How would you define a caring city? What would be the first association you have?

I must admit that I glanced at what is being written about this term elsewhere. I agree with the definition that the city should take care of its citizens, and by that I mean everyone, in an equal way. The city must take care of those who are the minority or marginalized (whether because they are poor or because they are different on some basis), that is, of everyone who needs some kind of support. I think that is the duty of every city as a community.

And when I say city, I mean both people and institutions in the city. This is where we come to another point - I think that care should also go both ways. People, its citizens, should also take care of their city. One can't expect to get everything and give nothing in return. We must take care of other people, but also of physical structures, social structures, nature, everything.  

We would like to take a closer look into the concepts of functionality and security in the city, from a minoritarian perspective, that is, from the perspective of the vulnerable groups.

I do not have the impression that cities in Serbia are actually unsafe, that is, that there is the same kind of insecurity in Serbia that is present in some other European and global cities. Having said that, however, there certainly are places that are not safe - abandoned, devastated, insufficiently lit public spaces are not safe, just as those places that have no infrastructure, such as the informal Roma settlements.

Cities are also unsafe for pedestrians. Not to repeat what we already know, but physical obstacles exist for mothers moving with strollers or people in wheelchairs; signaling does not properly function; construction sites are unsecured. If we continue with the question of functionality, it is clear that cities are not functional enough and that is - not functional enough for everyone. For example, fellow citizens who are moving with difficulties may not be noticeable on the street, but that is because it’s actually impossible for them to be on the streets. Around 8% of people in Serbia have some kind of disability, did you know that? That's some 600.000 persons, mostly elderly people. I think that it is something that needs to be addressed when we think about our cities. I have the impression that even when something is repaired or reconstructed in the public space, it is done with the needs of the cars in mind, rather than pedestrians. Now, we know that cars are owned by members of the middle and upper middle class, white, able men. This illustrates how we come to a situation in which the city is actually functionally organized primarily for one particular group.  

What is your personal experience of being a woman in the architecture profession and would you highlight any specific obstacles you might have had?

When I entered university, the number of male and female students was quite equal. I also don't remember having an impression that there was any gender-based bias behavior towards students at the university at that time. Still, the fact is that professors and associates were mostly men at the time [as it is still the case today]. Now that I think of it, I am not sure any woman from my generation remained working as the faculty staff.

I turned to urban planning [as opposed to architectural design], which has always been a primarily female field. However, if you have more women in some professional field, it usually means that it is a harder, less paid, less fashionable, or more collective-based job. It was a good match for me because I always aspired to do what I love, but I am very aware that urban planning is such a field. I remember that, just as an illustration, that at one point, Urban Institute of Belgrade, the main institution responsible for the development of all urban plans in the territory of Belgrade, had all women as employees in the teams, while all managers were men. I even think that can be read from the photographs of the Institute from the seventies.

Moreover, very few architects focus on the topic of social housing and housing of vulnerable groups, specifically the Roma, on which I primarily focus. Among those few, I feel there are no gender-based inequalities. This might be a consequence of the fact that I have been dealing with this topic for a long time and have earned some credit for it, but I also think the main reason could be that those who deal with such topics have a bit different sensitivity than most architects - they have developed the capacity for empathy.

One must have empathy and self-reflection when working with vulnerable communities. 

And how do you achieve that? How do you build trust? How do you avoid looking like an intruder who is trying to extract something from the community for personal gain or work?

My experience is mostly related to Roma settlements. When one comes to a Roma settlement, one usually comes with someone whom the community already knows and trusts. This is also often necessary because of the language, as well. Then you start from an idea or a plan, and you are always limited by time and financial resources, so you try to do everything as best as you can in such circumstances, and do as little damage as possible. Another thing I find very important is honesty. It is important to acknowledge that you are working with people who have not always had the privilege  to be highly educated, whose life experience is specific. They do have their own suggestions, although you might not always fully grasp their rationale. I think it is important to be very honest and clear about what is possible or what is realistic, to work collectively with the community to find ways to meet the possible and their needs - that is the easiest way to make something useful and sustainable.  

Last year you published the study "Holistic approach to housing"^[1]. What does a holistic approach mean and why is it important?

The majority of people who deal with the question of housing are very aware that an apartment is more than four walls and a roof over the head and that it is necessary to work with people who use those apartments and include social and health services, and establish a connection between housing and employment and the possibility of earning income. That is the only way to substantially improve living conditions of the most vulnerable. The publication you mention arose from a project called "Social Housing and Active Inclusion", during which there was a need to put on paper what we know by know on the subject and what a holistic approach actually means in practice. We have written about housing models before, so this is in a sense an upgrade to previous publications - but this is the first one that can be used by local governments, so when they open it, they see that there are realistic housing models, and right next to them, mandatory measures for housing inclusion. In this publication, we focused on four vulnerable groups: Roma, women survivors of domestic violence, people with disabilities and young people leaving the social protection system. But it is also applicable to members of other vulnerable groups. 

