From March 27 to March 29, 2023, the European Gas Conference (EGC) took place in Vienna. An alliance of grassroots groups fighting for climate and social justice came together at the counter-summit: the Power to the People Conference. Hundreds of people from different movements across the globe joined this counterevent to learn, share knowledge and experiences, and discuss alternatives to transform the world. Amongst those invited to contribute to the program were the activists from Don’t Gas Africa, who shared their struggles and wins against gas development and colonialism, and various experts explaining why gas is not a durable solution. The summit was all about the ways in which a green and just transition could be a way to end capitalism, all the while connecting activist collectives from around the globe.

The counter-summit was followed by days of actions in which grassroots activists took a stance and blocked the industry. Five actions took place within three days! The activists blocked the private jet airport of Vienna, the European Gas Conference itself and train rails owned and used by OMV, an big Austrian gas and oil industrial company. They also organized a huge demonstration with hundreds of people marching the streets of Vienna. A number of activists also managed to infiltrate EGC’s gala dinner and directly confront them with their crimes.

While police violence against activists reached new heights in Austria during this action week and many activists were arrested, the joint effort of several hundreds of people coming together made the project a big success overall.

European Gas Conference

The European Gas Conference, a lobby event of the European gas industry, financial institutions, and policy makers, takes place annually in Vienna. They present themselves as the only platform “connecting the eastern and western gas industries,” but are all the while connecting and deepening global crises, from climate change to neo-colonialism and resource-driven wars. While many people in Europe are increasingly worried about how they will manage their daily expenses and energy costs due to the current inflation, and countries like Pakistan are facing severe floods, daily blackouts and economic breakdowns, the actors co-hosting this meeting have been making record profits. Our dependence on climate-wrecking and neocolonial energy sources is being further cemented and institutionalized by those attending the conference.

The lobbyists and companies present at this conference take decisions that concern us all – and by taking them behind closed doors, they are also undermining democracy.

System Change not Climate Change 

The counter-summit and action week were logistically made possible by the Austrian action group System Change not Climate Change. This group was founded in 2015 in the wake of a big climate justice movement that arose around the famous Paris COP. Since then, they have been addressing the issue of climate justice focusing on the economic and social dimensions as well as the capitalist roots of the climate crisis. They raise awareness about the climate crisis with an anti-capitalist and direct action-oriented approach. They want to make both anti-capitalism and civil disobedience mainstream in Austrian society and disrupt business as usual, enabling paths and possibilities to overcome capitalism as the leading economic system.

ASEED Europe

Food System & Agricultural change-ASEED Europe is an Amsterdam-based collective that supports and empowers groups and individuals (especially youth) who are striving for fair and sustainable food systems. They promote grassroots organisation, mobilize people to take action, and support the informal exchange of skills and knowledge around social issues, climate change, farming, food, resilience and resistance. During the counter-summit, ASEED provided workshops on the involvement of the gas industry in the agricultural sector.

Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported these two collectives and stands in solidarity with all action groups present at the counter-summit and action week, as well as with all activists that experienced police violence. Because we will not let the actual criminals decide about our future behind closed doors!

Workers all over the world have been fighting for their rights since the rise of industrial capitalism. The economic and cultural value of work has changed with work being separated from the home and being moved into industrial factories where many people worked under dangerous and precarious conditions while being extremely underpaid.

Today, things havent changed much, the working conditions for many people are still unbearable with temporary working contracts, low pay and bad conditions. Particularly vulnerable for exploitation are migrants, the undocumented, black, indigenous and people of colour, women, trans and non-binary people.

This is not a coincidence as racism and sexism are often being used to justify the exploitation of the working poor and to break solidarity between the working classes, e.g., white against black workers. Moreover, sectors like sex work and domestic and care work also need special attention as these sectors are culturally undervalued and especially susceptible to exploitation since this work is often being done by the aforementioned groups.

This is why people organized a demonstration in Utrecht for Labor Day. The arc of capitalism naturally bends towards exploitation. It is up to the people to fight for a livable wage and for a life of dignity and without alienation.

Colombia is a country that in recent decades has been condemned to systematic violence due to inequality, poverty, drug trafficking, corruption and armed groups. However, we have also witnessed waves of social expressions and outbursts that have brought about change for the country.

Since the signing of the 2016 peace agreement between the government and the FARC, leaders thought their biggest problem was under control. But the student mobilizations of 2018, the popular mobilizations of 2019 and 2021 showed that the country still has much to change to reflect a need for a change in the country that cannot be postponed. This was also evident in the 2022 elections, from which came a resounding shift to the left. For the first time, a progressive leftist government led by Gustavo Petro became president.

