After last year's popular hc-punk festival, when not enough visitors
arrived and the event was heavily in the red, it looked like there mightnot be another year. And so we were excited when we heard that this wasnot the case after all and that we would meet again for a few days atthe airport in Rokycany. But to make the joy not too much, the next newswas that it would be the last time. Well, what can be done. Somethingends. Something is starting. That's life. And so we were glad that wewill not be at this farewell on the 27th-29th. miss julyJust like last year, the Publishing House of the Anarchist Federationwas present in the information tent (info tent), which this time waslocated outside the area where admission is paid, so that it couldtheoretically be visited by those who came just to see what was going onhere, or just chat with friends. For some, Fluff has become an annualopportunity to meet many familiar faces that they do not meet elsewhereduring the year, both from the Czech Republic and from abroad. This timeagain, there was a definite preponderance of foreign visitors at thefestival. This only confirmed the fact that Fluff is not so much a localas it is an international affair. A place where you will hear allpossible languages and where no one cares about anyone's country oforigin, gender, or what you look like or what you wear. All this worksas a natural condition for a conflict-free and completely friendlyatmosphere. Thanks to this, the security agencies are not present at thefestival, which is a disturbing thing that they usually do at othermusic festivals. Furthermore, Fluff exemplifies a non-capitalistapproach. Sure, money is used here, but things are not governed bymarket logic and the effort to extract as much as possible from thepockets of visitors. No ads or sponsors anywhere. Stands only fromrelated activist collectives, performing bands or DIY producers anddistributors associated with the given scene. Simply an environmentwhere the presented ideas are consistent in content and form.We cannot evaluate the music program of the festival, as we spent timewith our entertainer. But everyone seemed happy with the production, aswell as the sound quality and keeping to the time schedule, where thebands alternated between the three stages so that there were no delaysand they didn't drown each other out. However, we can judge the foodoffer. We gave up on Thursday when we saw the line at the main kitchen,but the following days we tasted something. Much praise then goes to the"snackers and snackers" of the anarchist kitchen Cocina Perdida, whofirst took care of those who prepared the festival and during thefestival days the pleasure of the many goodies they offered until theentrance gate opened. And for that, the necessary Zapatista coffee fromBlack Seeds, with whom we shared the info tent, as well as the distrothat offered the production of the publishing houses Utopia Libri, Nevimand Neklid.Friends from the RESET collective: Platform for social-ecologicaltransformation took care of the infotent program this year. He focusedon the problems of Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time, therewas a collection to support anti-authoritarian fighters in Ukraine,which will travel in financial or material form through SolidarityCollectives. In the end, the cash box at our distro, if we also countthe euros thrown in, totaled about 5,400 CZK.On Friday at noon, the program of the info booth began with thepresentation of the Violence and Order project, which we previouslyreported on our website and also dedicated to it the April issue of thewall newspaper A3. Two members of the project informed those presentabout the effort to open a public discussion about police violenceagainst homeless people in nearby Pilsen. Thanks to the exhibition andvideo trailer at the One World festival, the project succeeded inmediating the topic. The city's police leadership initially denied theproblem, eventually agreeing to a public debate. Nevertheless, it tookrevenge on its constable, who wrote a bachelor's thesis on the giventopic, from which it was quoted in the project. The fear of retributiondoes not allow disabled homeless people, non-profit workers who dependon money from the city, and some police officers who could meet asimilar fate to their colleagues to speak publicly and openly. However,the project does not see the cause of the problem only in the violentnature of police institutions, but especially in the political mandate.One of the associated problems is the abuse of the detention center inPilsen, on the one hand, to torture detainees and, secondly, to get theminto debt.A member of Reset together with a member of the ecological organizationArnika presented the campaign Stop dirty money. Their lecture, in whichthey tried to involve the audience as well, was devoted to the person ofDaniel Kretínský. We learned how he launched his businesses with thehelp of top politicians, how he does the fossil business, buys media,makes money from waste management and buys football clubs. We looked atwhat he bought around Europe, talked about the issue of incinerators andasked ourselves the question, what to do with it? It was designed topressure financial institutions to divest from the fossil industry andto network across Europe.Two members of the Jezevka collective presented activities in the fightagainst the housing crisis and during the talk they also addressedsustainable activism. At the beginning, they read the thematic story ofanimals from the forest and, against its background, emphasized howimportant it is to build a nurturing environment and to build activismand direct actions on it. They showed photos from some of them, forexample from actions against the closure of humanitarian hostels, whichwere set up in connection with the measures to manage the covid-19pandemic. They spoke about possible solutions to the housing crisis,which they see in the support of municipal and cooperative apartments,in restrictions for investment apartments and in the protection oftenants. Based on this, they launched a campaign with which they alsoreached the Chamber of Deputies. However, the asocial capitalistideology promoted in Prague, where Jezevky mainly operates, the rulingODS goes in a completely opposite direction. So you have to persevere.The No Borders collective performed last on Friday. We were able to meetits members in the info tent a year ago or during the info tour that wehad the honor of co-organizing at the turn of February and March inseveral Czech and Slovak cities. Most of the presentation was taken upby the screening of the documentary The Borders of Humanity.Subsequently, they talked about the situation of refugees on theBelarusian-Polish border and the different approach to white refugeesfrom Ukraine and non-white refugees from other countries. Finally, thosepresent were invited to join the collective or cooperate in another wayif they wanted.Since we had a "changing of the guard" on Saturday, we didn't pay theprogram the attention it deserved. So we'll just take it briefly.Representatives of the NGOs Koridor UA and Nesehnuti spoke about theirexperiences in war-torn Ukraine and about current needs and humanitarianprojects. Then the Ciocia Czesia project was introduced - an independentand non-commercial Czech-Polish initiative that helps Polish womenundergo abortions in Czech clinics from October 2020. This was followedby an introduction to what the punk scene in Ukraine looks like duringthe war, after which the Anarchist Black Cross of Belarus took the floorto familiarize the attendees with the repression against the anarchistand anti-fascist movement. Some of them are in prison, in exile, or someare fighting in Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Many of theprisoners are under constant pressure from the prison administration asthe regime continues to prosecute them further for prison resistance orfor actions that happened many years ago.So much in brief for what happened during the festival in theinformation tent. We strongly hope that even though this was the lastFluff, the spirit of the festival will soon be transformed into anotherproject. We will be happy to help with the little we can offer.https://www.afed.cz/text/7987/posledni-fluff_________________________________________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
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten