De Balie organised a debate evening on 14 January about housing shortage and
squatting. We will not participate in this event. Several of the signatories tothis statement have also made this clear in their response to De Balie'sinvitation, but we will explain it again below. ---- With our boycott, we arejoining a larger group of people who have been boycotting De Balie for severalyears, because, among other things, it offers a stage for Islamophobia and rapeculture. De Balie says it is a place for ‘free spirits with dissenting opinionsand new ideas'. However, culture of rape and Islamophobia are not new ideas norshould be given a podium. We also like to be free spirits, but we can't as longas places like the Balie promote this kind of ‘dissenting opinions' itself.Freedom of speech does not mean that you have to give everyone a platform, thisis a sign of false neutrality.We don't want to use a podium that's also used by people who threaten others'right to exist or endanger their safety. We believe in a world without borders,without constant repression, without gender-based violence. A debate aboutsquatting and housing shortages is definitely useful - but not if it givesimplicit legitimacy to the spread of Islamophobia, rape culture, racism andsexism. That is why par excellence De Balie is not the place to have thisconversation.On October 27th, 2021, there was a conversation between De Balie and theorganisation KIRAC. KIRAC is an art platform that glorifies rape culture withtheir films. A few weeks earlier, at the premiere of their most recent film‘Honeypot', they even welcomed the alleged rapist Juliaan Andeweg with a horseand flowers to ‘uncancel' him. De Balie shows that they have no respect forsurvivors of sexual violence by inviting a collective that literally hoists arapist on a horse. With its event De Balie has actively offered a platform forrape culture and thus actively endangered our safety. This despite the warningsfrom Geen Podium who explicitly spoke out against the event. De Balie pretendedthat a conversation about rape and consent justifying rape has just as muchlegitimacy as combating it. Andeweg was victimised in the conversation and jokesabout this were received with a laugh by the public. A conversation with KIRAClegitimises rape culture. Rapists and rape apologists shouldn't be given a podium.In 2019 De Balie made the news because Egyptian feminist Mona Elthawy canceledher appearance to talk about her book. Eltahawy withdrew stating that thedebate ‘Why do they actually hate us?', which took place in 2017, was enoughreason to do so. This debate gave voice to outspoken racists for the umpteenthtime. The subject of this debate was Muslim extremism, but soon it turned into achat about ‘best practices in Muslim deportation'. FvD party philosopher PaulCliteur suggested to do this ‘with policy' and visitor and publicist Bernadettede Wit preferred to maximise the number of Muslims to 1 to 2%. As Fatima Faïdtold OneWorld, "they were chit chatting for hours about how Muslims should bedeported''. We will never sit around a table at a podium that normalises Muslimhatred by giving it a podium.We don't need De Balie's platform, De Balie is a false ally. We don't need theirstage to use our stories as a fun polemical conversation for the consumption of apredominantly white audience. We prefer to share these stories on a stage that isnot exploitative and corrupt, with people who actually are our comrades. Aboycott of De Balie is an effective way to not play along with their game. Thisway, we prevent dangerous ideas from being given a platform and that Islamophobiaand misogyny are implicitly normalised.The victims of the housing shortage are also people who are victims of domesticor sexual violence, they are also undocumented migrants who are victims of theborder and deportation policy and so on. Precisely the groups whose safety DeBalie does not guarantee. We stand in solidarity! Last week De Balie evenexplicitly looked for ‘feminist squatters' - strikingly enough after they hadalready received the above criticism in response. We wonder where De Balie evengot the audacity to invite us.https://www.vrijebond.org/waarom-wij-niet-rond-de-tafel-gaan-in-de-balie-voor-een-discussie-over-kraken/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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