Martin Luther King

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

You’re Not Done Yet – And Neither Are We

It’s very clear. We as a global community are not done yet. There’s loads of work to be done when it comes to tackling Climate Change. And it’s very clear that our ‘World Leaders’, political leaders from around the Globe and the UN have failed during the Climate Change Negotiations In Copenhagen. Whilst they promised us solutions they have only brought further destruction on our Climate. On our Future. On our survival.

They had their moment. Copenhagen was supposed to be that moment. that moment when we as a global community could go for a fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement that would stop Climate Change. But they didn’t take up that moment and make it into an opportunity. That whilst time is running out. Fast. Because it is about our Future. Our Climate. Our Survival.

Therefor it is of utmost importance to pressure our so-called leaders or become leaders ourselves by civil society and act now. Act in Bonn and Act in Mexico City.

Hopenhagen? Fuck No! More like Hellhagen

Feeling wise it seems the best way to move on from Copenhagen is to state that whatever happened in Copenhagen should remain there. A secret. Something less than perfect that needs no attention. A failure of the worst kind. Something that was supposed to be so good but turned into humanity’s worst nightmare.

This should be kept under wraps. We’re humans as it is. We would like to cover things up. Not see the truth. Live in an illusion. An illusion that we might keep till things come falling, crumbled, down upon our own little not-understanding heads. Should we? Can we? Will we be able to?

The outcome of Copenhagen was disastrous. Fuck, it even was disastrous the whole 12 days it lasted. It was already when it started an atrocity. With the leakking of the ‘Danish Text’ it held the promise of a difficult and hard Conference. That whilst the survival of our climate had to depend on it. Yet the text made the Bella Center buzz with outrage and opposition, especially from the Global South witch would have been threatened in existence and development. The true hero that stood up against all this shit from the developed countries was the little island state of Tuvalu. Because the mere survival of Tuvalu depended upon a fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement to come out of here. With the sea levels rising it is only a matter of a decade or so before the whole country of Tuvalu will be under the waves.

Many of these sad and depressing were being told inside the Bella Center by their delegates and civil society present there. How Climate Injustice also keeps gender injustice in powerful. How droughts were hitting parts of the African continent. How more than 900 million people depend upon the water of geltsjers that are now melting.

But all this apparently didn’t matter for those that were supposed to be our leaders. They kept distance. They kept silent. Or they kept on lying and making all these promises that they knew they wouldn’t keep. The EU and USA were cut out to do that job. They kept on skimming with malicious leaked texts, damaging meetings in Brussels and treating Global South and civil society delegates as trash.

They didn’t want to hear the facts, nor the voices of the thousands marching outside the Conference Center and all around the world on the 12th to ask for Climate Justice. They went on the path  they most probably already agreed upon before. To screw the Conference. And they were helpfully assisted the officials of the UNFCCC and the Danish Police forces.

Any opposition to what was going on, anything that even smelled like what would take to fight Climate Change was crushed. Either by Civil Society’s delegate numbers being demolished, Either by the protesters outside being beaten up, arrested, Pepper sprayed or held in the cold for hours. Either by complete ignoring the Global South. Those ones that have caused this current climate crisis the least but will be affected the first and the worst.

They. The Developed Countries. The West. They have ridiculed any outcome of The Climate Change Conference. They have made it fail. They looked out for their own national best interests. The protection of their lifestyle. The safeguarding of their economies.

Could this be worth covering up?

COP Me Hard

And it’s day 3 of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, better known as the COP15, held in Copenhagen till the 18th of December 2009.

Many things have already happened since we and the FYEG delegation have arrived. For more info one could turn to twitter and the FYEG Blog.

Yo! Copenhagen! We’re coming!

Here we go again. We’re off to Copenhagen. Off to the COP15. The plan is to travel by train from Istanbul to Bucharest. From there to Budapest and then to Vienna and then to hitch hike to Copenhagen.

