Ronen.Dvarim — Deuteronomy – projects, pictures and words

For a  Feature for the German magazine “Kunst+Kultur”, Israeli and Palestinian artist were asked to answer the question bellow in 1000(!) characters. here is my answer.

After the Gaza-War (or should I say Gaza-disaster?): Is there still a chance left to build an enduring peace? And if there is a chance left: What has to happen to implement an enduring peace?

I have to believe that there is a chance left for an enduring peace. If there is none, it’s too hard to grasp. What kind of country will I be bound to live in? What possibilities are left? Israel becoming more and more an apartheid state, A Jewish theocracy, a country in a constant state of war, choosing apartments to live in by the thickness of their cement walls that can withhold rocket attacks, choosing not to have children so they won’t learn racism at school and then be drafted to the army and become traumatized killers like their parents.
Yes, we can start planning the alternatives, admit to ourselves that the Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, a place apprising to live up to the vision of being a “light to the nations”, generating a cultural and spiritual renaissance as well as “normalize” the Jewish people and establish a safe haven has failed. Admit that the whole place is rotten and ask our former predators to let us back, as I did with the project Medinat Weimar (http://medinatweimar.org/) where I created a movement for a Jewish state in Thuringia.
But there has to be hope. There is no evidence in the political sphere or in the public debate to provide any, but one most look hard, in the cracks, in unseen corners, in gaps between the words, in gestures of loved and strangers that have lost all words. Hope that can be found In the few thousand Jews and Arabs who marched together under threat of violence and shouted in the streets of cities that we refuse to be enemies, in the hundreds of poets, artist and musicians who came with their scribbled notes, guitars and laptops and yelled from their heart against the killings and destruction at the many rallies and events the media ignored, in the students in Ber-Sheva, calling to end the violence, who stood together Jews and Arabs, on the street corners illegally, exposing themselves not only to the police violence and arrest but also to the Hamas rockets that fell on at their city,  and in all those who refuse to take part in the hate and try to build not a Jewish state or a Palestinian state but a state of mind of living together.

Lazet!* A Collection against the war in Gaza and the abandonment of the south, was created in great urgency and anger, immediately with the beginning of the war, as a prompt protest act. The collection is a collaborative project by Maayan, Etgar, Maarav, Daka, Sedek art and poetry journals and Guerrilla culture group. On the third day of the war we sent out the open call. On the fifth day of the war we sat for twelve intense hours of editing to chose material. We received hundreds of poems, drawings, essays, stories and stories, but unfortunately it was only possible to use a small portion for the print. We rushed to have the booklet ready for the big “Against the War” demonstration in Tel Aviv  that will take place on Saturday night – a week for the war.

Download Lazet! (pdf) (the booklet is in Hebrew)

Lazet! Calls to the end of the occupation and denounces the massacres and killings.  Lazet! Calls for an immediate seize fire. Lazet!  Calls to to emerge (“Lazet”* ) in a long term and visionary action of living together, dialogue and corporation based on true equality.

לצאת! קוראת להפסיק את הכיבוש ולצאת לפעולה ארוכת טווח ובעלת חזון רב-תרבותי ושוויוני. אנחנו מגנים את הטבח וההרג, קוראים להפסקת אש מיידית ולמעבר לפסים של הידברות ושיתוף.

*Lazet לצאת:      to go outside, to exit ; to leave (esp. country, state) ; to leave for ; to leave for ; to emanate from, to emerge from ; to depart ; to break out, to come forth; to appear (sun, moon) ; to terminate (Sabbath, Festival) ; (literary) to pass (time) ; to escape from, to overcome ; to originate from , to be derived from ; to be based on ; it follows, the result is, the upshot is ; to be published ; to announce, to come out in public ; to so happen, to turn out that

La-zet!

Medinat Weimar received hundreds of responses and Media outlets worldwide wrote about the project. Press here for a selected list of internet links of many of the articles, Blog posts and discussion that can be found on the internet.

See Pictures from the Rally & conference took place in Weimar on the 22nd of June and Watch Psoy Korolenko and Danik Redlick of the The Unternationale who send their greeting for the establishing events.

my new project, Medinat Weimar has started:

Shalom friends and future supporters,

Medinat Weimar the newly founded movement for a Jewish state in Thuringia, Germany, is in the process of drafting support for the movement.

We invite and encourage people from any background and nationally to become active members of the movement and take part in forwarding the vision based on the Thirteen Principles of the movement that you can read below.

