive at the location of the closing rally and end the demonstration together.

We insist that none of the participants feel discriminated, mistreated or excluded due to age, clothing, sexual orientation, gender and/or origin. This applies to arrival at the opening rally, during the demonstration as well as to departure after the closing rally. We refuse discriminating and intimidating controls in the run-up to the demonstration and the possible deadlocks of parts of the demonstration by plainclothes police officers. We expressly underscore that there is no place for racist and neofascist slogans and organizations at our demonstration.

We strongly disagree with sensationalist press reports about the Blockupy days in Frankfurt, which obviously serve to increase circulation instead of reporting on our aims and the content of our actions. We see the danger that already in the run-up to the action days, a constraint on our freedom to demonstrate and freedom of opinion is being legitimated by propaganda.

An immediate concern of our demonstration is direct communication with the citizens of Frankfurt and educating the interested public about the content and aims of our protest and resistance against the current crisis politics.

In this way, we demonstrate our European and international solidarity.

Blockupy!

:: Agenda :: 

9 mei – Utrecht: Basta! Infoavond: #Blockupy Frankfurt
Aanvang: 19:30
Organisatie: Kritsiche Studenten Utrecht / Basta!
Locatie: Boekhandel de Rooie Rat, Oude Gracht 65, Utrecht
Contact: info@bastadebat.nl / kritischestudentenutrecht@gmail.com
Site: http://www.kritischestudenten.nl/agenda/blockupy-de-europese-centrale-ba...

14 mei – Utrecht: ACU-Alarm-cafe – blokkadetraining & affiniteitsgroepen
Aanvang: 19:00
Over affiniteitsgroepen en het vormen van affiniteitsgroepen voor de komende strijd
Organisatie: ACU-Alarm-cafe
Contact: alarm@acu.nl
Site: http://www.acu.nl/alarm
contact: blockupy-frankfurt-nl@riseup.net

:: Collectief vervoer ::

Vanuit Nederland wordt er collectief vervoer georganiseerd naar Frankfurt en terug. Het zal mogelijk zijn om in Amsterdam of Nijmegen op de bus te stappen.

Vertrek do. 17 mei
07:00 Amsterdam Amstel Station
09:00 Nijmegen

Terugkomst zo. 20 mei
In de loop van de ochtend/vroege middag

--- Geef je hier op voor de bus ---
(LET OP! je zitplek is pas definitief gereserveerd bij betaling)

De bus vertrekt op donderdag 17-05-2012 om 07:00 uur vanaf station Amsterdam Amstel. Vervolgens kun je in Nijmegen nog instappen waar de bus weer vertrekt om 09:00 uur. Wij verwachten rond 15:00 uur aan te komen in Frankfurt. Wij zullen op zaterdag nacht om 00:00 uur weer aan de terugreis beginnen. Maak 65,- Euro over op 25.46.48.614 onder vermelding van de naam die je hieronder hebt in gevuld en "Blockupy Bus". Pas als je het geld overgemaakt hebt wordt een plek in de bus voor je gereserveerd. Je zal dan een mailtje ter confirmatie ontvangen. In het confirmatie mailtje zal ook informatie staan over wat je allemaal wel en niet moet mee nemen voor deze actiedagen. Houd er rekening mee dat de kans zeer groot is dat de bus en inzittenden grondig zullen worden onderzocht bij de grens. Zorg dat de autoriteiten geen rede vinden om ons allemaal terug te sturen!

Wil je je niet via dit formulier aanmelden, dan kun je ook kaartjes voor de bus kopen bij de Rooie Rat in Utrecht en het Fort van Sjakoo in Amsterdam.

--- Geef je hier op voor de bus ---

Contact: 06-86218079 - blockupy-frankfurt-nl@riseup.net


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