The elephant in the room: Corona.

As you know, the situation is rather shitty because of Covid-19. Actually, we wanted to have a book fair where everybody can participate, which won’t be possible under the circumstances, but postponing it indefinitely is also nonsense – so we’d rather have a book fair with some restrictions. To make sure that the whole thing is as safe as possible, we have to ask you to follow some basic rules. We know this is annoying, but for the health of our comrades* it is worth it.

1. Please come masked…uh…with mouth-nose-cover and wear it in all closed rooms (also tents).
2. On arrival please come to the infopoint first and leave a contact form. There you will also get current information about the situation. We will make sure that there are not too many visitors at once, so that the events are not too crowded.
3. The rooms in the house will have a maximum number of people per room, please take care with us, then we have less stress.
4. If you suspect a corona infection, please stay at home!

And some last information:

We have a shift schedule for people who want to help to realize the book fair, if you can imagine doing that, please write us! We need people to carry drinks, help cooking, be at the infopoint, set up and clean and much more.

You can also contact us if you can offer sleeping places for comrades! Many people will surely be very grateful for that.

Just write us at infoladen [@tbb] kts-freiburg.org

See you soon, we are looking forward to it!

The reason is, like you may have guessed, the spread of the coronavirus. With our book fair we wanted to get together with as many people as possible from all three countries that make up the region and create a space for a long and intense exchange. To facilitate that, the program was not only filled with book stalls and workshops, but also dining together as well as cultural offers at night (like bigger concerts). In this context we can’t ignore the risk of infection, especially for our comrades  who have a higher risk of being infected by SARS-CoV-2, and can not stick to our plan like before. For a utopian world, we want to look after and care for each other and try to stay (or get) well.

With the early and considered postponement to a later date we want to enable a book fair which will hopefully happen – with new releases, the latest analysis (also about the coronavirus) and maybe even more people!

How we handle the current health situation shows also what is important to us. That’s why we are shocked by the despotic, medical irrational closure of the national borders (which also affects our guests, in particular the ones who could not pass the border safely before). Likewise, we are shocked by the economical conjunction program, which is only geared towards getting capital through the crisis, while precariously employed people are largely left to fend for themselves. But also at the ignorance behind showing solidarity in connection to the coronavirus, but ignoring the plight of all the people at the European borders and accepting their deaths.

Together, we want to continue to resist this system of crisis politics that capitalism entails, still fight together for more humanity and still create our own spaces. Therefore, we understand the date change of the book fair as mere deviation, as a necessary measure, but also as an opportunity with a free weekend more to catch our breaths, pause for a moment and break through the neoliberal daily routine, and consider how to not go on like before “after the crisis”. A weekend to instead take time to stay active locally and in smaller circles or on the internet, because we are many, we are everywhere, and we can work everywhere and always toward a better world, not only when we come together for bigger events.

Stay seeds for a better world, stick together, and we’ll see you out there!

The comprehensive program encompassed lectures, concerts and a “action training” to “prepare people for polticial actions”. This included the topics of teaching “blockade techniques” as well as “legal help” and how to cope with “repression”, which were announced.

So next time we will try to top that! Come by, the second anarchist book fair in Freiburg will be from the 17. to the 19. of April 2020. Write down the date!

A bit tired but happy we look back on a great weekend. Full of sun, lectures, book stands, concerts and workshops. We had a lot of fun organizing the book fair! We also want to thank all the people that helped us, be it by offering books, cooking, lecturing, offering workshops or helping out at the bar.

If you have any comments, feedback or other nice words, please write us.

So here we have a final update on the schedule for today, since we were forced to switch some things around. The update on Rojava and the situation in Germany has been cancelled sadly, so we have moved the update on protests in France back to the 2pm slot.

The Schedule for Today:

• 10-12 am
  • First Aid Workshop
  • Book Lecture: Liberatout
• 12am – 4pm DIY-Printing
• 12am
  • Anarchism and Ethnology
  • Intersektionell Feminism
• 2pm
  • The ZAD – authoritarien Developments in France
• 4pm closing concert with Dishlicker

The book fair is about to begin! At 5pm we will welcome our guests and then start with Tar Sands, as the opening Lecture. But before that happens, here a last update.

We have even more events for sunday. Thus, the book fair will go untill 5pm on sunday, with the concert by Dishlicker at 4pm. The new events are an Update on the Situation in Rojava as well as one on the protests in France and a book lecture by Liberatout.

The first Aid Workshop will be at 10am on sunday.

The Skilltraining for Demonstrations will beginn on Saturday at 10am, we recommend attending from the start!

There is an Infopoint during the whole book fair for up to date information.

We hope to see you soon, the fair will start timely on friday at 5pm. If you want to help out, either during the fair, before (preparing everything) or after (cleaning up), please contact us.

More information will be made available soon.