European day of action for freedom of movement, was: Re: [ssf] G8 - openness and planning thoughts...

[Chris]

Hi

On Fri 25-Feb-2005 at 12:59:24AM -0000, Jase wrote:
> Immigration is a toughie, facts are hugely important,
> but preaching will just create distance and shut down
> communication. It is important to divide between asylum
> seekers (who come here to preserve their physical
> freedom) and immigrants (who come here for economic
> freedom). 

I don't that that *their* division of people into 'asylum
seekers' and 'economic migrants' is helpful or a division
we should accept -- as soon as you do you find you are
arguing on their ground about numbers, forms of control
and who can cross borders and who can't...

I think it's far better to say "no borders" and argue that
everyone on the planet should have the right to go where
they want.

The No Border Network, http://noborder.org/ are calling
for a second European day of action For freedom of
movement and the right to stay -- this is their call out:

  Last year a European Day of Action against detention
  centers and for the legalization of undocumented
  migrants was launched during the European Social Forum
  in Paris. A call was subscribed to by many different
  networks and groups, and on the 31st of January 2004
  demonstrations and actions were held in more than forty
  European cities
  (http://www.noborder.org/actionday2004/display.php?id=288).
  It was an important day in the development of a
  networking process among migrants‚ struggles and
  activists on a European level.

  This year we want to make a step forward. We propose to
  all European networks and social movements to join in
  the organization of a second day of action, to be held
  on April 2nd 2005, centered upon the claim for freedom
  of movement and the right to stay as an alternative to
  the European constitutional process.

  When we talk about the European constitutional process
  we think first of all of its material dimension, that is
  of the way the integration process has taken place
  concretely in the last years. A European citizenship is
  in the making, and we must focus our analysis on the way
  the borders of this citizenship are constructed and
  managed, both in their external and in their internal
  dimension. Detention center for migrants have played and
  continue to play a key role in this process. Although
  they have taken different shapes in different countries,
  they are actually European institutions, within a
  unified framework which promoted even an externalization
  process of camps beyond the « external » borders of the
  EU - from the Balkan to Libya and Marocco.

  Camps are the dark symbol of a migration politics which
  is not simply aimed at keeping refugees and migrants out
  of Europe, but rather at promoting a process of
  selective inclusion, also through illegalization, of the
  migrants. This process corresponds to the production of
  a hierarchy of rights as well as of legal and political
  positions, that lies at the core of the material
  transformations of citizenship in Europe and which is
  far from regarding only the migrants. And it corresponds
  to a new model of labor force management centered upon
  precarization and exploitation. The migrants are the
  subjects who experience in advance life and labor
  conditions that the whole workforce, certainly with
  different degrees, is beginning to experience in Europe.
  But on the other hand, their practices of mobility
  express a set of claims and demands which at the level
  of everyday life point to a different Europe. That is
  why we want to bring these interconnections and demands
  inside the Euro-May Day process and therefore call for a
  strong participation to the 1st of May 2005.

  Freedom of movement is in this sense no ideological or
  merely rhetorical claim. We believe that freedom of
  movement encompasses different struggles of migration
  taking place every day throughout Europe : struggles for
  housing and legalization, struggles against racism and
  camps, struggles on the workplace, the struggles of
  women to free themselves from the patriarchal structure
  of their original but also of their arrival places. The
  second day of action is intended to stress the
  importance of these struggles and to provide a
  transnational framework for the deepening and
  multiplication of their plurality. We invite all groups,
  networks and social movements in Europe, not only the
  ones working on migration-related issues, to join this
  call and to mobilize for April 2nd 2005. On the second
  day of action we will emphasize the demands of the last
  year call. Demonstrations, actions and struggles must
  take place everywhere in Europe on that day ! 

  http://noborder.org/item_fresh.php?id=323

Last year the SSF put on a coach to the Lindholm demo:

  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2004/01/284673.html

What about doing something in or near Sheffield on the 2nd
April?


Chris

PS The No One Is Illegal Manifesto well worth a read for a
   justification of the call for no borders:

   http://noii.org.uk/

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