Why did you mark in the publication the principles of gender equality and participation as crucial for the holistic approach?

Women may not be a minority when on look at the population statistics, but they very often remain invisible in existing social housing programs and initiatives. In order to get equal treatment, women need to be additionally supported because they are excluded from so many programs. For example, research shows that among young people leaving the welfare system, young men receive support more often than young women, although there is no rational explanation for this. Furthermore, in the last ten years, around 300 women have been killed in Serbia, and their economic and spatial dependence on abusers brought them to the situation of eventually being killed. The question of asymmetric ownership among men and women is directly connected to the issue of domestic violence. Also, only a small number of women have access to safe houses, and even if they do, they can usually stay only up to a month or six months in them. If there really was a will to solve this issue, those women should be asked what solutions they see as the best suited. So, when operationalizing a gender equality in social housing, just to give one example, we insist on the ownership over the housing unit to be equally distributed among partners from one household.

And then - participation. I have already talked a lot about why it is important to work collaboratively with the users, and I would like to add that it is also important to work with people in municipalities. The more people from the administration are involved in the process, and the more knowledgeable they are, the more likely social housing will be well received. Moreover, when social housing is being constructed, let’s inform and consult the community as well. Participation will not only sensitize all those involved, but will also hopefully get to the most sustainable solution.  

The solutions you talk about in the book, which relate to groups that are not only housing but also socially excluded, imply that there is a strong intersectoral cooperation between housing solutions and social support/protection programs. Could you single out one or two examples that you think are examples of good cross-sectoral cooperation?

I think one of the more successful examples is the model of social housing in a supportive environment [stanovanje u zaštićenim uslovima]. Initiated by the Swiss and developed further and implemented by the organization Housing Center, other organizations and local governments have taken over this model. The concept changed and improved throughout the years. The concept includes the following - an apartment building is constructed and apartments allocated to vulnerable households for free rent and subsided utility costs. There is a family called the host family also living in the building, using one of the apartments under the same conditions, but receiving some kind of compensation from the Center for Social Work or the municipality. For that fee, this family provides support to other tenants in the building, and at the same time serves as a liaison with centers for social work or other services, say educational or medical. Sometimes this family even helps with minor repairs in apartments and the building, purchases and the like. As it is currently implemented, it is an expensive model, because the construction of the building itself is expensive. But one could think about the reconstruction of the existing buildings, as well as extending the “supportive environment” beyond one particular building and to the entire neighborhood community.

Also, another  service - housing with support - as part of the system of social protection services, is currently primarily intended for young people without parental care and people with disabilities. Four to six people live in one apartment, who are supported by professionals. The essence is not in material support, but rather in the engagement and involvement of service users in the community. There are elaborate structural and functional standards, as well as licensed service providers who don't necessarily have to be public institutions (but can come from the civil sector as well), which I think is good.

However, regardless of the fact that there are such potent models, they are rarely consistently thought through and implemented in Serbia.

___

I think after all this experience, the utterly most important thing is to hear what those that are going to be living in public housing units need. But even further, we have to know the communities we are shaping the cities for and we have to understand whom we are planning and building for. But the process has to be so much beyond an interview or survey. Continual and collaborative work is the key.   

Interview was conducted by Iskra Krstić, Iva Čukić and Jovana Timotijević

Zlata Vuksanović is the Senior Research Associate at Geographical Institute "Jovan Cvijic"​ of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art. As an urban planner and researcher, she has been primarily devoted to the topic of social housing for the vulnerable groups. Her book “Life on the Edge - Housing of the Poor in Belgrade, in the period 1919-1941” has been a great inspiration for many contemporary housing activists in Serbia. 

[1] https://social-housing.euzatebe.rs/en/downloads/61

What is a caring city to you?

A caring city is a city that takes care of all its citizens. It can be called and has been called differently - for example, inclusive. When I co-founded the Smart City association, what we had in mind was that it should be smart in that sense, that it should deal with citizens and involve citizens, not that it should be high-tech.

I believe that the concept "caring city" suggests what I also see as the essence of a gender-sensitive approach - to acknowledge that there are different citizens, to start thinking about what they need and to take care of those needs. When people ask me why this is necessary and isn't everything already gender neutral or they draw attention to the fact that there is not even a word about a gender approach in the legislatory framework, I respond that the approach I am advocating does not cost more and does not mean something special - it just means another degree of deliberation and rethinking in urban planning.  

Have you encountered any kind of resistance to the term and idea of gender-sensitive planning?

I started advocating a gender-sensitive approach in 2017, when I did the first analysis for the Permanent Conference of Cities and Municipalities [Stalna konferencija gradova i opština - SKGO], which I presented in front of the Committee for Urban Planning, consisting mainly of women employed in the urban planning departments of local governments in Serbia. I expected resistance and misunderstanding. However, the analysis was actually well received. On the other hand, it seems to me that, even when people look at this approach with approval, they often comment: "It's a very nice topic, we would like to deal with it, but now we're being overwhelmed by other more important things."