When I’m writing this we’re already on the night train to Budapest and it’s past midnight. We actually survived the 22 hour train ride from Istanbul to Bucharest and those hideous passport controls. Having a Belgian Passport indeed has its benefits. No visa trouble at all. The obnoxious border patrols asking over and over for my supposedly Turkish Passport witch according to them I should have when they see my name are just a minor trouble. More mental than actually physical.
For Esra, whom I’m traveling to Copenhagen with this is the first time she has actually left Turkey. Since she has a green passport it makes things with visa’s easier. She only had to apply for a transit visa for Bulgaria. But still.
We could see the suspicion in the eyes of those border guards. Why was this Turkish Girl traveling with this supposedly Belgian boy.
Additional questions were almost always asked. Like it was actually any of their business. But we complied. We wanted to get through in the end.
We wanted to reach Copenhagen before we got anything close to getting arrested or send back.

This of course doesn’t make this damned fortress Europe any better. Nor anything else that deprives us from the freedom of movement.

But these borders and visa shit make it nearly impossible to go to a climate conference in Copenhagen from Istanbul. Many other activists are taking the plane as they would loose too much time and money visiting consulates and begging for transit visa’s. You can say that it is not green or even mind-bobbling to fly to such an event, but as a privileged Westerner with a EU passport I really do not feel just to cast judgement upon that. Not everything is that black or white.

Of course I was kinda freaked out when a journalist from the Turkish newspaper Radikal called and told that we were most probably the only ones going by train from Turkey. You simply never would like to be one of the only ones doing something that crazy. But his first question after that was rather interesting. He asked why we wanted to go by train. As he really did not understand the reason behind it. But why not go by train? Isn’t it the most environmental manner to travel? Next to Hitch hiking?
To some it seems nearly an injustice not to use our advanced technology when traveling. They would nearly take it as an insult to travel by transport that is time consuming. But we’d rather do that then as it is less energy consuming and certainly less damaging to our climate.

The Utter Madness of Pretense

today’s world is all about pretense. Nothing else.

We’re all pretending that it’s all okay. Everything is alright. Everything is bound to whatever society expects from us and that’s alright. Everything is just great. We’re all fitting in a box and refusing to think out of it. We’re just doing our best to be plain simple. And even in our extra-ordinary behavior we’re not even coming close to the limits of what is expected. We’re not even coming close to chocking not only everybody else but ourselves. We’re playing safe.

Cause we fear insecurity. We fear ourselves. We fear jumping out of the box. Even when we think we’re exceptional we’re staying put and not expanding our horizon as it should. We refuse because it is to scary.

As such we can have the pretense that we can dress up as a women whilst being a man in ‘normal’ life, but as such we are scared as hell to discover something else that is not society bound.  We’re just too afraid. We are too insecure. And that kills us. It kills us in being a complete human being. Living on the edge. Not thinking but feeling. Because we are programmed. Because we are brainwashed. To think that we are exceptional. That whilst we are not. And we are not. We are just touching the boundaries. Scratching at what is normal and expected. Simply pretending what we are not.

We are human. And that mean that we are overtaken by our own ego’s. By our own fucking shortcomings. We’re all pretending. We’re all just fucking bloody plain. And we shouldn’t pretend.

We’re nothing. Deal with it. Do not pretend.

Young Greens of Turkey – Summer Camp

Yeah. The Turkish Young Greens rock.

Between the 4th and the 8th of August the Turkish Young Greens held their summer camp on a camping site close to Erikle. Being on that summer camp was already a miracle for some as 2 people bicycled there and 1 person walked half way there. They did that as part of an action witch was held the first day in Tekirdag. They protested the severe pollution of the most important river in Trakya had to deal with. A concern many people in Trakya share as many still remember the cleanness it once had.

It was as such a good start for a summer camp. Completely energized from the good reception they had during the action. It made us so much more aware of the influence of green action. This reflected in many many discussions that were held on the most impossible places ever. On the beach suntanning. On the beach watching the stars. On the beach while drinking liters of wine. On the beach while a storm was passing by. On the beach during a bongfire.

It was such a revelation to hear young greens discussing from the heart matters of green politics. Content wise and political. Such a revelation. And that especially in Turkey. In Turkey where freedom of thinking even looks like it is prohibited.

It makes me conclude that if in Turkey change will ever happen it will be with young greens.