If you support the movement please! Enter our website and fill the form of support.
http://medinatweimar.org/support/ Read More »

In the former Kebab shop named Munzur, Sebastian Rallo and I made an installation reflecting on our travels to the anti G8 demonstrations in Rostock, the Venice Biennale and the anti bush demonstration in Rome.

Through the installation we tried to share with the visitors our enthusiasm from the political experiences we participated in, but also the questions and dilemmas these kind of travels raise.

The instillation had both texts and sounds that we collected during our travels. We also created a video and museum like display. For obvious reasons the instillation was best experienced at the place but I will try to describe it for those who could not make it to Weimar.

Entering the Kebab shop, on the right we hung the manifestos of two groups we met at the anti G8 demonstrations that we felt close to them, the Hedonist International and the Rebel Clown Army. Between there manifest we hung earphones that your could hear: “Brigada Flores Magon” from the Antifa organized Concert, Redlich (the camp where we stayed next to Rostock).

In the corner we placed the video “The Best Work of Art I Experienced This Summer”, that you can view here. Above the video on the light box is “Following the Powers Travel Menu” presenting how much the deal cost us.

To the left of that you can listen to an interview from the Venice Biennale where Sebastian talks With Exhibition Guard Margerita where she complains about the being a precarious worker, and to the interview I gave in Venice at WPS1 art radio boat. Also hanging in this corner is the a document explaining the Italian labor laws giving a deeper understanding to what Magerita was talking about.

On the other side of the shop there is an old display refrigerator where we presented artifacts belonging to the “art work”.

After visiting Venice Biennale, Documenta 12, Skulptur Projekt Munster and the anti-G8 demostrations in Rostock, I describe the best work of art I have experienced this summer.

I returned a week ago from Venice after spending 10 days following the powers. I went to Rostock to participate in the anti g8 demonstrations, them flew to Venice to the see the 52^nd art biennale. From Venice we joined activists from the area whom squatted a train that took us to Rome and participated at a big demonstration against George Bush who was visiting the Italian capital.

I was planning on writing many things about our adventures. I wanted to talk about the dissonance I felt in Venice coming straight from the anti g8 camp. i came from wonderful experience, from a great feeling of solidarity, demanding together with people from around the world a more equal world with less poverty and oppression. Then, arriving in at the Venice biennale that displayed art work with similar themes, but even more it displayed overwhelming wealth and the differences between those who have and those who have not.

But I came back exhausted and confused and realized that I need more time to get my thoughts an ideas straight. I left home with the idea that just like the g8 summit is the gathering of the political elite opened only to the wealthiest countries, in a similar way the Venice biennale is the g8 of the cultural elite witch in most cases come from the same countries as those who met in Heiligendamm. I still hold this idea, but of course the reality is more complex and it’s important to recognize and explore this idea deeper.

So hopefully in the near future I will expand more on these themes and my feelings that arose in Venice and at the demonstrations. I would also like to explore deeper the relationship between art, esthetics and creative resistance that was very present at the anti g8 demonstrations. i would also like to expand on the presence of street art and street artist at the bienalle, but this will have to wait a couple weeks when I have more time.

Meanwhile enjoy my flicker photo set from my travels. As always, remarks are most welcome.

The Refugee Caravan is coming to Thüringen and will holding an event in Jena and at the Freienbessingen Refugee Camp (check out post!). You are all invited to join if you are in the area.

The Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants invites you to participate in the 2007 Tour with us. We will be travelling through Germany for two weeks (May 19 to June 4, 2007) before the G8 Summit. The Tour will begin in Neuburg close to Munich and will end in Rostock close to Heiligendamm, where the Summit will take place. This is how we want to show the connection between migration and the destruction of the home countries of refugees and migrants by the G8 States. We will focus on the countries of origin at every station of the tour. We also want to draw public attention to the awful situation of deportations and camps in Germany and Europe as a whole. The Tour is organised by refugee and migrant self-organizations in cooperation with the NoLager Network and other anti-racist groups.

Press to see larger. (I designed the fliers – my small contribution to the struggle)

Please download the flyers and ditrubute:
Caravan Schedule Thüringen (english) /Caravan Schedule Thüringen (deutch) /
close the larger (deutch) / close the larger (english) / send fax (deutch)

For more information: thevoiceforum.org / thecaravan.org

My dear freind Charlotte Misselwitz who has worked as a journalist in Israel, Palestine and Russia is now back working in her home town of Berlin. She joined us in the Anti-Nazi demo on Mayday. 

