We are a collective of people who have joined together in order to express our anger and denounce present circumstances. It is our intention to connect our struggles and stand in solidarity. rage page is the lived and shared expression of our diverse activism and resistance. It is a place where we document our rage, despair and critique the system that represses, exploits and destroys our bodies and emotions. We do this in many diverse ways: emotionally, sometimes gentle and soft, as well as loud and outraged, sometimes in the form of stories, reports or poems, both in pamphlets and rage commentaries, in words and in pictures. We take up the space that is denied to us – always and everywhere. For us, transforming means creating a counter-public. We do not want to integrate, because our ideas cannot be integrated without betraying ourselves.
Our collective is located in Marburg and therefore we want to actively participate in the life of the city. We are closely observing the way conservative and right-wing structures align. One example is the link between the Marburg CDU mayoral candidate and the fraternity scene.1 The numerous student fraternities/sororities demonstrate how common conservative, right-wing, anti-Semitic, and anti-feminist ideas are. The well-known Nazi fraternities are just the tip of the iceberg. We are still lacking clear positioning, condemnation and sanctioning e.g., by the university. We also observe how covid deniers and the extreme right commonly protest together against covid measures in Marburg. Still, not enough people respond to this. Right-wing ideas and ideologies thus continue to be insidiously and yet so obviously adopted into public discourse. In addition to public protests, the organized right in Marburg continues to operate in other ways. The memorial to the nine victims of the racist attack of 19 February 2020 in Hanau, which was erected on the anniversary of the attack on Friedrichsplatz, has been attacked and destroyed twice. The fact that these attacks were directed against a monument commemorating people murdered by white supremacists makes the situation even worse. Although the city condemns the attacks, it fails to officially recognize the monument. The passivity of the liberal society of Marburg, the spread of right-wing thoughts, shifts in discourse, and relationships between conservatives and the political right can and must be made visible locally, as they belong to a wider structure. It is clear to us: Feminism simultaneously means anti-racism.
No matter where – we constantly have to deal with the “Macker” behavior which constantly takes up a huge amount of much space. Be it on the streets or in leftist spaces. Feminist self-conception and feminist self-reflection continuously fall short. Loudly we demand: No antifascism without feminism! Indeed, we see the close connection and contentual location of our magazine in Marburg. At the same time though, we understand our work as part of the global feminist, anti-fascist resistance. Taking up space is part of our feminist resistance. Too often we as women, trans*, non-binary, inter and LGBQA* are responsible to point out the way patriarchal and sexist structures permeate leftist spaces. We are sick of it, but still take on this task again and again because we recognize that it is important to point out the blank spaces, misconducts, as well as the exploitation of existing power relations in the left scene and everywhere else. Our magazine wants to do both: Take up space and denounce.
We won’t deny that those structures do also have a significant influence on us and therefore, on the magazine as a whole. That’s why the way we deal with them is crucial. We are trying our best to refuse the conditions and structures; however, do consider ourselves part of the problem as we cannot escape the impact of these underlying structures. Without constant work and reflection (and even then) they continue to exist within ourselves. To illustrate that: We all know how self-doubt can co-opt our actions even though this may stand contradictory to our political ideas. In moments like these our feelings are real and still only produced through the structures that keep influencing us. We (need to) see how internalized pressure to succeed, self-exploitation and hierarchies continue to influence our self-perception and our imagination of what we are capable of achieving. We (need to) see how we cannot simply refuse those structures since we are reproducing them in our collective working process and need to consider that we may transgress other people’s boundaries. We need to realize that, name it and work against it. For those reasons the publishers of this magazine see a necessity of permanent reflection and criticism while working. We see the magazine as a place of mutual exchange, failure and continuous learning. Therefore, we believe that criticism, contradictions and mistakes are not only inevitable but also necessary. There are contradictions we cannot dissolve. Despite this, we need to learn how to move within them – for a good life for all. It is only the acceptance of criticism that allows us to confront ourselves with internalized structures and work with (and against) them instead of violently disguising them. To see this as an infinite process is part of our fundamental principles.
Our magazine wants to provide people with the possibility to express feminist struggles in Marburg differently. We want to emphasize feminist voices in this society. We work together because we see the potential of collective action. We connect our struggles; we connect our fights! This patriarchal bullshit around us will not get us down! We want to live! We see our place not in a society like this, but fighting in solidarity alongside feminists worldwide. We must revolutionize ourselves, society and the systems. Given the current context, social distancing is essential for survival, but with rage page we overcome these distances. There is no pandemic that can pause our resistance and no physical distance that can destroy our solidarity!
Feminism or riot! <3
1Stadt Land Volk (2021): „Die mangelnde Distanz Marburgs Konservativer zur extremen Rechten“.