2. THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY...AND
NATIONALLY...AND INTERNATIONALLY...
Some Concrete Ideas:
• ECCO, the European Council
of Conscripts Organisations, calls for the banning of
racism in all armed forces in their "European Social
Charter for Conscripts".
• The European Playworkers Association
organised a week of Intercultural Community Action in
the Karolinenviertel of Hamburg. International volunteers
helped to organise a festival, childrens' activities,
roundtables between local people and visiting Roma gypsies.
• Member organisations of the
ÖBJR (Austrian Youth Council) were prominent in the
launch of an umbrella body (SOS Mitmensch) to promote
tolerance. SOS Mitmensch held the largest demonstration
- Lichtermeer - for over 50 years in Vienna, January 1993.
• BIT, the Progressive Youth
Organisation, works with the Martin Luther King Egyseült
in Budapest to collate and publish a diary of racist attacks
on foreign students.
• The youth section of the European
Trade Union Confederation organised runners to carry the
"Torch of Tolerance" from different starting
points in Europe. They started at the ETUC Youth General
Assembly in Rome, March 1993 and met at Maastricht in
April.
• Young socialists from Italy
(Sinistra Giovanile nel PDS) and Germany (Jusos in der
SPD) combined to produce bi-lingual anti-racist material,
1992.
• UNITED for Intercultural Action,
a network against nationalism, racism, fascism and in
support of migrants and refugees, published the first
edition of the "Calendar of Internationalism",
February 1993. The Calendar is published regularly and
sent to over 1400 relevant organisations. Eleven years
later, at the time of preparing this internet version
of ALIEN 93, the 68th edition of the Calendar of Internationalism
was sent out! And, of course, nowadays its possible to
obtain the information through their website:
www.unitedagainstracism.org
• A local
youth association in El Entegro, Spain (Associación
Cultural Linares) has is making a patchwork of decorated
cloth squares from youth organisations in Spain and the
rest of Europe. The theme of the patchwork is "La
juventud contra el racismo en Europa"; tr: youth
against racism in Europe.
There are further examples of activities that young people
have taken in Compass. For example, you will find how
young people in Copenhagen developed a derelict, inner-city
site into a community garden in "Garden
in a night". A second example is the
activity, "Beware
we are watching", which describes the
Eastern European Clean Clothes Campaign.