Aufruf: Mach mit im anarchistischen Barrio auf dem Rheinmetall-Entwaffnen-Camp in Köln

[english below]

Anarchist*innen in die Anti-Kriegs-Bewegung! Bringt anarchistische Ideen unter die Leute! Gegen Krieg, gegen Kolonialismus, gegen Ausbeutung, gegen Herrschaft!

Wir rufen zur Teilnahme antiautoritärer, autonomer und anarchistischer Individuen und Gruppen auf dem Rheinmetall Entwaffnen Camp vom 25.08. bis zum 31.08.2025 in Köln auf. Entsprechend unserer Ideen einer freien Gesellschaft schlagen wir Horizontalität und Selbstorganisation vor.

Mit der Angst und der Wut, die der Krieg hervorruft wächst die Opposition gegen Jene, die ihn betreiben. Mit den antagonistischen Ideen wächst das Potential für Widerstand. Dort, im Widerstand, in der Suche nach Möglichkeiten, den Angriffen von Staat und Kapital etwas entgegenzusetzen, ist der Ort der radikalen Bewegung für Befreiung und dort verbreitet sie ihre Ideen der Solidarität, Gleichheit und Freiheit.

Der sichtlich zunehmende Militarismus und die Kriegstreiberei sind kein isoliertes Phänomen oder eine Entartung des Systems. Es ist das wahre Gesicht des Kapitalismus und einer autoritären und patriarchalen Gesellschaft. Es ist der dauerhafte Zustand einer Welt, in der die Ideen von Profit und Ausbeutung es schaffen, das Territorium und das Leben und die Beziehungen bis in die Tiefe zu beherrschen. Während Krieg in vielen Teilen der Welt als grausamer Normalität entgegnet wird, sind andere Teile wie Mitteleuropa jetzt mit einer neuen Realität eines Systems konfrontiert, das seine Maske fast vollständig hat fallen lassen.

Aber sogar diese Maske hat sich oft als brüchig und verwundbar erwiesen, wenn gegen das dahinter liegende System der Unterdrückung und Herrschaft zurückgeschlagen wurde. Kämpfe gegen Gentrifizierung, Umweltzerstörung, Patriarchat, Rassismus, Nationalismus und Kolonialismus haben immer wieder das wahre Gesicht dieses Systems mit seinen Herrschaftsstrukturen, die die Erde und das Leben nur als Quelle der Anhäufung von Kapital sehen und die Krieg gegen alles was ihnen im Weg steht führen, entlarvt.

Gentrifizierung und Umweltzerstörung sind nichts anderes als die systematische Schwächung der Gesellschaft, ihrer Lebensgrundlagen und ihrer Beziehungen mit dem Zweck sie regierbar zu machen. In ihrer Hauptfunktion sind Patriarchat und Rassismus eine System, das die Solidarität untereinander zerstört, indem wir auf Grundlage von Herkunft sowie von biologischen und psychologischen Eigenschaften auseinandergehalten werden. Nationalismus und Kolonialismus sind zutiefst damit verbunden und die notwendige Voraussetzung einer Gesellschaft die andere besetzt, ausbeutet und vernichtet.

Da wir als Anarchist*innen/Autonome immer gegen jede Form der Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung waren und immer gegen sie kämpfen werden, sollten wir Militarismus entgegentreten. Dies nicht, um die eine oder die andere staatliche Gesellschaft in ihrem imperialistischen und chauvinistischen Hype zu mäßigen, sondern um eine radikale Opposition zu sein, die weitere Massenschlächterei und Genozid nach Außen sowie Spaltung, Integration und Auslöschung der Klasse im Inneren untergräbt und sabotiert. In gelebter Solidarität als Betroffene von Inflation, sozialen- und Lohnkürzungen, Zwangsarbeit, Autoritarismus und dessen Technologien, Gentrifizierung, Patriarchat… und in gelebter Solidarität mit jenen, die Imperialismus, Kolonialismus und Genozid in erster Linie in Form von Bomben, Dronen, Panzern, Software und ähnlichem ausgesetzt sind.

Dazu müssen wir keine neuen Wege, Mittel oder Strategien erfinden. In jüngster Vergangenheit wurden dazu wieder genug Vorschläge gemacht. Von der Sabotage an der Kriegsindustrie und der Infrastruktur über das Organisieren von Interventionen und Demonstrationen gegen Veranstaltungen wie den bevorstehenden Veteranentag in Berlin bis hin zum Zerschlagen oder Konfrontieren von öffentlichen Rekrutierunsveranstaltungen oder Offizieren in den Schulen genauso wie von Armeewerbung – jede kleine und große Aktion zählt und wird zu etwas beitragen, das das Potential hat, eine gewaltige Bewegung zu werden – so wie wie wir es viele Male in der Vergangenheit gesehen haben. In Köln werden wir Zeit und Raum haben, uns gegenseitig zu inspirieren, einander Fähigkeiten zu vermitteln, Netzwerke des Widerstandes zu knüpfen oder zu stärken und ganz praktisch einige der schlimmsten Unternehmen anzugehen, die direkt von der Kriegstreiberei und dem Schlachten profitieren.

