Thursday 15 February 2024, Voku for Solidarity With Migrants & book presentation ‘The Light of the Beast’ by Pablo Allison. Door opens at 7pm with food. The book presentation from Pablo Allison starts around 20:30. No reservation.
The Light of the Beast is the culmination of six years work documenting migrants traveling from Central America, through Mexico and into the USA as the final destination. Since 2007, British-Mexican artist Pablo Allison has tried to understand life and its intricacies, by documenting migration and its consequences.
‘The Beast’ or ‘La Bestia’ as migrants call it, is a freight train that carries goods between Canada, the United States of America and Mexico. As most people who leave their countries travel with no money, ‘La Bestia” represents the only way to get to the USA border, despite this being forbidden by Mexican authorities.
This journey is tough and it can be extremely dangerous for people to travel this way, for a number of reasons. These travellers often referred to as migrants, run a high chance of being kidnapped, mugged, extorted or ending up dead in the desert before they reach their destination.
The majority of migrants that use this mode of transport come from countries with the highest levels of violence in the world. Places like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are examples of countries where the situation is so untenable that undertaking this potentially devastating journey is an only option for survival.
The vast amount of migrants that leave their countries are forced to, due to the oppression and extreme violence caused by delinquent groups that dominate entire communities. Violence in these countries is a product of decades of poverty and a lack of decent and fair policies from governments in Central America as well as from US interventions over many decades. https://www.pabloallison.co.uk/
The benefit for this voku is Solidarity With Migrants, an open assembly in solidarity with migrants in Greece consisting of locals, internationals and migrants against racism, fascism, and capitalism.
Our speech and actions are against the war against migrants waged by the states, capitalism and all kinds of racists and fascists, focusing on the anti- migration policy of the Greek state and the dehumanising camp system. We seek the communication between and connection of the struggles of locals and migrants against our common enemies, in the context of international struggles against all forms of oppression and devaluation of our lives. People attending and participating in the assembly come from different backgrounds and are often faced with different forms of oppression and violence (racist, gender violence, sexism, classism etc). Many of us are also involved in political movements, antifascist, antiracist, antisexist and other struggles. We want all to be equal and we also want society to become fair and free for everyone. This is the basis of everything we do.
We are not an NGO nor in another way an official organization so we don’t get funded from anyone and we are also totally independent from refugees organizations, the greek government and the European Union. According to our political standpoint of opposing all these, refusing funding by them is essential.
Solidarity With Migrants: solidaritymigrants [at] riseup [dot] net
Volkseten Vegazulu is a people’s kitchens existing since the very beginning of Joe’s Garage, June 2005. Your donations are welcome. Food is vegan, no reservation. All benefits go to social & political struggles. Joe’s Garage is a space run by volunteers. Without a collective effort, without your active participation, we’re remaining closed. Get in touch in you feel like giving a hand. We’re always looking for cooks. Any help is welcome in the kitchen. Experience not required. If you want to know which days are still available, mail us.