State institutions and the judiciary, steeped in mob rule throughout history, do not easily allow themselves to be reformed and resist any change that affects the interests of the landed gentry and the political elite. This hinders the progress of political, economic and social reforms.

This is why La Revuelta takes to the streets on May 1 to fight for progress and social and economic equality in Colombia. They will hold artistic interventions in Bogotà’s main square, where the parliament building is located. They are demanding better working conditions, more opportunities for youth and better care for the elderly.

Six months after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, Iranian protests have been firmly suppressed by extreme state violence. That is not to say they are over: currently, hundreds of Iranians continue to protest at the risk of their lives. Baluchistan, a marginalized province in the country’s southeast, is currently at the forefront of the protests.

Iranian protesters called for global solidarity actions. The Groningen Feminist Network responded. With support from Het Actiefonds they created a banner for their solidarity march last October, during which three Iranian women and queers spoke about their experiences of oppression in the Islamic Republic.

But patriarchy is by no means limited to Iran. The University of Groningen also continues to struggle with institutional exclusion of women and queers. The university fired Associate Professor Susanne Täuber on International Women’s Day for repeatedly speaking out critically about gender discrimination at the university. Under the hashtag #AmINext, RUG students and staff expressed their concerns about a university that fires people as soon as they denounce power inequality.

Sepideh Yousefzadeh Faal Daghati is associate professor of intersectional wellbeing and decoloniality at Campus Fryslân. She explicitly made the connection between Iran and the RUG in a recent open letter: “What happened to Susanne reminded me of the fear and threats faced by academics in Iran. Susanne Täuber named the structural challenges and struggles with gender and hierarchy at our university. This should not happen to her.”

Het Actiefonds also supported the March 8 Feminist Strike in which Täuber announced her resignation to protesters. The patriarchy must be torn down! From Tehran to Groningen!

AFA Fryslan is a small but dedicated group of anti-fascists who fight the presence of Forum for Democracy, PVV, and other far-right parties in Friesland. Specifically, they did so by pasting posters during campaign time, and by demonstrating against FvD rallies.

On March 7, Forum would speak at theater de Lawei in Drachten, which pretends to be committed to a diverse and inclusive work environment. Yet the theater provides a stage for our country’s most outspoken fascists, even after AFA repeatedly urged the theater’s director to cancel the event.

AFA therefore organized a demonstration in front of the theater to make it clear to the fascists that they are not welcome in Friesland. The result is reason for celebration. There were still hundreds who wanted to participate in the event, but the turnout was clearly more modest than during the last campaign period in 2019. Not even half the turnout of then came to the rally now. Unlike the anti-fascists. They protested with 10 times as many people as four years before, according to AFA. FvD ended up getting only 3.6 percent of the vote in the province, compared to 13.4 percent four years ago.

Het Actiefonds is proud to support AFA Fryslan. They are an important dissenting voice in our society that is becoming more and more right-wing. Say no to fascism!

“In 2021, suicide attempts by children and adolescents increased nearly 150% compared to 2020. This troubling record is a testament to how dire the state of mental health care in our country is.”

That is the conclusion of GrowSpace Poland, an action group dedicated to suicide prevention among LGBTQIA+ youth. They requested data from Polish police stations to map suicide rates among young people (children and teens under 18) in Poland. The data showed that there were about 2,000 suicide attempts in 2021, 150 of which ended in death. GrowSpace emphasizes that the causes of suicide are complex and diverse. Yet we should not hide the fact that two-thirds of suicide attempts are carried out by LGBTQIA+ youth, most of whom are trans.

The action group held a candlelight wake in front of the Ministry of Health to address teen suicide. In addition, GrowSpance collected signatures for a petition urging the government to come up with quick and concrete plans for suicide prevention. After all, currently 70 percent of LGBT+ teens suffer from suicidal thoughts. Schools must have a plan to deal with this.

70 percent of LGBT+ teens suffer from suicidal thoughts.

More than 10 thousand people signed the petition and 40 organizations united in a coalition to promote suicide prevention. The research and wake have been covered in at least 80 media publications. The signatories demand specialized training for teachers and parents, as well as extra attention to bullying among students.

Initially, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education did not want to respond to the action group, but after the media coverage, they stated that they believe current suicide prevention programs are already effective. The coalition did not leave it at that and announced further research into the success of the current policy.

Het Actiefonds supported the group by purchasing candles, posters and other materials for the memorial ceremony. No suicide prevention program can be effective when suicide attempt rates skyrocket!

