UNITED Conference – An Eye Opener

Last week’s UNITED conference in Stockholm was a great success. Together with 67 other participants from 34 countries I spent four days working with anti-racism issues, asylum policies and the situation for minorities in different countries. The UNITED network was started in 1992 and consists of more than 560 organisations in 46 European countries. Among other activities, the network runs different campaigns, organizes two to three conferences a year and publishes the European Address Book Against Racism and the Calendar of Internationalism. Especially the Address Book is a very useful tool in coordinating campaigns and generating ideas for the anti-racist and anti-fascist work. And of course it’s always nice to know that there are others in Europe who fight the same problems as oneself.

Many Countries, Many Contexts
During the conference it was obvious that the political realities of the participants are very different. While the participating NGOs from Scandinavian countries mostly work with asylum and racism issues, the anti-fascist (antifa) movements are more relevant in the former Soviet and other East European countries, where ultra-nationalism has been on the rise in recent years. At the same time, our work here is much easier than for NGOs in some of the other countries where authorities often obstruct anti-discrimination work and anti-discrimination legislation consists of laws that look good on paper but never find their way to the courts. In such different circumstances, NGOs and activists fight in all sorts of creative ways, which have been very inspiring to hear about. In Germany a cucumber contest with participants from the Czech Republic opened up a community that had previously strongly supported a far-right wing party. In Poland big anti-racist music festivals take place, and there are more bands interested in playing than the organizers can fit in the programme! The creativity of the different antifa and antira activists was especially visible in the many slogans, posters, stickers and postcards displayed all over the conference venue, some of which can be seen here.

We discussed such different issues as Nazi-music across Europe, the recent attacks on Roma people in Italy, the Neo-Nazi movement in Germany, afrophobia in Sweden and the far-right wing in Denmark, which are all set in different contexts. The challenges that NGOs face are accordingly different. Scandinavian NGOs work in societies that consider themselves very non-racist, and it can be quite difficult to fight a problem that’s not even acknowledged as one. This problem is nothing compared to the ones East European antifas face though, as they virtually risk their lives by combating fascism and intolerance. Although we work under such different conditions, there is much we can learn from each other and of course offer support to all those of us who need it.

The Fatal Realities of Fortress Europe
In Ukraine and Morocco, the NGOs face the harsh and fatal realities of Fortress Europe, which according to information collected by UNITED has cost more than 10.000 deaths since 1993. There are no official statistics on deaths during attempt to enter the EU so UNITED monitors news papers, collects witness reports etc. to collect this information. Ukraine and Morocco are among the countries which border the EU, so many refugees and migrants come here in order to somehow enter the EU in search of protection or mere survival. While the borders inside the EU have been “falling”, the ones with the outside world have constantly been reinforced through militarization and exclusion policies. Thousands have drowned or have been shot at the borders. Yet news of these deaths rarely leads to strong reactions in the European societies.

Ukraine has recently signed a Readmission Treaty with the EU to accept all rejected asylum seekers from EU countries if they are suspected of having entered from Ukraine. In return, the EU has promised to make it easier for Ukrainian citizens to get visas and finance some more asylum camps in Ukraine (there are currently only two and they’re not very big). In reality, there is no functioning asylum system in Ukraine. Migrants are merely registered and then it’s up to them to somehow survive in a country where they don’t have work permits and very often face harassment and extortion by the police. Asylum seekers deported from the EU are usually imprisoned straight away. Morocco from time to time rounds up and deports asylum seekers to Algeria, where the military regime has been known to drive them to the desert and leave them there to die. NGOs in these countries are often denied access to the camps where asylum seekers and migrants are kept and legal assistance is usually denied.

The fatal realities of Fortress Europe also include deaths upon deportations from EU countries. There have been numerous cases where rejected asylum seekers have been deported directly into the hands of their persecutors, like Mohamed Yahya from Somalia who was killed on June 1^st 2004 in Mogadishu after being deported from Denmark. When facing deportation, some rejected asylum seekers see no other solution than to commit suicide in order to give their minor children a chance to stay in an EU country, like 35-year old Manuel Bravo from Angola who hanged himself on September 15^th 2005 at Yarl’s Wood removal centre in Bedfordshire (GB) to save his son Antonio.

Hearing about the consequences of the European exclusion policies made a big impression on me, especially since the situation in the countries around the EU is almost never mentioned in Danish media. Therefore there is all the more reason to inform the European population of these consequences, as the politicians probably want to hide them by putting a pressure on countries like Ukraine and Morocco to do the “dirty work” for them.

The Ex-Yugoslav Connection
The biggest revelation though was meeting the participants from Serbia. There were two from QUEERIA – Centre for Promoting Non-Violence and Equality and one from the Ethnicity Research Centre, both in Belgrade. Before I met them I didn’t know that there was resistance in Serbia. Although I now realize how silly that was, I guess I just thought that Đorđe Balašević, the legendary musician from Novi Sad, was completely alone when it comes to criticizing the nationalism in Serbia. Never having been in Serbia and not having any family or friends there, my knowledge of the political situation in the country was limited to what I’ve been told by Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina and what I from time to time hear in Danish media, the former being very one sided and the latter far from in-depth.

With this in mind I was very thrilled to learn about a broader resistance activism from the Serbian participants, which really warmed my heart. Their answer to the nationalists’ self-hypnotizing “Kosovo is Serbia” is simply “Kosovo is Kosovo”. A government has not yet been formed in Serbia, and the three of them expect new elections to take place this fall, at which point they will yet again campaign for a pro-European government. It’s an uneven fight, as the authorities seem to be set on keeping young people from voting. When there were riots in the streets of Belgrade after Kosovo had declared independence, all the schools and universities were closed so more people could go on the streets. On Election Day though many students had exams and couldn’t vote, because the universities wouldn’t change the date…

Their activism is not just about combating nationalism and the recent ultra-religious hype in Serbia and Serbian diaspora manifested through mass-prayers among other things. It’s also about combating discrimination against homosexuals and other sexual minorities. It’s my impression that the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina is the same as in Serbia when it comes to homosexuality – it’s a taboo and nowhere near as accepted as in Denmark, so organisations like QUEERIA are much needed if we are to achieve more tolerant societies in the region.

At the conference I also met participants from Slovenia and Croatia, and it wasn’t long before all of us were singing the Bosnian song from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest as well as some old songs about Yugoslavia – something I had never imagined I’d be doing. Talking to them, finding out about their work and hearing their comments on the political situation in their countries was really a turning point during the conference.

All Different, All Equal
There were many really interesting participants, several of which were immigrants or refugees like myself. Several had been to Bosnia-Herzegovina (and enjoyed the awesome food!), and I met someone as unlikely as a Kurdish man from Iraq who had lived in Syria and Denmark and spoke Bosnian!

On the last day the organizers asked me to speak to the plenary about my own war experiences and the life as a refugee and foreigner in Denmark. I told them about the completely coincidental way I had ended up here, which is why the matter of choice has become very important to me. I talked to them about wanting to be the one who decides where I should be, that I don’t want some Serb soldiers or the UN to decide for me. I said that I don’t entirely feel like I belong in Denmark and when someone asked me to explain, I told them that if only I had a crowd like them in Denmark, I’d feel at home. And it’s true. It was the same thing during Kultour, the multi-cultural tour in Denmark, where we were all of different nations, religions and backgrounds. That’s where I feel at home. Among citizens of the world.