Congress

With Miro Dittrich (CeMAS), the APABIZ and Fatma Kar (Polylux Network)

Moderated by Elliver

Crises, disasters and social uncertainties characterize our present – whether climate change, pandemics, war or economic crises. In times like these, the question arises: How do we prepare? Who takes care of whom? And what narratives are used to politically charge crisis preparedness?

While state authorities are often hesitant or overwhelmed in their response, right-wing actors are deliberately occupying the field of “prepping” – with authoritarian, exclusionary and ethnically charged strategies: from survivalism and self-sufficiency fantasies to settlement projects. In digital spaces, they spread apocalyptic narratives, deliberately stir up mistrust of democratic institutions and present themselves as a supposedly viable alternative to a “decaying society”. In the process, the narrative of precaution becomes an ideological weapon.

But resilience does not have to mean retreat. It can also mean collective strength, democratic participation and mutual support.

This is exactly what we want to talk about in this panel: What social and political dangers do right-wing resilience strategies harbor? And how can we counter them – with solidarity-based, collectively organized crisis prevention that focuses on cohesion instead of division?

Miro Dittrich works as a senior researcher on right-wing extremism at CeMAS. He researches the interface between technology and society, with a focus on anti-human and anti-democratic phenomena in the digital space. At CeMAS, he leads the project Digital Seismograph: Monitoring Terrorism.

Julia Ziegler works for the antifascist press archive and education center berlin e. V. (apabiz). The apabiz is the most comprehensive publicly accessible specialist archive on the extreme right in Germany after 1945. Since 1991, the archive has been working for all those who are involved with the extreme right on an activist, educational, civil society or academic level and are committed to opposing it. Particularly in the area of “prepping”, there are always overlaps with right-wing ideologies, self-defense rhetoric and authoritarian world views. The apabiz was invited because it has many years of experience in helping to analyze and classify these structures and to effectively oppose them in the context of education and activism.

Fatma Kar is a political educator, activist and co-founder of the Polylux e.V. network, which supports civil society and anti-fascist initiatives, particularly in eastern Germany. Her work combines perspectives from community organizing, empowerment and political education. We invited Fatma because she shows how solidarity-based crisis preparation can look very practical – on the ground, in communities that often receive little support, but are all the more dependent on mutual help and networking.