At the end of last year, the ASZ squatted a vacant building in Höngg. Although the occupation was only short-lived, the accompanying media work had an impact and brought the ASZ a lot of positive attention. It was nice to see once again that our project received a lot of sympathy and support from many different sides. However, some of this support is for a project that we are not and, above all, do not want to be.
What we mean by this is illustrated by a reader’s comment posted in the online edition of the Tages Anzeiger on an article about the ASZ. Mr. C.V. wrote:
“Education is a high good and I think that whether illegal or legal – migrants who use the facility show the will to integrate. The funding of this facility, whether used by legal or illegal migrants, is a good thing. The school should not be a lawless area, but neither should it be a fox trap for the police. I see no contradiction to the asylum policy of Switzerland in the school.”
Apart from the fact that Mr. C.V. probably believes that the ASZ is financed by the public sector, this comment expresses the contradictions in which the ASZ is involved. We see ourselves as a place of resistance against Switzerland’s inhumane migration policy. How can it be that no opposition to Swiss asylum policy can be seen in our school?
The German courses in particular are a welcome help for the institutions whose policies we are fighting against. Various municipal administrations in the Canton of Zurich, the public asylum organization Zurich (AOZ) and the private company ORS are happy to send “their refugees” to the ASZ for free courses. In this way, they save further money on the care of asylum seekers who are condemned to do nothing.
We increasingly have the impression that many sympathizers simply think it’s good that the ASZ is “helping refugees”. Of course we appreciate people who show solidarity and provide help in the fight against an inhumane migration regime and support discriminated people. But we do not want to be the self-organised “stopgap” of neoliberal austerity and exclusion policies.
The ASZ is made up of struggling people, not victims and people in need of help. We do not allow ourselves to be degraded to recipients of charity and aid, but demand our rights. The right to education, the right to work, the right to our own identity, the right to freedom of movement and the right to a regulated and legal residence situation.