DiEM25 gets involved in the 2019 European Election!
Our transnational list #EuropeanSpring will present a progressive alternative in next years’ European elections. The aim: to make Europe more democratic. Do you want to learn more about our plans?
Meet us on Monday, 30. July 2018 @ 7pm in the Weinbergspark (see exact location on photo in the comments here (marked with an X) – and hopefully a DiEM25 flag will make us easy to find, too. We look forward to your questions, your enthusiasm and your ideas. Bring your friends, as well as some drinks and snacks (if you like).
We are looking forward to meet you!
Picture Credits:
Volkspark am Weinberg by Axel Kuhlmann – CC-BY (flickr.com/photos/abbilder/20499502903)
June 27, 2018 / Subliminal Guy / Comments Off on News from the pillars: Questionnaire »Technological Sovereignty«
The development of the 1st Green Paper for the seventh pillar of DiEM25s Policy: »Technological Sovereignty« is in progress.
In this phase, which runs until July 5th, members of the DSC »Democratic Technologies« are gathering input on this questionnaire. In July we will work on the first draft of the Green Paper until August 5th. In order to work, we’ll need your ideas!
Your ideas do not have to be fully elaborated. Think about what might be wrong or be better in our (computer-)managed world. Can you name practices in any technology that you would consider »undemocratic«? How can we foster the privacy of European citizens and protect their data from misuse by private corporations? How can we regulate the Internet monopolists (GAFAM)? How can we think about technological development – our future – in a creative way and beyond economic imperatives? How should copyright laws be reformed? The full list of questions can be found in the questionnaire.
Send your suggestions, ideas and policy proposals to techpillar@diem25.org.
(Needless to say: Input that arrives after the 5th of July will also be considered.)
For your inspiration here are two brief proposals made by the author of this piece:
1. The European Union is in need of a multilingual content platform that stores and delivers content produced by the distinct national public stations. This so called European Media Platform would deliver subtitled and/or voiced-over content produced or licensed by EU public entities to enrich an european public debate. A european democratic Netflix!
2. A decentralized, autonomous, encrypted peer-to-peer-network as opposed to the commercial and centralized server farms of the internet giants. The EU should set up a European Save Networking Fund that encourages research on an open-source and easy-to-use solution implementing an Autonomous Data Network. With this fund the EU e.g. provides bootstrap servers and minimum amount of storage capacity (storing encrypted data chunks) to get the network up and running.
This idea and your ideas will be developed during the paper development process. Again: Send your suggestions, ideas and policy proposals to techpillar@diem25.org.
We have a lot of plans and we still need fellow combatants. If you want to join us now or in future meetings, please find more infos in the Mattermost-Team »TechPillar«, write an e-mail to bogdan.gradinaru82@gmail.com or spiritsparrow@riseup.net or hit me up on twitter.
Find more infos on our communication platform Mattermost here.
Picture Credits:
Message from artificial intelligence.. by Michael Cordedda – CC-BY (flickr.com/photos/mikeycordedda/5382624995)
The databending of phantom pink + green flowers in surveilled gardens where paranoia grows by torley – CC-BY-SA (flickr.com/photos/torley/9349869180)
Last weekend was a busy one for DiEM25 Germany – and especially for the DSC Berlin. In Frankfurt the german electoral wing of DiEM25 has been founded and four members of the DSC Berlin have been elected to its executive collective. Only one day later the DSC Berlin organised a six-hour session on Creative Resistance.
First of all, Lorenz Nolting from the Peng! Collective showed us how to catapult political activism into the wider public using intelligent and precisely planned actions. Here is an example how Peng!hacked a greenwashing campaign by the oil-corporation Shell.
Lorenz also explained the so-called Streisand effect . This is a phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet. You simply use the PR machine of your political opponent to spread your message.
Before we proceeded with the lecture by Viki Alexander (DiEM25), subliminal_guy showed us a short clip about how video games can be used for progressive and critical interventions. The programming collective Molleindustria has developed a whole bunch of games under the slogan »Political Videogames against the Dictatorship of Entertainment«.
Viki’s main aim was to illustrate the resonance theory by Hartmut Rosa using some film clips. He started with a shocking snippet from Shaun Monson’s film Earthlings, which convinced a lot of people to become vegan. Furthermore he spoke about Plastic Paradise and showed us a campaign video by Bernie Sanders that has been hugely successful and effective as a viral video with approx. 50 million views.
Mr. Trump, listen to these Patriotic Millionaires who want their taxes raised, not cut. pic.twitter.com/heoPX7VWkV
According to Viki the question is how to present abstract political issues in a way that they are able to trigger strong physical reactions. This could be the crucial catalyst for many people to become politically active.
The final lecture was conducted by Johannes Hummler (DiEM25), who introduced the Theater of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal. Johannes was accompanied by our special guest the egyptian choreographer, dancer and writer Nora Amin who studied with Augusto Boal.
Johannes began by explaining the theoretical foundations and presented various forms of the »Theater of the Oppressed« (newspaper theater, invisible theater, forum theater and legislative theater).
After that Nora Amin told us about her work in Egypt. There she used the forum theater to confront members of the audience (SpectActors) with their oppressor in a playful way. As an example she gave us a situation in which a child has to face his violent father. Unfortunately the tremendous impact which the “Theater of the Oppressed” can have on conflict management and legislative processes can not be adequately adressed in this short report. If you like to learn more, please ask for the protocol through the channels mentioned below.
After so much input the participants were exhausted and so we continued with the second part – the search for a common working method / basis – after an extended lunch break.
We continued with an discussion about whether or not it limits the creative scope, if one puts artistic actions in the service of a political movement. I personally also see the danger of making superficial or flawed art, if one thinks too one-dimensionally about artistic activism. Nevertheless I believe that Creative Resistance – if you look at it as an extended media strategy – can be used as a clever tool for communicating beyond the activist bubble. We agreed that we would pick a common theme from the DiEM25 range of topics and then find an accompanying artistic strategy.
We will now begin to share ideas and concepts through our mailing list or via Mattermost, and we want to involve other DiEMers (and anyone else who is interested in Creative Resistance) in this process.
Do you have an idea or would you like to attend the next meeting? Do you want to join our mailing list? Write an e-mail to david.schwertgen@de.diem25.org or hit me up on twitter. More information is also available in the Mattermost team of the DSC Berlin in the channel “art not art”.
Find more infos on our communication platform Mattermosthere.
The calendar with information on our next meeting can be found here.
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