Colombia has had a difficult political history, full of covert and shifting alliances. But if you look at the bigger history, a clear picture arises: landowners, liberal and conservative politicians, drug cartels, foreign multinationals and the United States all work together to keep Colombians in a stranglehold. The country is a fascist narco-state not afraid to shoot civilians and protesters in the street.

Those resisting this tangled web of the narco-state can count on police brutality, sexual violence, fascist death squads or untimely disappearances. Since the eighties, the state promoted and financed right-wing paramilitary groups to quench civilian unrest and political dissidents. Nevertheless, unrest remains abound: the last five years Colombia has seen mass protests every year. Though the country made global headlines last year by electing its first left-wing president Gustavo Petro, it is doubtful wether a socialist democratic can really produce the structural change that Colombia needs to oust fascism from its borders.

Antifa Bogotà

The dangerous and paramilitary fascism of Colombia is one of the reasons why the antifascist scène in Bogotà is mostly an underground movement, often switches names and banners to remain anonymous. GRABO (Grupo de Resistencia Antifascita Bogotà) is one of these groups. They don’t pretend to change the world or revolutionize Colombian society, but they resist the dominant catholic ideology that imposes patriarchy, heteronormativity, monogamy and authoritarianism on society.

With support of Het Actiefonds, GRABO launched a propaganda campaign in the capital. They spread informative posters around the city that combat fascist lies on a diverse range of topics. Het Actiefonds is proud of their work. No pasarán!

Since 2020, Mexico is constructing a 300 km railway in the isthmus of Oaxaca that will connect two port cities: Coatzacoalcos on the Atlantic coast and Salina Cruz on the Pacific coast. This megaproject is accompanied by a gas pipeline and several industrial parks flanking the railway. These parks manufacture products at a low cost for export between the two port cities.

The aim here is obvious: in order to boost Mexico’s economy and to consolidate its place in the global capitalist economy, The Corredor Interoceánico (interoceanic corridor) should transform the isthmus into an international trade hub akin to the Panama canal. The railroad will facilitate transport of goods and products across the strip of land, reducing travel time between the two ports to 24 hours. The intermediary industrial parks will make Tehuantepec a ‘new global factory’. The 300 km trajectory has become a symbol of neoliberal capitalism, destroying nature and livelihoods in order to amass more capital for the lucky few.

Construction workers already blocked access to the supervision site in order to demand better working conditions. The president Manuel López Obrador reacted by stating that the profit generated by the megaproject will serve to finance the pensions of the workers, and for some reason, of the armed forces too.

Indigenous communities are ignored

But there is one group that the authorities refuse to negotiate or cooperate with: the Indigenous communities living on the isthmus. They are now being threatened with eviction, their livelihoods and culture are under attack by the railroad that aims to transform their ancestral grounds in a giant industrial complex. They have been continually misinformed by the authorities about the scope of the project, and are refused an audience to express their concerns. Their rights have been trampled, since they should be consulted on activities taking place on their lands.

The Union de Communidades Indigenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo decided to fight the megaproject with non-violent direct actions. They use sit-ins, blockades, protests and other means to block and impede the construction of the railways. More than a thousand bodies strong, they succeed in hampering the construction schedule for now, but it’s a tough fight. Once again, the rights of Indigenous communities and of the surrounding nature are disregarded when neoliberal elites see a chance to make more money. They even go so far as claiming that the corridor is actually good for the economy of the local villages.

Het Actiefonds is proud to support these Indigenous communities in their struggle against global capital and colonialism. As the Indigenous activist Juana Ramírez Villegas states: I invite my brothers and sisters from different parts of the world to defend their territory, to not be defeated, to organize themselves and to make their struggles visible. It is time to defend our territory that represents the life and the future of our sons and daughters.”

Due to the finiancialization of the rental housing market, rents are linked to inflation. Every year, the government specifies the maximum rent increase. In 2022 it was 2.3% for the social rental sector and 3.3% for the free sector. Tenants with a family income of up to €75,000 can count on an income-related rent increase of up to €100 per month. However, tenants are not obliged to actually pay this, but many individual tenants do not know how to object to the increase collectively and effectively.

The “We Refuse the Rent Increase!” campaign seeks to change this. Because rent increases occur every year, their campaign is a yearly effort.

