Written by Fjell to Jeddeloh, Managing Director of WfGA.
Erfurt. A lot of things are going on for Sunday before Camp Start. Tent in tent stands in the "more quiet" places on the fenced terrain in the city park. The lawn is mowed. I have traveled to the workshop to help shape the camp and bring our workshops into the extensive programme, but after an exhausting journey and finally still hunger I fall into the tent.
A Camp Walk
The site
"Coffee is a colonial product" stands on a sign next to the huge heat container. "So consider spending a little more on it." I'll take a cup. I donate and walk over the large grounds with the coffee in my hand. There is a tent called "Forest instead of asphalt", a tent with a huge banner title "Gegen den Rechtsruck", and almost countless other tents for workshops that will take place here from today. At a small kiosk people can buy the most necessary. The main path is picked at two ends with info points to the camp. At two large stations there are hand wash basins made of truck tarpaulins, labeled with "Please open only with elbows", disinfectant, as well as an interesting combination of Hock-Pipi-Klo and shower. Later, Dixies, whose inner doors appear from the Nu-folked shields: "The diarrhea toilet! If you have diarrhea, please attach this shield to the outside!" It seems that some things have been considered in advance. There are retreats from the awareness structures for marginalized groups, named here with BIPOC, FLINTA*, Jewish people, people with disabilities, neurodiverse people. Generally there are two awareness structures, a GDPOC awareness and a general one.
Reactions to the Camp
06:30. A loud, unspeakably long horn wakes me. "Good morning, you lulls," a deep voice crumbles into the camp and lets the engine cry. Luckily, I can sleep again. "Go to work, you lazy sacks," later a cyclist shouts, who runs past the main road. Lolo from the Shit Brigade wipes with the elbow the sweat from the forehead to not touch his skin with the big yellow gloves with which he has been brushing for five hours at over 30 degrees clos. "Just honestly, I don't let you tell me now," he says, keeps your hands up and laughs. I just sit in a workshop on "Another Tec is possible" and even sweat in sitting. It's about how digital capitalism works. Here too, the approximately 40 participants stare at the cyclist surprises.
Other people come by and ask carefully and interested in what we do, or how it goes. "So, I really think so, so, really great what you do here. So many young people, so much commitment. In these times, man, this is so important," says a person. Her Chihuahua sniffs hectic at the chestnut next to the way and she plucks him a little back. "So then, I wish you all the best for the coming days."
Guided tours of the camp are also well accepted. One of my participants from the day before even tries to invite people out on the street. The organization of the camp was important to be connected to the district. Some of Erfurters: they also look past events, take part in workshops and seem to have come to taste.
Workshop. In my workshop "How to Plenary – short and crunchy" sit over 40 participants:inside, all with pre-experienced Plena from their organizations. Every topic is reopened, nor in the snake for food, I discuss with a participating person the problems of how to bring performance and fun together to neither work productively nor politically with each other without a result.
Camp Life, Anecdotes and Supply
"MIKE CHECK", Müsli cries about the garlic flag, the collective that cooks the camp.
"We are looking," he calls, his voice slightly hospitable from the many announcements. The crowd that sits on the meadow just for dinner echoes his words so that a choir bears the sayings about the camp: "WIR SUCHEN" – "6 people" – "6 LEUTE" – "to rinse" – "ZUM ABSPÜLEN!".
So it goes several times a day, for all possible topics. In the evening people will find dessert at Crêpê Stand All Crepes Are Beautiful together. The booth has a docked, anarchist-climate-political-feminist library with carpet and a lamp from the 80s. One of the Crêpê people lights candles in the evening. After two days, he asks me with glowing eyes: "Re chocolate pistacia?" and I nod. You seem to have infinite power. In the background, René Binamé – La vie s’écoule and the other, tireless Crêpê Mensch summs wippening.
Against fascism
Payment card
One day I visit a lecture on the topic Payment card from the refugee council. Some refugees report what massive and inhuman restrictions they experience through the payment card. In Hesse, where the card is already active, people get extremely little cash, instead often vouchers for supermarkets. As a payment card, many supermarkets do not accept the card at all. The card is limited in its validity to the region of its stay, so that the radius of movement of the:r card holder is extremely controlled and small. I don't think I need to mention how unworthy this is. One of the practical appeals for direct aid is to develop structures in which activists: buy the vouchers for cash from the people of accommodation. A woman from the audience stands up and calls: "We don’t need a demo, we don’t need anything that is planned and implemented in two years; what we need is cash. Here you can really help us."
In Baden-Württemberg, the map was introduced in some counties already at the beginning of the year, others are in discussion, as well as a cross-border measure.
City-country networking in Brandenburg and Thuringia
Tonight, I visit a podium on urban-land networking against legal pressure in East Germany. People on the podium are addressing the problem of the lack of long-term support for rural communities. This is mainly about the peasant protests and a differentiated (counter) position to the peasant association.
On the other hand, phrases like "don’t talk to right" against rural organization often appear as stigma. "Because if we don't talk to rights, there aren't so many people we can talk to," says a spokesman:in. "And if I can just say this: it’s not like nobody knows that capitalism sucks. If the city-left is not moving to the one major demo on the country, then we are standing there, with three people, and with three hundred. This is reality. And that's quite unpleasant." Many in the audience nod.
Later I meet Seli in the kitchen queue, which has rejoiced over the banner that has appeared sometime between the trees and bears the inscription "Solidarity with Palestine". It considers that the issue is not sufficiently represented. I decide that maybe it's best to let the evening and maybe the camp end at a Crêpê.
"Chocolate with pistacia?" the person asks from the stand smiling. I say, "Very happy," I say.
The approaches for social transformation are diverse; almost everywhere I go, the demand is clear: "We need more people who join us in the long term."
With the social drift according to law, the further progress of the climate catastrophe and the increasing crises in the world, the construction sites are of course no less. In general, it can be said: for everything that the system cannot operate and what goes wrong in the world to find solidarity alternatives, that is hardly possible. Rather, it is worth focusing on its own – whether it be climate, flight and borders, peace, feminism, ableism or other.
But the mutual update on the stand in the movements must not be omitted – and there is a camp like the System Change Camp an important stimulus as well as live example for solidarity organization – of course always as work in progress.
And we shouldn't lose the fun!