Der Kampf und die Erinnerung von Generationen von Kämpfer*innen, die für die Sache des Sieges über den Krieg der Diktaturen und Demokratien gegen die Menschen lebten und starben, werden unseren Weg erleuchten und unsere Entschlossenheit stärken.

Auch in Gedenken an sie rufen wir zu einem Treffen der Anarchist*innen und Antiautoritären jeder Couleur in Köln in einem anarchistischen/autonomen Barrio innerhalb des Rheinmetall Entwaffnen Camps auf.

E-Mail: abarrio@systemli.org
Infos: https://anarchistbarrio.noblogs.org


Join the anarchist barrio at the Rheinmetall Entwaffnen Camp in Cologne 26.08.—31.08.2025

Anarchists in the Anti-War-Movement! Spread anarchist ideas among the people! Against war, against colonialism, against exploitation, against domination!

We call for a presence of antiauthoritarian, autonomous and anarchist individuals and groups on the Rheinmetall Entwaffnen Camp from 25th of August to 31st of August 2025 in Cologne. The proposal is to organize according to our ideas of a free society in a self-organized and horizontal way from below.

With the fear and anger about war, opposition grows against those who wage it. With antagonistic ideas, potential for resistance grows. In the resistance, the search for options to counter the states’ and capital’s attacks on us, there is the place of the radical movement for liberation and there it spreads its ideas of solidarity, equality and freedom.

The visibly growing militarism and warmongering is not an isolated phenomenon or perversion of a system. It is the real face of capitalism and an authoritarian and patriarchal society. It is a continuous condition of the world where ideas of profit and exploitation achieve to dominate the territory and lives and relations in depth. While for many parts of the world, war is recognized but also opposed as a cruel normality, other parts like central Europe are confronted now with the new reality of a system that dropped its facade almost entirely.

But even this facade had proven often as fragile and vulnerable when the underlying system of oppression and domination was under counter attack. Struggles against gentrification, environmental destruction, patriarchy, racism, nationalism and colonialism have showed again and again the true face of that system and its power structures, that treat the earth and live only as a source for the accumulation of capital and wage war against any obstacle in its way.

Gentrification and environmental destruction are nothing less than the systematic weakening of people, their necessities of life and their relations in order to make them governable. Patriarchy and racism in their core function are a system that destroys solidarity between each other by dividing us based on origin as well as biological and psychological characteristics of people. Nationalism and colonialism are deeply connected to it and are a necessary condition of society in order to subject others to invasion, exploitation and destruction.

Since we as anarchists/autonomous have always opposed and will always fight against each form of oppression and exploitation, we should counter militarism. Not in order to moderate one or the other statist society in it’s imperialist and chauvinist hype, but to be a radical opposition to undermine and sabotage further mass slaughter and genocide to the outside enemy and of division, integration and extinction of the class on the inside. In practical solidarity as people suffering from inflation, social and wage cuts, forced labor, authoritarianism and it’s technologies, gentrification, patriarchy… and in practical solidarity with people that face imperialism, colonialism and genocide mainly in the form of bombs, drones, tanks, software and so on.

Therefore we don’t need to invent new ways, new tools or strategies. Enough proposals have been made again lately. From sabotaging the war industry and the infrastructure to organizing interventions and demonstrations against events like the upcoming veterans day in Berlin to smashing or opposing recruitment events in public and officers in schools as well as the military advertising – every small and big action counts and will contribute to something that has the potential to become a powerful movement as we have seen many times in the past. In Cologne we will have time and space to inspire each other, to share skills, to establish or to strengthen networks of resistance and practically to confront some of the most notorious companies that profit directly from warmongering and slaughter.

The struggle and memories of generations of fighters that have lived and died for the cause of winning against the dictatorships’ and democracies’ war against the people will illuminate our paths and strengthen our own dedication.

It’s also in their memory that we call for a convergence of anarchists and antiauthoritarians of all kinds in Cologne on an anarchist/autonomous space inside of the Rheinmetall Entwaffnen Camp.

Email: abarrio@systemli.org
Infos: https://anarchistbarrio.noblogs.org

Communiqué from Rheinmetall Entwaffnen on the war in Gaza

#StopWar
The brutal war in Palestine and the war crimes associated with it must be stopped immediately! As the antimilitarist alliance „Rheinmetall Entwaffnen“, we have developed a current state of discussion as a basis for our cooperation, which we would like to make transparent. For our practice in Germany, this means in particular

– We are fighting to end arms deliveries from Germany to Israel. German arms companies earn millions in profits from the suffering of the Palestinians. For example, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition were used in the war in Gaza, being delivered from Germany to Israel at the end of 2023.