In further dealing with this topic, I did encounter misunderstanding - for example, when I presented the topic of gender-sensitive urban development with UNDP across five cities. It seemed to me that the negative reactions came primarily from those who have never heard of it and many of them seemed to raise their guard already at the mention of gender.

Gender-sensitive approach, like feminism, is not only about women, but it promotes equality. The example of Vienna shows that by responding to the needs of women, one also meets the needs of other groups. And I don’t mean this only in the context of the formally recognized marginalized or minority groups, but even beyond - just as an example, a single father and a single mother have a lot in common. We used a gender-sensitive approach at different levels of spatial interventions. Of course, this approach can also be introduced in planning, but given that it is difficult to accept new things in urbanism, we should expect resistance to it. It seems to me that it is somewhat easier to apply this approach through the design of public spaces. When one designs a public space, one thinks about people, about where they will sit or where they will move, while through urban planning one thinks in abstract categories, about the use of space, traffic regulations and the like. This is why I think it is a bigger challenge to introduce the principles of care into planning.

I think that the advocacy of a gender-sensitive approach must be aimed at architects and urban planners already during their studies. At the university, we were taught to understand dimensions according to modernist principles, within which the measure of things, i.e. the typical user is a man, Corbusier's Modulor is eighty meters tall, healthy and able. In this regard, it is perhaps most important to insist on participation, which can express the needs of different social groups. 

And what about norms in urban planning? Who are they tuned to? In Serbia, the norms are mostly adapted to the car - how to get to your house, where to place drive-ways, how to further speed up traffic, etc. But these measures actually contribute to even more cars on the streets, while all other modes of transportation remain neglected and hampered.

Today, even the structure of the apartments and the sizes of the rooms are not designed according to the housing norms, but fit with the constructive grid of the garage in the underground floors. In addition, many cities follow very strictly the norms related to roadway widths, intersections, turnstiles, reference vehicles and the like, while the width of sidewalks, the percentage of green or public areas is something that we sacrifice if we lack space and which is not considered as important as traffic norms, so it is often minimized. Sure, there are formal norms aimed at making spaces accessible for people with wheelchairs, for example (such as the one that the sidewalk should be at least 180 cm wide), but this norm is rarely respected and actually implemented. Why? Well, the expansion of street regulation to the detriment of private plots is avoided - neither the City authorities nor the citizens approve it. But it is necessary, because the only way to adapt the streets to the needs we all have is to move around the city safely and in a convenient environment.   

 In Serbia, the norms are mostly adapted to the car - how to get to your house, where to place drive-ways, how to further speed up traffic, etc. But these measures actually contribute to even more cars on the streets, while all other modes of transportation remain neglected and hampered. Today, even the structure of the apartments and the sizes of the rooms are not designed according to the housing norms, but fit with the constructive grid of the garage in the underground floors. In addition, many cities follow very strictly the norms related to roadway widths, intersections, turnstiles, reference vehicles and the like, while the width of sidewalks, the percentage of green or public areas is something that we sacrifice if we lack space and which is not considered as important as traffic norms, so it is often minimized. Sure, there are formal norms aimed at making spaces accessible for people with wheelchairs, for example (such as the one that the sidewalk should be at least 180 cm wide), but this norm is rarely respected and actually implemented. Why? Well, the expansion of street regulation to the detriment of private plots is avoided - neither the City authorities nor the citizens approve it. But it is necessary, because the only way to adapt the streets to the needs we all have is to move around the city safely and in a convenient environment.  

How do you see the functionality and safety of the city when it comes to the experience of women and other marginalized groups?

I think that even popular measures - for example, the formation of pedestrian zones - must be carefully thought through, because the question is how comfortable and useful they actually are and for whom. Imagine that you live in a pedestrian zone, that you are an elderly woman, and that you cannot get home by means of transport, but only by walking for half an hour. The "Gender and traffic" study, conducted in 2020, showed that in Serbia only 30% of women have a driver's license, while at the same time 75% of men have one. Also, in families that have one car, it is almost exclusively driven by a man. Women move much more on foot and by public transport, so the fact that Belgrade has poor public transport affects women more than men. The poor quality of public transport also affects more children, young people, those with low incomes, and the elderly. On the other hand, if public transport is good and efficient, it is likely that more adult men will use it as well. I actually think that mobility is a basic city function with an emphasized gender component. Vienna, for example, was engaged in studying the way in which transport is used and came to the data that men use transport by going straight from home to work and back, while women goe two stops, then leave their child, then two more, then go out to buy something, etc. They have a much more complex movement matrix than men. When planners tried to respond to this challenge and make it easier for women to move, the total number of people using transportation increased. Therefore, men also began to use it for more complex trips.

