International youth festival in Lützerath

An international youth festival will take place on Saturday in Lützerath in the Rhenish lignite mining area.

On 28 May, the Lützerath Lives and Make Rojava Green Again campaigns are organizing an international youth festival under the slogan "Join fights - overcome capitalism" in Lützerath in the Rhenish lignite mining area. A program with music, food, workshops, a children's program and much more has been prepared.

The festival aims at bringing the European climate justice movement and the Kurdish liberation movement closer together, creating a space of exchange and a common culture of resistance. Other initiatives such as the alliance against the animal industry have signed the call and also support the open letter to the climate justice movement, which calls for action against the ongoing attacks by the Turkish state on the self-governing areas in Rojava (Syria) and southern Kurdistan (Iraq).

In the open letter to the climate justice movement in Germany, the initiatives call for solidarity with the Kurdish freedom movement and invite you to the youth festival in Lützerath.

The letter said: "As part of the left-wing climate justice movement in Germany, we call for solidarity with the struggle of the Kurdish freedom movement in all four parts of Kurdistan (Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey). In order to get to know each other and to counter the crisis-ridden reality with a common departure, we invite you all to the international youth festival in Lützerath on May 28th, 2022! We want to create a place of encounter, of revolutionary perspectives and exchange. Fighting together means becoming dangerous.”

The letter added: “In the shadow of the terrible war in Ukraine, the Turkish military prepared another major offensive, which started on 17 April. While the outcry about the war of aggression by Russia in Ukraine is great, there is loud silence about Turkey's major offensive against southern Kurdistan. In the current attack, the fascist Turkish army is not only targeting the heart of the movement in the mountains of South Kurdistan (Nord Iraq): Shengal, the city where ISIS committed genocide against Yazidis in 2014, and Kobanê, which was destroyed by IS in 2015 was liberated are bombed.”

The letter underlined that “the revolution of Rojava and Northern and Eastern Syria is an important point of reference and a glimmer of hope. For almost ten years, the people there have been building a self-governing social system and taking their lives into their own hands. The proposal of democratic confederalism, which is based on women's liberation, grassroots democratic self-government and ecological and needs-based economic methods, represents for us a concrete answer to many of the most pressing problems facing humanity. Rojava is practical proof that the other world we dream of is not a utopia must remain, but can already become a living reality today.”

The letter ends by remarking that “in order for us to build this alternative, we have to come together, get to know each other, exchange ideas and create a common culture of resistance. That's why we invite you to come with us to Lützerath on 28 May and make the International Youth Festival a moment of shared departure."