Hello friends in Russia, Israel and Palestine,
We beat them! This is what I told my colleague from the politics desk, after having come back from the Anti-Neonazi demonstration in Erfurt this first of May. The thin, tall super model type turns her beautiful head striking her dark long hair out of her face. She gives me one of her usual radiant and irritated smiles. Of course, surrounded by the morning light, the amazing view over the city from the rooftop palace that we share as an office, words like Nazi, demonstration or even Erfurt (a town in Southern Germany) are ghosts for her. They make her shiver but at the same time they don’t belong to reality. So I spare her the rest, just say there were 600 Neonazis from all over Germany and about 2000 regional demonstrators. And her world is back in order.
Read More »

On the May 1st (2007) the so-called “free forces” and the NPD – the Nazis, tried to march in Erfurt. We the anti-fascist counter demo successfully blocked over one thousand of these extreme right wing fascists. It was a good day; the Nazis did not manage to march more than 200 meters and were stuck for hours in the sun in an off-central part of the city. There was very little violence and thousands of people showed up to make sure that the Nazis would not feel welcome, a task especially important in East Germany where they still have some popularity. But the day was also upsetting, because for the first time I was confronted with large numbers of Neo-Fascists. I saw them wave flags, shout slogans and assemble. Watching them made me sick, standing nearby these people, I just wanted to throw up and I felt a little dizzy. They were chanting slogans like “the streets of Germany for the German young men” but also there were slogans such as: ‘Future instead of globalization — work for millions instead of profits for millionaires.’

What I noticed and later learned is that Germany’s most popular far-right group, the National Democratic Party – NPD hopes to benefit from the populist battle between rich and poor by joining the many left-wing groups protesting globalization, using anti-capitalist rhetoric. But it’s an anti-capitalist anti American rhetoric that is paired with anti-Semitic and xenophobic ideas aimed at keeping immigrants out or sending foreigners living in Germany back home. Of course this is not a new strategy and fascist groups have always been doing this, but what is scary is to see how they purposely and blatantly copy not only the rhetoric of the radical left but are also taking its customs and even aesthetics. The English Fascist National Front Party hijacked the skinhead subculture of the working class youth in England in the sixties and seventies and built their power and strength through an originally genuine youth culture. It looks like the NPD in Germany is trying to do the same with the autonomist–anarchist–punk–street culture of Germany today. There are still many bonehead old school skinhead style Nazis. But in many cases it was hard to tell the difference between the sides and many fascists are not only using the slogans of the left but are dressed looking like anarchists, in shorts, hoodies and even Mohawks.

The day:

Originally I thought of going to Berlin for Mayday. Berlin has a long tradition of resistance, demonstrations, rioting and of course parties on May 1st, so of course I wanted to experience the day in Berlin. But when I heard that the main Nazi demonstration was planned in Erfurt, the capital Thuringia only 20 minutes from Weimar I knew that my plans had changed.

The tension and fear was already felt as before we* left Weimar. At the train station the were dozens of cops in riot gear and rumors were going around that the Nazis could at the last moment change their plans and march in Weimar. This would be even worse because the people mobilizing against them were in Erfurt and this would have left Weimar, Hitler’s favorite town, free of Nazi resistance.

The anti Nazi march was planned for 12 o’clock because the Nazi’s were marching at 2pm, this would allow nonofficial decentralized actions against the Nazi march to commence after our demonstration. Stupidly we missed the 11 o’clock train so we had to wait 40 minutes for the next train, when we came back to the train platform we already started noticing some right wing skins and there was even a young man with a Hitler haircut. Later I was told that he was the Nazi leader in Weimar and that he killed a Vietnamese kid and sat in jail for five years. Before the train arrived a police officer approached us and recommended that we do not go on to the train because they would be filled with fascists and it would put us in danger. So we took a step back and watched as the train from the east pulled in to the platform carrying the boneheads, many with beer bottles and freshly buzzed heads. Yes, at this moment we were scared and for the first time (and not the last that day) I felt comfortable with the heavy German police presence.