Another topic is the distribution of various services across the city. If we look at how families most often function, women are mostly involved in accompanying children to school and extracurricular activities. Therefore, the more these functions or services are distant from each other, it is difficult for women, primarily, to move around and perform daily life activities. What is interesting is that in the surveys we conducted on the topic of the availability of various functions in the proximity of housing, people generally gave their neighborhoods good ratings. I strongly believe this is the result of the remnants of socialist planning that created kindergartens and schools at an adequate distance from housing, along with other social reproduction services. But what will, in contrast, happen to all the peripheral settlements that are being planned today, as no one pays attention to this relation between different urban functions today. There are settlements in Belgrade outskirt municipalities  with a high density of buildings without basic city functions. These people travel huge distances, they only recently got connected through public transport with the rest of the city, there are no sidewalks, and a school is not even planned to be built because the construction is mostly unplanned and illegal. Another particular problem with schools in Serbia is that there is a trend of the number of children decreasing, while simultaneously cities are expanding. Thus instead of shutting down the existing schools, there should be  facilities with smaller capacities planned, but distributed so that they correspond to the spatial needs of the population.

What is your experience, as a woman, in the architectural profession?

I would like to refer to the survey that we recently conducted as part of the preparations for the 44th Salon of Architecture under the theme "TURN", because it gives very interesting responses and perspectives on male and female experiences in our profession. The biggest difference in the answers between men and women was to the question "How satisfied are you with your income", where men are predominantly more satisfied, while to the question "Are you in a leadership position in your organization" more women answered affirmatively. Interestingly, when we asked "Do you consider that you sacrifice something for the sake of architecture", mostly men said that they do, while women more often answered that they sacrifice sleep, and less often family. At first we were surprised, and then we realized that they [women] were actually sacrificing their careers and that we probably should have asked that too. 

It would be interesting to examine also how much women interpret something they do as a sacrifice, and how much as a given, inevitable, something that is taken for granted. And is there a difference within the profession - at the Faculty of Architecture, for example, there is a striking gender asymmetry in the architectural design and urban planning department?

Surely. The Chamber of Engineers claims that there is a similar number of women and men who own urban planning licenses. It is possible that the planners and engineers who deal with infrastructure, traffic, construction, and have urban planning licenses, bend the statistics, because when you go to urban planning offices and institutions, you see that more women are directly involved in urban planning. As is the case at the university after all. I believe that it is discrimination, above all in the field of architectural design.

My current engagement with the gender aspects of planning and design arose out of my interest in women in architecture. Back then I was just a designer and I was interested in who the female authors were. I started working on this topic in 2013, when Harvard women started a petition demanding that Denise Scott Brown be recognized for her share of the Pritzker Prize that Venturi received. The petition was rejected, which caused a vast response.

At the university, almost nothing is taught about domestic contemporary architecture, which is why I didn't have enough knowledge about it, and especially about the women who were creators in this period in our country. The only female name I heard at the university was the name of Ivanka Raspopović, who is always mentioned with the comment that Ivan Antić did not make an effort to remember her name as a co-designer of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade. It's no different on the international scene either - which author from the international scene have we heard of, except for Zaha Hadid? Over time, I realized that women have a great contribution to domestic architecture, but that their work is not valued.

Both here and globally, female authors are simply deleted. At the university, you only have images of male authors. A big motivation for me to deal with women in architecture is that I think that if we know that a woman has already successfully dealt with design, or had her own architectural office, or achieved some authorship, it might be easier for us to do the same. It seems to me that it is more difficult if all you have before your eyes is a picture of Corbusier with a bow tie - we even name the furniture designed by Charlotte Perriand in collaboration with Le Corbusier after him!  

You founded the Women's Architectural Society [Žensko arhitektonsko društvo - ŽAD].

ŽAD also started from the research of women in architecture. I moved a pebble and the rest was a snowball effect. Though I wouldn’t say it is an avalanche yet [she laughs]. It started in 2013 with interviews of our female colleagues, continued with the Blok conference and the publication of the book, and then it was the topic in the public sphere for the next 2-3 years. This, I believe, in a way prepared the conversation initiated by Anja Milić from Archipro in 2016, to establish a society, because at that moment there was no more resistance among female colleagues.

Dealing with the topic of women in architecture means a lot to me. Namely, the whole story with ŽAD helped me to network with a lot of women and somehow become part of a particular architectural community. Women's solidarity gave me wings. ŽAD still works on a completely volunteer basis, but I think it can contribute a lot both to women in the profession and to the architectural profession in general. Despite the challenges, we are the only professional association dealing with current topics in the profession, which has an active leadership and membership. There are a lot of female architects. It seems to me that the number of women receiving awards at exhibitions is also increasing. Aside from nourishing solidarity and emphasizing women’s contribution to the field of architecture, within ŽAD we also have a desire to help introduce a gender perspective into urban development.  

