Straßen

aus

Zucker

Die Zeitschrift Routes sucrées erschien bisher nur in deutscher Sprache. 2009 in Berlin als einmaliges Zeitungsprojekt für junge Menschen anlässlich der nationalistischen Deutschlandfeierlichkeiten gegründet, wurde aufgrund der vielen positiven Reaktionen eine reguläre Zeitschrift daraus. Mit mittlerweile 8 Ausgaben, die im gesamten deutschsprachigen Raum gelesen werden. Zu Themen wie Alltagskritik, Nationalismus, Liebe, Geschlechterverhältnisse, Sexualität, Kapitalismuskritik, Religionskritik und vielen mehr. Wir versuchen dabei, die Texte allgemeinverständlich zu halten. Linke Texte, die abschrecken und klein machen, gibt es ja schon genügend.

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“It is not our bodies that are wrong, but a poorly-equipped society.”

The fact that the self-determination of people with disabilities is a public issue today is not a matter of course, but rather the outcome of a movement which started forty years ago in the United States but which is still largely unknown: the disability rights movement. For the first time people with disabilities are making their voices heard – loud, ungrateful, even angry, because of the constant paternalism they have experienced. We talked to the left-wing activist Tim in Berlin about who is disabling whom, what needs to happen, and why the cinema is apparently not for disabled people.

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Running out of work, are you kidding me?!? Reading this, you might think we have gone mad. In this society, labor is one of the most important things imaginable. Unemployment statistics are published regularly and people get excited when any drop is reported. When a planned new factory raises protest, perhaps for environmental reasons, the most common counter argument is usually „But come on, this creates jobs!“ It almost seems as though work is a value in itself. Apparently, many people don’t work to afford a more or less bearable life, but rather they live to work. This even goes as far as inventing new jobs just as busywork. In 2009 the German government introduced a car scrappage scheme in order to stimulate the economy: When exchanging their ‚old‘ car for a new one, people received a bonus of 2500€. Apart from stimulating the economy, the main line of argumentation was that this would be good for the environment. But destroying a small car in order to buy an SUV has certainly not helped the planet. So ironically, this caused many cars that were still fairly new to end up on the junk yard – so that car manufacturers would have enough work. What a crazy idea: The main aim was to simply produce more, and as an effect do away with perfectly fine cars. Another example: Sometimes tasks are invented just to make people who (have to) live off unemployment benefits „get used to work“. Others speak of work as if it ennobles and cultivates those doing it. And we are all supposed to work longer and longer, even though many people won’t make it to retirement because of job-related illness. At the same time, more and more young people are unemployed, unable to find work in the first place.

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David Graeber is an anthropologist, anarchist, and one of the main organizers of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) in the United States. He has written about direct action, revolutions, capitalism, anarchist anthropology, and other issues; his latest book is „Debt: The First 5000 Years“. His writings have been translated into several languages. We interviewed David in Berlin.

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“But it doesn’t work, look at the last time”
Whoever criticizes capitalism has sooner or later been confronted with this phrase.
A lot of responses to a fundamental criticism of existing social relations point to the failure of so-called “actual existing socialism” in the Soviet Union and the GDR as “proof” that there are no alternatives to capitalism. “Look, maybe capitalism isn’t brilliant,” so the argument goes, “but any other way of organizing human society inevitably ends up in a dictatorship.”

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There are some perennial discussions in leftist groups, at the dinner table of housing co-ops, and amongst activist friends, among them the question of how far your individual behaviour is able to change social relations. Was Michael Jackson right when he sang: „I am starting with the man in the mirror“? Debaters on both sides seem to have a point. A lot of people who have found their way to the political left actually started their political awareness by questioning their own behaviour, more precisely their own consumption behaviour. Whether it is boycotting McDonald’s restaurants, H&M clothes or Coke, the refusal of animal products, avoiding specific travel destination and certain means of transportation or buying TransFair products, they all have one thing in common: They all attempt to change bad conditions through the means of one’s personal behaviour.

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One solution – revolution! A-, Anti- Anti- capitalista – Overthrow the System, revolution anarchista! The revolution is my girlfriend! And all the rest of it. At demonstrations, on t-shirts, in lyrics: the magic word „revolution“ has a big importance in left images and language. But when we actually start some form of activism – at university, at school, in groups or autonomous centres – our activities can often seem far away from fundamental political change. Much rather we go to anti-Nazi rallies, meet in reading groups, criticize dominant male talking at the student council, or block nuclear waste transports. Sometimes, when we read a text or write a call for a demo this „revolution“ pops up, but it always seems to be an empty phrase, somewhat detached from our daily lives. In the following, the magic word will lose its magic and the empty phrase will be filled with some content. So why do we want something like that – a basic change of society, a break with existing conditions? And in which cases are smaller changes – reforms – enough?

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Why an internationalist antinational magazine?
“Routes sucrées”, or “Straßen aus Zucker”, is a left magazine of politics published in German – until now. Founded in Berlin in 2009 as a one-off project for young people re-acting to rising nationalist sentiment fueled by soccer World Cup and reunification festivities, the massive positive feedback it received turned it into a regular magazine. Meanwhile, eight issues have been published; our latest reached a print-run of 120.000 copies and is read all over the German-speaking world. The articles deal with topics such as the critique of everyday life, nationalism, love, gender relations, sexuality, the critique of capitalism, religion, and much more. We try to keep our texts comprehensible – there are already enough left texts which are alienating and make you feel small.

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Tom Morello is the guitarist of „Rage Against The Machine“ and plays as a solo guitarist as „The Nightwatchman“. As a political activist he supports labor struggles, immigrant rights and fights against the death penalty. Straßen aus Zucker met Tom before a concert in honor or the 100th anniversary of the communist folk singer Woody Guthrie.

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