Speech by Seebrücke Würzburg

My own background has taught me a profound truth: movement is not a crime.

My story, like the stories of countless others, is a story of departure — because staying was impossible. Because a world defined by imbalance left us no other choice. And I want us to remember why people flee. We are told they seek opportunities, but we know the truth is far darker. The crisis we face today is not a coincidence; it is a manufactured one.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has warned of the drastic effects of climate change on millions of displaced people worldwide. Three-quarters of those affected lived in countries where the consequences of climate change are particularly severe. According to the UNHCR, around 250 million people have already been internally displaced over the past decade by weather-related disasters. The noise coming from the Bundestag in Berlin — talk of a “migrant crisis,” of “burdens,” and calls for more deportations — tries to convince us that those arriving at the borders are the problem.
No, we are not your scapegoats! The government is trying to distract German civil society from the real causes. The crisis is not the people arriving; the crisis is the global economic and climate violence that forces them to flee. The true, hidden cause is the machinery of profit and consumption that defines our world. The stability and immense wealth of nations like Germany were built on colonialism, exploitation, and reckless resource extraction. For decades, the Global North has treated much of the world as massive sacrifice zones, exploiting land and people — enslaving, for example, children in the horrific mines of Congo to extract cobalt so that the Global North can have electronics and electric vehicles while filling the atmosphere with carbon. And who pays the price? The marginalized — the people who contributed the least to the catastrophe. When the homeland can no longer feed you, when the seasons betray you, we are talking about forced displacement. That is economic and environmental warfare.

The German government responds with a cynical, twofold strategy — a cruel sorting machine designed to secure capital while punishing the displaced. On one side, they roll out the red carpet for people and prioritize the new “Work-and-Stay Agency.” For skilled workers, the borders are open. They are the “desired migrants,” valued for economic benefit. On the other side, they launch a deportation offensive. For families fleeing the very conditions Germany helped to create, the door is slammed shut. Germany never had a “migration crisis.” It has a racism crisis, and that is what we must address.

The dubious deals with regimes in Libya, Sudan, and Turkey violently block the routes north. Border control thus finances the instability and militias responsible for mass displacement and human rights abuses — all so Europe can secure cheap minerals and resources while the victims remain invisible. The system is built to criminalize mobility and profit from chaos; a transaction that uses development aid and arms exports to build a wall of invisibility around Fortress Europe. That is not humanitarian aid — it is outsourced violence. And when people fleeing these very conditions reach our shores, you call them “benefit scroungers” or “economic migrants,” let them drown in the Mediterranean, even shoot at them? The hypocrisy and violence know no end. The truth is: there is no abuse of social welfare — only a lack of humanity.

While the German government pressures Afghans into declining entry with five-figure payouts, it simultaneously plans deportations through agreements with the Taliban — known for executing people and systematically oppressing women — while even considering a similar deal with the Syrian regime. The justification for deportations: only “criminals” are being sent back. Meanwhile, the sheer cruelty and life-threatening consequences for those deported are coldly ignored. And to everyone here who needs to hear this: we are not interested in the populist narrative that “only offenders” are deported. No crime on this planet can justify cooperating with a terror regime that persecutes and publicly executes its own people. The German government pretends to fight terror while collaborating with terrorists. Deportations do not prevent violence — they are violence.

We cannot talk about climate change without talking about racism and migration. The same system that refuses to act on the climate catastrophe is the same system that lets people drown in the Mediterranean. We cannot remain idle. It is not enough to make colorful signs and pose at rallies against the AfD or at climate strikes.
We, the civil society, must become active. And that includes, very explicitly, the civil society here in Würzburg. Racist policies do not just affect people we hear about in the news. They affect me. They affect my family, my friends, my siblings. They affect your neighbors, the people you meet every day, the ones standing next to you at the supermarket checkout. Therefore: take a stand! Do not remain silent witnesses!
If you don’t know how to get involved, talk to us from Seebrücke afterwards or contact us by email or Instagram. Join the solidarity cash exchange now taking place here, which gives refugees with payment cards a little more autonomy.

We say: what we need is solidarity — solidarity with all whose lives are increasingly endangered by the inhumane, destructive policies of the German government.