Has dealing with this topic changed your approach to design or planning?

Yes, both in terms of changing personal attitudes and behavior, but also in terms of professional work. I really try to apply what I talk about in my work. I am, if I work in a team, the person who will persistently keep reminding everyone about the aspects we mentioned, and I encourage other women in ŽAD to approach the projects they participate in or lead in this way.

Gender sensitivity is easily lost and we easily slip into old patriarchal patterns. A few years ago there was an exhibition dedicated to the architect Ivan Antic. Only women spoke on the panel about women in architecture while only men participated on the panel about architecture. That's another thing I'm trying to advocate for and change: to stop thinking that women dominate the so-called female topics, that they've only conquered that space and that's enough, while men dominate in dealing with all other topics. That's really the wrong way to go.  

What motivated you to write the “Analysis of Urban Planning and Design from the Perspective of Gender Equality” and “Guide to Gender-Sensitive Public Spaces”, and what you aimed to address by these publications?

That project is a continuation of the topic that I started with the Permanent Conference of Cities and Municipalities in 2017, mentioned at the beginning of our conversation. The analysis included a survey of citizens' needs, in which we obtained interesting results. Also, through this project we created a Guide with concrete recommendations, missing in the first analysis. Part of the project was also a public campaign called Cities to Female Citizens [Gradove građankama].

We ask ourselves what are the special needs of women. The problem is that we often don't know it, we don't have input data because no one has actually dealt with it. Various statistics are collected, but not analyzed in a way that could be adequately used in gender-sensitive urbanism. This analysis of ours can be useful in this regard. For example, the aforementioned data on the percentage of women without a driver's license is useful, but we did not have it until two years ago. When we don't have such data, participation is a good tool to find out something ourselves, but it should also be said that a lot needs to be done at the organizational level to make it an effective participation.

I have experience in dealing with participation from the City of Šabac, during the period when I ran a public urban planning company. Specifically, we wanted to reconstruct public spaces in a residential area in the city center through a participatory process. We announce an invitation to a workshop for citizens and ten men over 60 come. After lunch, their wives probably told them "you go", because women had other work to do. So it's obviously not enough to just simply invite people, because you might only get one perspective. You have to make an extra effort to bring in women. You have to make an extra effort to bring in young people, because they are not so interested and have little or no trust in institutions. I think every time we did some kind of participatory process, I only understood what was missing - if the local community meeting is in the office on the first floor, how can someone with a disability access; what time is the best compromise between institutions and convenient time for citizens (most often after working hours);  etc. If it is important for us as urban planners to involve citizens in collaborative planning, then we cannot do it in conditions that are suitable to us personally, but we must also take into account the habits and dynamics of life of all those who are affected by the plan and whom we want to include in the process. 

Interview was conducted by Iskra Krstić, Iva Čukić and Jovana Timotijević

Milena Zindovic is an architect, whose interests include urban planning and architectural design, as well as research on sustainable and inclusive urban development. She works as an independent architectural professional on various design projects, from housing to public spaces. She also works as a gender equality and public participation consultant for various local and international organizations and agencies.

How is life in accommodations for refugees in Bavaria?

Life is very hard for refugees in Germany, especially here in Bavaria. People must stay in camps for a long time. Some people are here for more than two years and still live in the camps. Sanitary conditions are poor. Sometimes men and women must share the same toilet, the same bathroom. When a woman enters there is sometimes a man in there. Furthermore, 100 people only have two toilets! You will see people making a queue just to have access to the toilet.

If you ask for admission to a hospital when you are sick, they will not allow you. If you ask for school and education, they will not allow you. If you ask for work, they will not allow you. It is very painful and hard for everyone. And some of the refugees in these camps receive only 100 euro per month.

The food in the camps was tea, tea, bread, tea, bread. Do you think somebody can survive with that? Tea, bread, tea, bread. Also, in the camps there is a limited time for you to eat. If you do not eat that time, there is no food for you. Because in the camp they open the canteen from 7:00 to 9:00. If you miss breakfast, you won’t have breakfast. Lunch is from 11:00 to 14:00, if you don’t have your lunch, it’s your problem. Dinner is at 6:00. Just imagine — 6:00 in the evening. If you don’t have your dinner at that time, that’s your problem. You must see for yourself how to survive and there is no money for you.

If you don’t live in the camps, you do not have a right to enter the camp. Because there are bad things happening inside, they don’t want anybody to go inside. You are checked when you go in or out. I don’t know why. Even prison is better than these camps.

How was your experience with security and the police?

Security guards sometimes come and grab you, beat you. We have had many of these cases. They broke the hand of a refugee twice. They provoke you, and when you react they harass and beat you. After beating you, they will keep you there, handcuff you, and the police will come and take you.

