24. January 2023
In
climate crisis
Statement on a case of racist police practice
+++ Statement on a case of racist police practice +++
In the early afternoon of the 21st of January, I was the subject of a
racist police control at Hochneukirch train station on the way to the
Lützi Art exhibition, shortly after leaving Unser Aller Camp.
As we walked onto the platform, 4-5 Bundespolizei got out of their van,
walked towards the platform, and approached me first. There’s no doubt
that had I not been black, they wouldn’t have controlled our group ;
based on my skin colour alone, they suspected and assumed I had no right
to be in Europe and was therefore and illegal immigrant and demanded to
see my passport.
Naturally, I don’t carry such an important document everywhere I go, and even when I told them I was a citizen of an EU country they still persisted with disbelief that I wasn’t in
Europe legally. They felt the right to enforce the border on someone
they perceived to not belong. If I had been on my own it would have been
even more intimidating, given that I don’t speak Deutsch.
Even after German speakers of the group had asked the officers for the reason
of the control and mentioned that if they talked with the person for
five minutes they would clearly realise from the accent this person was
from Europe, the police answered this person might have entered Germany
illegally without documents and thus a check was mandatory.
It was a humiliating experience and highlights how police repression is
threat to all of us : how racial profiling and the
repression/criminalisation of ecological resistance can coincide with
each other and how much more vulnerable participants from more
marginalized backgrounds are in these struggles. The restriction of
legitimate dissent and the criminalisation of minorities of all kinds,
especially those on the move fleeing from war, poverty and other threats
to life, must be resisted with equal vigour
Climate catastrophe will only bring more irregular movements of people fleeing from natural
disasters caused by the global North’s addiction to fossil fuels ; if
the adults in the room of the industrialised nations in Europe and
beyond continue to exploit carbon emitting resources to perpetuate an
unequal destructive economy which only benefits a bourgeois class
monopolizing ever more profits at the expense of the the working classes
across all borders, and especially the global south, then it can only
be called an act of horrific hypocrisy to criminalise and demonise those
who flee from the consequences of those same policies ; on top of the
politics of xenophobia scapegoating anyone “other” for the crises caused
by a bankrupt political and economic order.
In the early afternoon of the 21st of January, I was the subject of a
racist police control at Hochneukirch train station on the way to the
Lützi Art exhibition, shortly after leaving Unser Aller Camp.
As we walked onto the platform, 4-5 Bundespolizei got out of their van,
walked towards the platform, and approached me first. There’s no doubt
that had I not been black, they wouldn’t have controlled our group ;
based on my skin colour alone, they suspected and assumed I had no right
to be in Europe and was therefore and illegal immigrant and demanded to
see my passport.
Naturally, I don’t carry such an important document everywhere I go, and even when I told them I was a citizen of an EU country they still persisted with disbelief that I wasn’t in
Europe legally. They felt the right to enforce the border on someone
they perceived to not belong. If I had been on my own it would have been
even more intimidating, given that I don’t speak Deutsch.
Even after German speakers of the group had asked the officers for the reason
of the control and mentioned that if they talked with the person for
five minutes they would clearly realise from the accent this person was
from Europe, the police answered this person might have entered Germany
illegally without documents and thus a check was mandatory.
It was a humiliating experience and highlights how police repression is
threat to all of us : how racial profiling and the
repression/criminalisation of ecological resistance can coincide with
each other and how much more vulnerable participants from more
marginalized backgrounds are in these struggles. The restriction of
legitimate dissent and the criminalisation of minorities of all kinds,
especially those on the move fleeing from war, poverty and other threats
to life, must be resisted with equal vigour
Climate catastrophe will only bring more irregular movements of people fleeing from natural
disasters caused by the global North’s addiction to fossil fuels ; if
the adults in the room of the industrialised nations in Europe and
beyond continue to exploit carbon emitting resources to perpetuate an
unequal destructive economy which only benefits a bourgeois class
monopolizing ever more profits at the expense of the the working classes
across all borders, and especially the global south, then it can only
be called an act of horrific hypocrisy to criminalise and demonise those
who flee from the consequences of those same policies ; on top of the
politics of xenophobia scapegoating anyone “other” for the crises caused
by a bankrupt political and economic order.