We met up with some leftist punks and took the next train to Erfurt still not sure how we would handle getting through the train station. The Erfurt train station was full of riot police, as we got of the train a middle aged police man came up to us and asked, links or rechts? (left or right?), we quickly replied that we on the left and were shown the safe way out of the station. We arrived at the meeting point just in time to join the antifascist march and we marched with around another 2000 demonstrators through the streets of the town. When we got to the center we realized the hundreds of cops were totaling blocking any exit from the demonstration preventing anyone from leaving the march and going to block the Nazi march. We were told from other friends from Weimar that many antifascists were already on the side of town and were attempting to block the route of the Nazi march by sitting on the road. We made a few failing attempts to leave the march and join the blockers but the police really closed the march from all sides. We marched through the main big street of the city and then came to a stop. The police blocked the direction we wanted to go and we had no desire to continue marching in circles. The organizers announced that there where 1200 fascists marching but also the there are people blocking there march and hinted that we should leave the march and try to join them. There was a small standoff but after around a half an hour we realized that the crowd was getting smaller and that people were sneaking out of the square where we were stuck. We soon found the opening and also left the demo in an attempt to join the blockers on the other side of the city.

Anti-Fascist rally (Press to enlarge)

After a small lunch break at a Turkish doner, we walked to the train station planning to cross it to get to the other side of the city where we were told that the block was happening. We put on our most innocent face and walked up to the police barricade hopping that they will let us by. This did not work, Oguz my house and class mate from Turkey suggested that we go into the station and walk out the other side. Surprisingly that simple plan worked and we found ourselves walking freely between the dozens of police vans parked behind the station. By approaching other lefty looking young people we learnt that we were on the Nazi side of the block and to join our comrades we would have to make a big circle around the police barricades. Not completely understanding where we were going we headed to a big mass of people that we assumed were blocking the Nazi rally, but as we got closer something started to look strange. Around thirty meters before we reached the first line of people we suddenly realized that we just walked into the Nazi rally. It was so confusing, there were black flags in the air, many young ‘normal’ looking guys and also nobody stopped us. There were a few riot cops standing between us but that was not really comforting. I was really scared but also really intrigued. I wanted to look close at them, maybe understand something, and see the Nazis close up. But all I saw was a bunch of young German men (and very few women) with casual clothes and mostly short haircuts, standing around and chanting. But this was what was so scary; many of them, looked so regular, so normal, like I could meet them next week at a student party. In the Israeli press they always show pictures of the Neo –Nazis with the skinhead uniforms and angry faces, there where those kind there of course, but it was the ones that looked like my friends that made me shiver.

Nazi rally

Later we left the Nazi side and managed to join some blockers. We heard that they were going to march back to the train station and march in Weimar. Quickly another kind of block assembled on the side near the station making the Nazi rally blocked from both sides. We later discovered that the police took away the assemble license from the Nazis because some threw some stones and bottles at the police, but they were still stuck, with hundreds of riot police protecting them from the thousands of anti-fascist that by now were surrounding them. What I noticed that the at this point the crowd was much more diverse than before, along with the antifa anarchist and punks there were, greens, old people, yuppie couple, many students and just ordinary indefinable German citizens.

Nazi rally behind police lines

Anti-Fascist Block Special Riot Forces

After so many hours in the sun and being satisfied that the block was so successful, we headed to the train station to go back to Weimar. We convincingly went through the police barricades speaking English, showing our student cards and generally acting like stupid tourists (something that came quiet naturally to us). But standing on the platform waiting for the train the scariest thing of the day happened to us. The police managed to assemble a security human tunnel for the Nazis and lead them to the train station. Suddenly we realized that they were marching right towards us, before we understood what was going on hundreds of Nazis where marching only meters away from us on the platform across the tracks. Them they started marching down the stairs and coming up on our platform. As this was happening the train arrived. The police quickly pushed into the last car and locked the doors, the rest of the cars were then filled with the Nazis. We pulled out of the station and them saw that hundreds of the Nazis were standing on the platform where we had just left. We got out of Erfurt safely but we still had to get out of the train in Weimar meeting our local frustrated failed Nazis who would be getting off the train with us. As we got of the train in Weimar we saw only two cops on the platform, so we were apprehensive about leaving the station considering the Nazis were eyeing us from the other end the platform. We pulled back two traditional looking Turkish guys who seemed uncertain of what was happening. So we waited a few minutes trying to figure out how to get home only to discover that down the stairs in the station there we around thirty riot cops just waiting to protect.

Nazi marching on train platform, we are just meters away (press to enlarge)

* ”We” is: my wonderful house mates: Teresa (the photos are mostly hers), Mark, Oguz, Sebastian and his three Italian hooligan friends and of course my dear friend Charlotte who report you can read here.