Police brutality is also a big problem. Sometimes they come with their dogs inside the refugee camps late at night. They don’t think of the kids who are sleeping inside the rooms. Kids will cry. Even during the pandemic, they are deporting mercilessly. Yesterday, they deported a lady with two kids and both kids were born here. All these days, there are deportations going on. How can you have a family deported during a global pandemic? People who have nowhere to go back to, whose kids were born here. What situation will they be in after deportation?

Refugees that do not have a passport will be asked, “Okay, bring your passport.” “I don’t have passport.” “Because you don’t have passport, you have to pay 2000 euro.” If you do not pay within the given time, they will take you to prison for seven months. Seven months only because you didn’t bring a passport. Many people have gone through that. They have been taken to prison like that.

The police also humiliate us in public. One time, there was a demonstration with 50,000 people. After the demonstration, more than 20 police stopped us, because we are Africans, because we are black. They said, “Someone has put a metal under the police car, but we don’t know who it was.” I said, “Okay, you people don’t know who put it and there are more than 50,000 people here. If you stop us like this, this is because of racism, because we are black.”

We were kept there for more than an hour after they checked our passport. In the end they said, “No, sorry, you have not done anything. It is just a metal was under the car. You are free to go.” We say, “No, we cannot go like that. Because you cannot just keep us here, you humiliate us for more than an hour.” So, we asked for the head of the arrest to give his badge number.

Sometimes you will receive a letter with a fine after they arrest you and you will not know what you have committed. We are arrested just because we are Africans, we are black. They will arrest you in front of everybody, they will search you. If someone does not know you, they will say that “Hey, these people are criminals.”

What changed during the COVID-19 pandemic?

COVID made things worse for refugees. People with COVID are sometimes not separated from those who don’t have it. If you say someone has COVID-19, why can’t you separate him from the other people? Some people have been in quarantine for more than two months. If you quarantine people who you suspect of having COVID and people who you do not suspect, and you put them together, that means that COVID-19 will spread to everyone.

Masks are another problem. Everybody is supposed to use one, but you receive only one mask from the government. It is a disposable mask that you should only use for one day, but you will use the same one every day anyway because that is the only one you are given, and you do not have money to buy another one for yourself.

People were complaining to me, calling me asking for masks. Among the refugees, we have some professional tailors, they sew. So, I took my personal money to let them make masks to distribute in the camp. Some people asked for two so that at least maybe you can wash it and use the other one. We collected donations, bought cloth, and made more masks. In total we made 24,000 face masks which we distributed in camps all over Bavaria.

The government does not care about the refugees. We said, “Take care of the refugees because if the refugees have contracted COVID, people who are working there will also have COVID and they will die.”

How did you get involved in political activism?

Our initiative, Refugee Struggle for Freedom, started in 2016, when a container in our refugee camp caught fire during the night. Nine or ten people from different nationalities joined together: Gambia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, Cameroon, Nigerians, and Ghanaian refugees. We occupied Sendlinger Tor in Munich for two months.

After two months we walked from Sendlinger Tor to Nuremburg by foot. We walked for ten days. Just by foot — no car, no train, no bicycle. We walked to the main BAMF office in Nuremburg and told them about our problems. We came back, we saw that nothing changed. After no one helped us, we decided to launch a hunger strike in the same place at Sendlinger Tor. This struggle was the starting point of our movement. We started doing actions all over Bavaria concerning refugees’ problems.

Currently, deportations are a big struggle for us. If people are deported and we know it, we normally go to the airport and conduct an action inside the airport. But the problem is that now they put people in a deportation prison. If you have a lawyer, a lawyer will be working on the case, people will try to work on the case. But they do not inform you about the time they will deport you, nobody will know.

People in the government here in Bavaria have no respect for refugees at all. The way they are treating people is very painful and hard. We protest and make all kinds of actions. But the government, they do not want to listen at all. You cannot change it.

Originally published on: “Police Brutality Is a Big Problem” - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (rosalux.de)

Photo: refugee welcome center hamburg | May 2nd 2014 - Gathering in… | Flickr

In early 2012, there are two contravening trends in Europe of which we are not sure whether they may not, in the near future, come together in their practice and in political discourse; clearly, however, they might. One such trend is the not entirely new, but still trendy "urban gardening" movement, which involves the repossession of urban brownfields, and their re-greening and re-utilization for the purposes of "micro-agriculture" in the urban environment. While urban gardening is often largely carried out by persons of middle-class origins, and hence involves an element of libertarianism, the other trend is rooted entirely in the "realm of necessity". In 2011, initial reports to the effect that numerous Portuguese were moving out of the city and back to the countryside to engage in subsistence agriculture again shocked European public opinion. They were not seeking jobs in the agro-capitalist industry; there are none to be had. Rather, for the first time in West Europe since decades, people were responding to a crisis by cutting their ties to the capitalist market, purely and simply in order to survive.

