July, 2019
Berlin -- American Voices Abroad (AVA) participated in the "Lights for Liberty" demonstration on July 12, 2019. Ann Wertheimer spoke for AVA at Pariser Platz, at the Brandenburg Gate:
We stand here today in solidarity with thousands of people at hundreds of protests all over the United States. These are the Lights for Liberty: The Vigils to End Detention Camps at the U.S.-Mexico Border.
Tonight, thousands of Americans will go to detention camps at the border, as well as into the streets of their hometowns, to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees. The Lights for Liberty demonstrations will shine light on the horrific abuses of the Trump administration.
We may be a small group here tonight in Berlin, but we are in good company. We stand with...many more civil society organizations who have agreed to sponsor this mobilization.
The barbaric policies of the Trump administration have created what is being called a crisis of American values. In fact, no children anywhere should be separated from their parents, and no children should suffer these conditions, and, certainly not children in the care of the American government. [The New York Times, editorial, June 24, 2019]. That is why we are here tonight at Pariser Platz, just steps away from the United States Embassy, and around the corner from the Holocaust Memorial.
A few reminders to our government:
• The United States has a history of intervention in some of the countries from which these refugees are now fleeing. We have toppled governments, supported murderous heads of state, aided in the plunder of natural resources…. The refugees at our southern border are part of the blowback from the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people still seeking safety from US-financed violence. [Patricia Williams, The Nation, June 20, 2018]
• And the United States continues to support violence and inequality in the countries from which refugees come. Our government has a particular responsibility, not just because we are a rich country, but because we are on the demand end of the drug trade and the supply end of arms dealing. This flow of drugs and arms is inherently destabilizing.
• Finally, children are always in a special category. We try to protect them because they are especially vulnerable and because they are not in a legal position to enact decisions on their own behalf. We don’t use them as hostages in political power struggles.
This administration has tried to make immigration appear to be our country’s greatest problem – lying about crime statistics; lying about the numbers of people entering the United States; and ignoring and denying the economic and social contributions made by immigrants. These fabricated threats are intended to prevent us from having an honest national discussion about immigration. They are meant to validate the President’s America-first narrative and to advance his political agenda.
These lies about immigration help to distract us from the real threats to America: the destruction wrought by climate change; the economic insecurity of the poor and the middle class; the instability of a health care system under ongoing attack by Republican lawmakers; the inequality of educational opportunity; and the threat of big money in politics that corrupts our electoral and governing processes. These are the real threats to America.
When children are separated from their families, when asylum seekers and others who want to emigrate are held under inhumane conditions – whether we call them detention camps, concentration camps, or cages – we must remember that the intent is to reinforce power through hate and bigotry.
We know this and so we are here tonight in solidarity with Lights for Liberty. We must close the camps!
As a proud AVA member, I was present in spirit if not in person. I added emphasis to the paragraph above about Americans ourselves being on the demand end of the drug trade and the supply end of arms dealing. That must always be a consideration. Thank you, Ann.