Campaign

“We Refuse the Rent Increase!” informs people about their rights and the possible strategies to legally refuse their rent increase and provides a detailed step-by-step plan as a tool for tenants. In this way, tenants can take matters into their own hands and easily refuse rent increases. In webinars and local meetings, they mobilize people to actively participate in collective nationwide rent increase refusal.

solidarity network

Every year the campaign organizes a national action meeting and several local flyer actions. When a large group of tenants sign up from the same region, a local solidarity network is created in which tenants can share their concerns and problems and actively support each other. By acting together and sharing appropriate knowledge and previous experiences with each other, people are reassured. Thus, they build a sustainable solidarity network of rent increase refusers as well as systemic change. The step-by-step plan that has proven effective increases the pressure on landlords and politicians to actually freeze or lower rents.

5-year rent freeze

The political goal is a five-year freeze (2022- 2026) on rents without inflation correction. After more than 10 years of rent increases above inflation, housing should become affordable again and no one should fall into poverty due to excessive housing costs. Houses are for people, not for profit. The demand for rent freezes for the next five years has been presented by the campaign to Minister Hugo de Jonge, together with affected tenants.

Meanwhile, sustainable solidarity networks of and for tenants continue to emerge, with the intention of collectively refusing rent increases each year and also highlighting the option of going on a rent strike.

Are you a tenant and want to have a weapon of direct action in your own hands against the government and landlord? Join “We refuse the rent increase,” read more about their actions and follow the step-by-step plan to refuse your rent increase!

Het Actiefonds  is proud to support this campaign because: first food, then rent!

Action

Building a colourful blockade, some 40 activist of Debt for Climate Switzerland (DfCS) effectively blocked the entrance of the airport, preventing WEF guests to easily get to their limousine taxi to Davos. Also blocking the main road to the airport, they aimed to disrupt the timetable of the WEF, as speakers and panellist got stuck at the airport. The guests, arriving from all over the world, were confronted directly with their own destructive impact on the world. Because the world cannot afford the 1% anymore, DfCS held up a mirror for those arriving at the airport. Several activist from the Global South were present, giving talks about how their countries suffer the most from WEF devastating policies.

Because the eyes of the world are on Davos during the WEF, Debt for Climate used this attention to address WEF’s harmful policies. Their action was reported on by several big international media. With over 100 articles in different media worldwide, Tweets by Green Pease International and a livestream that was watched over 100 000 times, their action was a big success.

This action was part of a series of three actions around the WEF. The other actions took place in Zurich and Davos, where two Congolese activists from Debt for Climate were invited. In public lectures, workshops and in panel discussions they discussed how the climate crisis is already causing loss and damage in the Global South and in what way the demands of the Debt for Climate campaign can bring about social and environmental justice.

WEF and Climate Debt

As research by the UN Environment Program and Oxfam has shown, the richest 1% is most responsible for climate-change-driving overshoot emissions. The Global North countries are responsible for 92% of excess emissions, while they only represent 40% of the global population and suffer the least from the climate crisis. However, it is the multinational companies located in the Global North that are polluting the most. While the emissions of normal civilians in Europe are decreasing since the 1990’s, the emissions of the top 1% are still increasing. And this one percent, the political and financial global elite that meets during the WEF, is most responsible for the climate crisis while suffering the least from it. Through their individual emissions and professional decisions, they prevent active reparations and solutions for the global South, where the climate crisis is most felt. It is simply fair that rich polluters present at WEF pay for the damage they are causing in other parts of the world.

Debt for Climate Campaign

Debt for Climate is a grassroots, Global South-driven initiative connecting social & climate justice struggles by uniting labour, social and climate movements from the Global South & North. Their main goal is to cancel all debt that Global South countries owe to the IMF and the World Bank. Since the Global North owes the Global South a huge ecological debt, cancelling GS debts is a way of getting these countries out of the debt-trap. In stead of investing in fossil fuels to repay the debt, they can invest in projects that actually make their countries liveable in times of climate crisis and adapt to the impacts of this ongoing and developing crisis.

The Global North has built and keeps on building their wealth on the exploitation of countries in the Global South by plundering their natural resources, at the cost of the growing destruction and sacrifice of populations in countries of the global South.

Therefore, Debt for Climate demands that the richest countries of the Global North begin to pay their climate debt, by cancelling the illegitimate debts, often awarded illegally, that the Global South owes the IMF and the World Bank. You can read more about how exactly Debt for Climate proposes to work on climate and social justice by cancelling debts on their website or on their Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

As a Global North group inside the Global South led “Debt for Climate”-campaign, the strategical role of Debt for Climate Switzerland is to raise awareness in Swiss society for this unequal division of debt, wealth and climate consequences, and to persuade the Swiss government to support the demand for unconditional debt cancellation for the Global South. They organise outreach events, carry out non-violent civil disobedience actions and draw media attention to their actions. To read more about their group and stay up to date on their actions, go to their website and follow them on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.