The crisis has long since left deep scars in the social systems of Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. In Greece, more than half of all young people between 15 and 24 are unemployed – a dramatic figure which is twice as high as it was in 2009. And it is no wonder, considering the fact that the country’s economy is being strangled by the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the “Troika” – the IMF, the EU and the ECB – to the extent that in early 2012, the country’s economic output had dropped by 20% by comparison with 2008. Obviously, planning, producing and distributing one fifth less have had its effects on the labour market – 600,000 jobs have been lost since 2008. The Greeks fear a return to the 1960s and ‘70s, a period ingrained in the memory of the nation as a time of stagnation and repression. Many people are now forced to rummage through waste containers in front of supermarkets in search for food. This was one of the reasons for the suicide of Dimitris Christoulas. In his farewell letter, found in the pocket of his coat after his public suicide on Syntagma Square, he wrote:

“The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my subsistence. I believe that young people with no future will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma Square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945” (this English translation taken from the Internet).

Dimitris Christoulas used the word “dignified” twice, which justifies the assumption that this concept was central to his perception of the crisis. It is obvious to everyone today that “the” market no longer provides any solution for the European Union. However, in cases of blatant failure of the market – and when has it ever been otherwise? – people automatically resort to concepts of moral economy. In times of crisis, people infected with prejudice have the tendency to seek solutions to their problems by sealing themselves off from outside influences, and to secure their coherence and prosperity by projecting hatred upon others, the presumed “outsiders”. Marine Le Pen, leader of the right-wing National Front (Front National) in France, scored her greatest successes in the recent presidential election in May 2012 in the in the prosperous surroundings of beautiful Nice. Prejudice, exclusion and hatred are permanent possible answers available to people in response to crises; a different answer may be – but must not necessarily be – a vote for left parties. Left parties are on the rise again in Europe – slowly, to be sure, and starting from a low level, but rising nonetheless. However, beyond these traditional avenues of representative democracy, there are encouraging “praxeologies” which have hardly been noted at all by the parliamentary organized left, but which are achieving breakthroughs throughout Europe.

The potato as both, a symbol and as material necessity

One might say, perhaps not overly seriously, that everything revolves around the potato – the potato as symbol and also as material necessity. It is no accident that a new collective in Munich, founded especially by workers in the media industry, is called the “Potato Combine” (Kartoffelkombinat; Der Freitag, May 31, 2012, p. 7). In early 2012, there are two contravening trends in Europe of which we are not sure whether they may not, in the near future, come together in their practice and in political discourse; clearly, however, they might. One such trend is the not entirely new, but still trendy “urban gardening” movement, which involves the repossession of urban brownfields, and their re-greening and re-utilization for the purposes of “micro-agriculture” in the urban environment. While urban gardening is often largely carried out by persons of middle-class origins, and hence involves an element of libertarianism, the other trend is rooted entirely in the “realm of necessity”. In 2011, initial reports to the effect that numerous Portuguese were moving out of the city and back to the countryside to engage in subsistence agriculture again shocked European public opinion. They were not seeking jobs in the agro-capitalist industry; there are none to be had. Rather, for the first time in West Europe since decades, people were responding to a crisis by cutting their ties to the capitalist market, purely and simply in order to survive.

Urban gardening – don’t talk about it, do it!

The important thing about urban gardening is not only its results – green spaces and organically grown, healthy vegetables and fruits on land devastated by defunct industry; rather, its doing, its action, its activity, are the essential elements of its success. Thus, the goal of the Munich Kartoffelkombinat is “to break down the separation between producers and consumers, so as to feel linked together” (Der Freitag, op. cit.). Peter Linebaugh has coined the term “commening”, to expand the debate around the concept of the commons to include the realm of performance. “Gardening” is what makes urban gardening so attractive to urbanites. In Germany, these gardens first became well-known when refugee women from Bosnia began to provide for their reproduction in this manner in the small German town Göttingen. Although Turkish immigrants in some western German cities had previously used brownfields to produce food, the gardens in Berlin were different: Here, for the first time, the aspect of performance became primary. Not only the “what”, but also the “how” of the (re-)production process was important. The products of the gardens were traded, given away or eaten in common meals. Certainly, the harvest itself was important, but the process of raising it was used in order to create intercultural dialogue between refugees, migrants and the local population. Christa Müller calls this “the practice of a logic oriented not toward utilization, but rather toward provision (Der Freitag, op. cit., p. 6). The garden became a medium for the production of a local community. “For this movement, autonomy means not obtaining higher wages in order to be able to purchase the things necessary for life, but rather the living and testing of knowledge, skills and social networks (ibid).”

It is as if the clock had been turned back: in terms of the crops planted, all are equal in their ignorance. Few urban people really know how to care for plants, other than those in your living room, rooted in granulate. Here is an opportunity for immigrants to contribute their knowledge about farming. The garden thus has a levelling tendency; here, cultural and social capital is being redistributed. More than 130 German cities today have such gardens.

