SETTING OFF ON A FEMINIST JOURNEY TOWARDS SAFER ONLINE SPACES AND FEMINIST SOLIDARITY


How can we stand against online gender-based violence by drawing on our shared knowledge and networks to work towards a feminist vision? Thirty young activists from Belgium, Germany, Romania, Serbia and Finland embark on a three-week journey of reflecting on feminist topics, connecting with local activists and organizations, and discussing online sexism with people on the streets of different European cities — starting in Liège.

It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in Liège, Belgium, and people are passing by the statue of the Lion near Saint Paul’s Cathedral, eating fries on the benches, rushing to work, and strolling past the shops. On one side of the statue, two young men are gluing a large image onto a sheet of paper: a whale representing peace and a bird representing women’s freedom. On the other side of the statue, a group of women is playing bingo about online sexual harassment. On the ground, written in chalk, is a question: Are you a feminist?

The day before, a group of around 30 young activists has gathered in Liège to begin a journey of three weeks through Europe. Today, we are spread around the statue, inviting passers-by of all ages, backgrounds, and political views to take part in discussions and games.

Do you know how deepfakes and secret filming affect the women who experience them? Is there any regulation in place regarding Meta glasses, sextortion, and revenge porn? What kinds of shared experiences have many of us, as women and girls, had online? Do we have a name for the things that we or our friends may have experienced? Who is responsible, and what can we do about it? What is our feminist vision?

Resilience Through Feminist Solidarity

The day flows into evening, and the street conversations are placed into a broader intersectional, feminist context. The basement of Casa Nicaragua, a space originally squatted and run by women, becomes a venue for screenings of two films about feminist solidarity.The shared space fills with discussion as the films are followed by reflections on what feminist solidarity can mean in everyday life: building resilience through small acts of joy and solidarity that can grow into something bigger.

Through the film Samidoun, we also see solidarity in the context of everyday survival amid an active genocide and apartheid in Palestine. Acts of solidarity in the midst of surviving decades of occupation and displacement, and an ongoing genocide, can mean trying to preserve life when hope and solidarity are among the only things left to hold on to. Here, solidarity is survival. Neither cute nor inspiring, but forced endurance.

Feminism Through Anticolonial Understanding

On Monday morning, we gather again to hear from solidarity organisation Intal and the Students organisation for Palestine in Liège about the exploitation and systematic abuse of Congolese and Palestinian people, made possible and fuelled by global capitalist structures.
What does it mean to come from a country with a history of colonialism, exploitation and destruction — and how does the history translate into action today? For those of us coming from Belgium, Germany, Serbia, Romania and Finland, many of us have had to confront a question of how we should understand and deal with the past crimes of our countries and where our responsibility lies.

For Germany, the list of countries colonised is long: Tanzania, Cameroon, Togo, Rwanda… In the case of Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is still suffering from decades of violence, including sexual violence used as a weapon of war, resulting from Belgian colonialism and present-day neo-imperialism. In Finland, the colonization of the lands of the Sámi people is still present in today’s economic structures. And so on. 

We hear that the violence for example in Congo is fueled by the need of minerals such as cobalt and coltan that western companies need for electrical devices to keep the global trade and multinational corporations economical gains flowing. The violence and exploitation are continuing, only in a different package: expressed more indirectly through global economic systems.This violence is enabled by financial ties, international institutions, and diplomatic support. It is clear that we are complicit in genocides fuelled by interests of Global North, and that this is a framework we cannot ignore in any of our feminist work. We should understand that within colonial systems, women’s bodies and reproductive conditions are direct targets of control, as well as targets of destruction during genocide. At the same time, women carry out the daily labour of survival — rebuilding networks, caring for communities, and navigating constant displacement.

Feminism without a broader understanding of the conditions created by past wrongs and global structures, and imposed from the Global North when found convenient is not complete. We are not responsible for what our ancestors have done, but we are responsible for what is happening now. With these learnings in mind, our journey will continue: learning from one another, creating feminist networks of solidarity and resistance, and talking with people of the cities.