„Communiqué from Rheinmetall Entwaffnen on the war in Gaza“ weiterlesen

Disarm Kiel – sink the war industry!

Disarm Rheinmetall – Call for antimilitarist action camp: September 3 to 8, 2024 in Kiel, Northern Germany

Resistance against the new normality of armament, thousands of deaths, flight and displacement is the order of the day. Together with many hundreds of activists, we will gather from 3rd to 8th September for an action camp in Kiel – one of the armament and military hotspots in Germany. There, together with international friends and comrades, we will discuss strategies for our common struggle and carry out direct actions against the military and the arms industry.

War regimes, exploitation and oppression
Our world is in danger of sinking into war and Germany is part of this globally escalating war regime. War technology and weapons produced in Kiel spread unspeakable suffering. The mass killings on the war fronts in Ukraine, the tens of thousands of deaths and displacement in Gaza, the suffering in Kurdistan are just a few examples of the consequences of the global armament of the capitalist patriarchal system. And even where no „hot“ war is being fought, everything is being done to bring it about through unprecedented militarisation, flanked by growing nationalism and the profit interests of huge corporations.

This dynamic shows itself also very clear in Germany: the 100 billion euro rearmament package of the government is being financed by social cuts; protests against war are being answered by arming the police and restricting freedom of assembly.

Although sexualised violence is also embedded in the non-warlike normal state of capitalist societies, it is particularly clear in war zones how sexualised violence against women and other oppressed genders is used as a weapon and becomes a cruel part of everyday life. The subjugation of women is seen as a symbol of victory over the enemy. We condemn this patriarchal violence and at the same time its hypocritical instrumentalisation by Western states.

Changing the world together
Together with various groups and movements, we will fight for a just, ecological and feminist world, network internationally and disrupt the war industry in concrete ways. In doing so, we, the anti-militarist alliance „Disarm Rheinmetall“, will build on struggles here and worldwide. We stand on the side of all the oppressed and want to overcome the divisions between societies, genders, religions and regions. Only together can we create a different world.

War starts here – let’s stop it here
Kiel is the perfect place for our endeavour: There are only a few places in Germany where there are so many sites of the German army, navy and defence industry. At the same time, Kiel is a place of resistance, with an impressive revolutionary history such as the sailors‘ uprising of 1918. And also today there are numerous local resistance movements and allies.

Let’s organise a camp together against war, armament and the border regime! For solidarity and a common practice of resistance against the global war regime. See you in Kiel from 3 to 8 September.

More information (unfortunately only in german) can be found here:
https://rheinmetallentwaffnen.noblogs.org

On the occasion of the escalation in the Middle East

As the anti-militarist alliance „Rheinmetall Entwaffnen“(1) we want to speak out on the handling in the FRG of the current escalation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. For decades there has been an asymmetrical war between Israel and the Palestinian population in Gaza and the occupied territories, which is an expression of an unresolved political conflict. A war in which massacres of the civilian population are perpetrated again and again. We condemn these crimes – and the war in which millions of people are cut off from access to water, electricity and food. A war in which hundreds of thousands are once again displaced. A war in which more protagonists than Israel and Hamas are involved. Germany is also involved by supplying weapons of war. Media and politics are currently trying to prevent any visible dissent to the Israeli warfare.

We are confronted by the media with horrific images of sexualized violence by Hamas against women. Images that exist in every war. In every country where war is waged, the subjugation of women is seen as a symbol of victory over the enemy. We condemn this sexualized violence against women as the epitome of patriarchal violence. Rape and sexualized violence in war are only possible because they are tolerated and used worldwide as an expression of patriarchal violence. Whether in Israel, Palestine, Kurdistan or elsewhere. We also condemn the instrumentalization of these images, which are deliberately used in the media to justify Israel’s attacks on the population of Gaza.

With the declaration of unrestricted solidarity of German politicians towards the Israeli state, the FRG also contributes to the dehumanization of the entire Palestinian population. Palestinians are portrayed by the state of Israel as terrorists, „human animals“ or as anti-Semitic. Germany sides with the Israeli state, which has announced that it will continue to intensify the murderous repression that has been taking place for decades in the open-air prison of Gaza.

The FRG, meanwhile, declares any expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people to be a hostile act and treats it as such. This goes so far that even a rally of Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East was banned and the Palestinian author Adania Shibli will not be awarded her literature prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Anti-war rallies and pro-Palestinian demonstrations are defamed in the media as anti-Semitic hate demonstrations and covered with repression. Organizations such as the prisoner support organization Samidoun are to be banned. Without any legal basis, the police prohibit the display of Palestinian flags and symbols.

We do not accept when any criticism of the policies of the Israeli state is equated with anti-Semitism. We oppose racist agitation and stand with progressive forces in Israel and Palestine against war and occupation.

Rheinmetall Entwaffnen, October 15th, 2023


(1) Literally translates as „Disarm Rheinmetall“. Rheinmetall is Germany’s biggest producer and exporter of arms.