The German urban gardening movement has thus had a few lessons to learn in recent years. Often, the beginning was the “soilless” garden, located in portable crates, and moving from place to place. Perhaps the Princess Garden in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighbourhood is the best example of this learning process. Its two founders, Robert Shaw and Marco Clausen, actually wanted to move from one “non-place” to another in order to make the idea of a green city known in Berlin (ibid.). But after three successful years, the actors realized that it would be a shame to break up local social relationships, just in order to move on. That showed that in Berlin too, peasant production, be it capitalistic, subsistence-oriented, or in the form of urban gardening, could produce stable social relationships.

The potato movement in Greece: Strength in unity

In Greece, a new kind of relationship between people and potatoes as had a very similar effect. Reports from crisis-plagued Greece have been coming in thick and fast recently. Many indicate that the fundamental institutions of society have been shaken by the crisis. The Greek family, known throughout Europe for its strong cohesion, is increasingly under pressure, since it is losing its capacity to cushion the effects of unemployment. For this reason, many parents are advising their children to be trained as farmers – back to the roots, as it were. While the parents were part of the first truly urban generation in Greece, today’s young people can see that the model of peripheral European capitalism will no longer ensure their prosperity. The American Farm School in Thessaloniki, for example, has seen record-breaking application rates. Prior to the May 2012 election, Greece’s conservative government promised thousands of urbanites that they would be given land for peasant agriculture. Universities are approaching the back-to-the-land trend from the educational side. The Agriculture Department at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki has selected 300 winners from among thousands of participants in a lottery for small parcels of free land. During the next three years, these 300 fortunate ones will be taught how to grow food sustainably and ecologically on their small parcels. Then, the next lottery will select another 300 “apprentices.” The participants in the last lottery will be excluded from participation in future ones, since the University’s goal is to disseminate knowledge about agricultural production as broadly as possible in the region.

These various programmes are to be welcomed; nonetheless, to some extent they are nothing more than an attempt by the old corrupt elites to retain their voter support. However, there are also bottom-up projects which could have the effect of bursting the constraints of the system. Here too, the potato is playing a leading role. Intermediate commerce in Greece is extremely oligopolistic, almost to a criminal degree. Farmers may wait for years for payment – in other words, they produce for nothing – and consumers pay up to 30% higher prices for food than they do in Germany. Then why not simply eliminate the middleman? The Greek potato movement is doing exactly that: with the aid of committed mayors, and also of the Internet, it is organizing direct sales.

According to estimates, some 750,000 Greeks in Thessaloniki and Athens can imagine moving back to the land. Only very few of them can imagine being farmers producing food for sale to the middlemen, and thus being reduced, once again, to an exploited cog in the capitalist system. Right from the start, these new “ruralites” are enthusiastic about organizing their lives and their production in cooperative forms. Even if products are being sold, a societal and nonetheless decentrally organized large-scale experiment seems to be taking place here, in which exchange value is being rolled back in favour of use value. What Europe can expect from the renewed utilization of land by former urbanites with the aid of cooperatives has been visible in southern Italy for years. There, large estates which had previously “belonged” to the Mafia have had to be turned over to civil society groups; they may not simply be resold. This has caused many long-term unemployed young people to move to the countryside to take up cooperative, sustainable farming. There are many reports showing how the arrival of the young urbanites have revitalized local village social structures, and people have started to support each other in their work once again, so that social, non-commercial relationships have been upgraded. Similar results can be expected from the Greek movement.

Ultimately, the question is what these two opposite kinds of potato movements have to do with one another, and how the European left can support them. While the urban gardening movement has largely risen to prominence in the richer, north-western European areas, carried by the alienated children of the middle class in order to provide an escape from feelings of social coldness, the southern European version of “back-to-the-land” is trying to create the basic material foundations for a life in dignity. However, both areas involve a long-term perspective. The ecological, collective raising of crops, and their common use in the centres of hegemonic financial capitalism of the north, shows the possibility of other forms of production, albeit in a nutshell, since no one really believes that a city like Berlin might be fed by the produce of urban gardening. Thus, while urban gardening, too, has its hard material sides, and doesn’t only involve self-realization, the potato movements of the south, born of material need, also have their immaterial aspects, pointing to the vision of a Good Life.

In this respect, urban gardening and the southern European movement “back to grandma and grandpa’s farm”, are part of mass movements which have been understood by the left parties in Europe only to a very insufficient degree, and which, like the Spanish indignados or the Occupy Movement, can show a way out of the crisis. Here, the organized party left has a very simple task: it must work within the parliaments to help secure “the infrastructural and legal preconditions” (Der Freitag, op. cit. p. 7) for these new forms of production.

Originally published on: The Potato as a Symbol and Material Necessity (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Büro Brüssel) (rosalux.eu)

Photo: Steve's Garden/ Visualhunt/ Stephen D. Melkisethian (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)