A-Infos (en) Bulgaria, Protest in defense of migrants - a sad smile from the old tapes (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

What happened ---- On March 28, Thursday, at 6 p.m., a protest was held 
in front of the NDK in Sofia in defense of migrants. Apparently, the 
occasion was another fanning of xenophobic sentiments against all kinds 
of foreigners from a few weeks ago. Nothing special... I've been 
watching politicians win votes through fear and hate for decades now, 
and elections are coming... But this time I happened to have an 
opportunity to go and decided "Why not join a noble cause"?
By 6:30 p.m., there were fifty protesters and a hundred policemen at the 
NDK pylons. In the area, small groups of kids with Cuban hats and shaved 
heads roamed around - apparently they had heard that someone was going 
to protest against the daily harassment of everything "non-Bulgarian", 
which gave meaning to their existence. The rest of the participants in 
the event were the unwitting bystanders, most of whom didn't seem to 
understand what the circus was about, and didn't really care.

I will not go into detail about the event, and there is not much to 
tell. I knew by name or by face perhaps one out of every five 
participants - with the same people ten or twenty years ago we protested 
for environmental or human rights causes. We shouted and chanted along 
Vitoshka Street to the Courthouse, where two migrants told about their 
patila. I remembered the story of one because just before the protest, 
the Nazis had beaten him up again and disembowelled his arm, this time 
it was also his wife... maybe it's her fault that she married a foreigner.

Why is it important?
It's important because it's sad . In a city of a million people, where 
street violence is practically a daily occurrence, only about fifty 
people protested against its most harmful manifestation. Apparently the 
other two million Sofians have no problem with street gangs being 
violent on the streets, as long as it's against someone else.

It is important because there were no children . With few exceptions, 
the teenagers were on the other side, with Cuban tops, bomber jackets 
and shaved heads - apparently the way to integrate in the neighborhood 
is the same as in parliament - by puffing yourself up with patriotic 
slogans.

It is important because the media and NGOs were not there , although 
they were invited as usual. Ten or twenty years ago, even such a small 
protest would have been attended by BHK talking heads and filmed by all 
the national television stations. The message would have shifted from 
the idea of solidarity among the world's downtrodden to charity from the 
rich to the poor. The class struggle would be masked behind tearful 
stories of rescued refugees. Even in the streets people would be found 
to respond favorably to the "infantile idealists." But today we live in 
a new world in which the only reactions I noticed from bystanders were 
attempts at violence . Even the subject of charity has been removed from 
the agenda of the media, when it is not Bulgarian enough . And the 
employees of the various liberal NGOs try not to poke their noses at the 
fact that money from abroad flows mainly for conservative projects anyway.

It is important because I saw decent behavior . People were not afraid 
to openly chant against the police because they covered up the violence 
- never mind that there were twice as many policemen around us and that 
in this case they were keeping us from a confrontation with the 
clean-shaven children who had come to defend the motherland. There was 
sadness, but no despair.

With the exception of one or two silly statements, essentially calling 
for violence against the bullies, ideologically the propaganda was quite 
spot on . Things were being said that people would think of for 
themselves if they had a chance to look at the matter soberly:

that migrants in Bulgaria are not a significant number
that the violence against them is far more than what they do
that there are immeasurably more migrants from Bulgaria abroad
that they are met there by the same street gangs and parasitizing 
politicians as migrants in our country
that the authorities tolerate violence against migrants both 
domestically by turning a blind eye to street violence and politically 
by catering to any other authority that demands the return of "its" 
subjects or the sending of inconvenient migrants from " normal states'
And actually last but not least, it is important because the oppressed 
are silent . In Sofia, there are significant communities of people from 
other nations - Kurds, Arabs and even Armenians - who know well the 
misery of being a refugee. But neither of them bothered to notice the 
protest. Instead, they let the older kids play anti-fascism under the 
watchful eye of law enforcement.

What can you do?
The conclusion is self-evident. Although in Bulgaria it is undoubtedly 
more difficult to be a refugee than a Bulgarian, you will not get 
solidarity until you find more in common with the people around you than 
with the people who oppress them. What we have in common is not simply 
that we are human - those who persecute them in their homeland and those 
who expelled two million Bulgarians from our homeland are also human. 
People are also those migrants who have arranged their lives well in the 
new place and instead of feeling solidarity with their poorer brothers, 
they prefer to be gone so as not to turn the local fauna against them . 
At the end of the protest, which took place among the most popular 
tourist spots in Sofia, well-dressed foreigners also happened to pass by 
- they looked curiously at what it was about and hurried to leave.

The war is not of the Bulgarians against the migrants, but of the rich 
against the poor . That is why rich migrants did not come to this 
protest. Therefore, among the Nazi agitators, the richest kids are the 
most respected. Therefore, the NGOs and the media have preserved the 
agenda of the rich classes, which today does not include protests 
against the violence against the poor in the streets. Violence against 
migrants and the suppression of solidarity among ordinary people is 
simply part of the war on the poor waged by the rich. Of course, the 
guardians of order (that is, of keeping the poor poor and the rich rich) 
will turn a blind eye to the organized violence of some poor people over 
others, when it does not concern their superiors. For this and other 
processes of violence against the poor and oppression of solidarity, 
there is only one word - class war .

Part of the war is shifting societies around the world toward hatred of 
"others." There is no longer any need for one country to pretend to be 
more liberal or more social than another when there is a tacit agreement 
among all countries to threaten each other and prepare for world war. 
"Others" are bad by default, and the only escape from them is submission 
to "our" authority, be it East or West (which is apparently the only 
choice most people see).

We will not see solidarity on the part of the victims, much less on the 
part of the abusers, until we can explain to them that we are all, 
together, victims of the class war. The only thing that should and can 
be done is to take this message and go among the people - in the 
schools, in the refugee neighborhoods, in the detention centers and in 
the prisons, instead of shouting "Alert, anti-fascist" under the 
protection of a hundred policemen, who would certainly prefer to drive 
us out themselves if their leaders would allow it.

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