CDN Summer Camp 2009

I have to admit it; it was nuts. Thirty-five hours on a fucking bus. It was nuts. And that was only the way there. It took us another 34 hours to get back to Istanbul. Nuts, I say.

Being dropped kilometers before the Georgian border whilst you had bought your ticket to Batumi. A Laz taxi driver who told the story of the Iron Curtain and his people’s separation by it. Children begging for their life at the Batumi bus station. The matroeska between Batumi and Tiblisi breaking down.

Stressful to say the least. But then there they were. Ten days in Georgia. First and Executive Committee Meeting and then the CDNEE summer camp.

The CDNEE summer camp as such is every year a great experience. Only the pretext of having so many countries assembled and being able to experience so many personalities is already a big hurray. But considering it was a summer camp with the big topic of ‘Green Values’ it was worth a Mexican wave. Seven days long we discussed in workshops on gender, non-violence, democracy, anti-militarism, human rights, etc..As if we couldn’t get enough from discussing we would also continue during the evening and nights sitting under the stars in the middle of nowhere and drinking some cheap Ukrainian vodka mixed with sprite. Emotional discussions. Rational discussions. Content wise discussions. Pragmatical discussions. We had them all. Even discusssions on whether or not playing a killing game was ‘responsible’. And it was great. F*cking great even.

I might have to forget how sick iIl was during 8 out of 10 days, how i couldn’t keep in food, how the toilet bowl was my best friend or how i got easily annoyed by the differences between EU and non EU countries. But still it was great.

And then the busride back to Istanbul. After that I’m quite sure I will never ever set a foot again in a long distance bus. NO way. No No Never. F*ck no. From the women with magical expanding powers to the unfriendly and sexist bus driver till the bloody aircirculationthingy that didn’t work and no sleep for 34 hours, I’ve had it with buses.

For Hrant! For Justice!

It may be unbelievable that a murder that shocked the nation and drove acknowledged intellectuals into self chosen exile, has not been brought to justice yet after 2,5 years. Turkey mourned the death of Hrant Dink and for once there was an opening to actually talk the Armenian ‘issue’ through in the Turkish society. It is extremely sad that for this progress once more is halted by the extreme hypocritical army and government. As much as they want the public to believe that justice will be brought upon those criminals responsible they have not even been sentenced yet. What is even more worrying is that the real culprits have not been found as the investigation was stopped and compromised even in the in the early stages.
It is as such mind bobbling that these actions by government and military have not been acted upon by the judiciary system as it seems that even they can not make sure that justice will prevail.

On Saturday the 4th of July hundreds of people joined a human chain reaching from the Galatasaray square till the Swedish consulate on Istiklal street in Istanbul and shouting for justice. It was, for me, an impressive action that took my breath away and caused goosebumps that lasted for the entire evening. It showed that even 2 and a half years of government oppression there are still people courageous enough to still demand for justice in a country that is the pretence of a democracy. As such this is a hopeful action as it clearly shows that the voice against oppression and against injustice as such can not be silenced.
For Hrant, for justice.
We’re all Hrant, we’re all Armenians.

World Refugee Day

Last Saturday, the 20th of June was the World Refugee Day and in times where climate refugees are such a hot topic one should take the occasion to take a moment and reflect upon the existence of fortress Europe.

One often thinks that the whole world would like to seek refuge on our European continent whilst the largest amount of refugees actually are found on the African continent and those people do not even have the intention to ever cross the Medditeranian.
But somehow there is this misconception that the European Union is overflooded with refugees in search of a better future either for political or economical reasons.

This misconception has led to the belief that we are in need of shutting our borders off for economical refugees and that we use very subjective criteria to determine if somebody is entitled to the status of political refugee and thus makes a chance for that much needed and hoped for better future.

It is only human to be in search of something better as it is understandable that every person on this globe would like a life that is not only about surviving but also about living.

And then comes the question why there is a belief that there should be criteria to determine if somebody has the right or not to be entitled to a better life. An answer is yet to be given to those who are returned to their country of origine and to those who live in the European Union and are being considered as illegal. This whilst it is hard to actually understand how a human being as such can be illegal.