Who we are

Rosa Antifa Vienna (RAW) was founded in the summer of 1995 by young anti-fascists. Why Rosa (Pink)? quite simple, because we were sick of the predominance of homophobia in this society and unfortunately in the left wing scene. Expressions like "Urgh! They're gay, I'm not going in there, I could catch AIDS...." we could and no longer wanted to hear, even from our "own" people. We felt our freedom within the scene was infringed, the people that didn't want to have a normal two person relationship were, and are, gossiped about maliciously. Because it was not possible to talk about sexuality without everyone blushing. Because there are still people who believe that sadmoasochist people need psychiatric treatment, or that lesbian and gay people must be "healed". Because many people believe that being hetero is "natural" or "normal". We simply want to form the relationships which we have chosen, so we (all people currently involved) can live without discrimination. We want to love who and how we want (if he/she also wants to).

Even if we are called ROSA Antifa it doesn't mean that all people who work with us have to be homosexual, we disapprove of any proof of sexuality. We want to change the balance of power: we fight against the division of people into homo- and heterosexual, native and foreign citizens, men and women, sick, healthy, poor and rich....and with these the associated roles and worthiness. We are simply all people, and that must be reason enough for everyone to have the right to have a peaceful and comfortable life and follow their own ideas! These rights are withheld from us on a daily basis. As a result the system functions. They divide us into those who kick and those to be kicked. Must these divisions maintain and become deeper?

And we have been kicked enough

Every single day women and girls are exploited, sexually abused and raped. They are seen, by "their" husbands, fathers, brothers, bosses and the state as their private property. Their personal rights over their lives and bodies are refused. They are supposed to stay in the kitchen and raise children, work thanklessly for miserly wages, look after and satisfy their husband who dictates which advertisements she must obey and which cosmetics she must wear.

NO! Patriarchy must be Crushed!

We want no education (parents, nursery, school, teachers...) that first breaks people and then teaches them how to function so that they are productive. We want no money (only that so we can live), no bosses and no fat cats who profit through our work. We don't understand why we are supposed to pay for public transport, accommodation, food and other necessities. We don't understand why people are in prison because they have the "wrong" passport, because the were born behind a line on a map and as a result are "2nd class citizens"! Why are there prisons at all in which people are interned? People who have not obliged the prevailing laws, or are themselves not able to adhere to these laws. Why are people in prisons for crimes against property? People who need to satisfy their hunger, people who have debts. This is the perfect world that the advertisements show us and with that the social pressure to own objects of prestige, we are no longer able to bear this.

Why must we all currently support a police framework whose laws enforce and protect the rich and spy on us in all areas of life and control and harass the poor? We belong, not in the slightest, to your laws, that help to further slaughter people in wars that are only always about money, power and the influence of rulers. Why do these wars also gain the blessing of the church, when the church in this country as the Roman Catholic church has become one of the worst of its many incarnations. A church that, with its morality, its advice on curbing self determination, demonises sexuality and forbids contraception, wants to force us all in to totally monogamous, child based hetero marriages.

A church that just like the rest of society has never come to terms with its fascist past.

There always remain innumerable old nazis in positions of power, to say nothing of the general acceptance of their attitude of mind, because the general racist consensus is the ready base for their successors and it is already prepared.

What makes us sick and incensed is the fact that the role in society allocated to us is the "RadfahrerInnenprinzip", in which we are supposed to "bow to superiors and kick underlings", that we ourselves are part of the general suppression pyramid. As 'men' against women, middle Europeans against the '3rd World', as students against the 'uneducated', as workers against the unemployed etc. It all depends on what is currently relevant to us.

Therefore what we are sick of, is that it can be different. We are of the conviction that the whole repressive system in general is not necessary. If you on principle want to change something, and we hold exactly that as a pressing necessity, and is for us all perfectly achievable. So it is, for example, completely irrational that you have to work your whole life, just to be able to receive a halfway bearable lifestyle, there is definitely more than enough goods any way, or there certainly should be. Only certain people, namely those who can't pay for them, have no access.

What we want is....

... one world, in which it is just enough to be a person, to have the right to equal access to the wealth of the community (which is indisputably available). To work in society because you yourself have decided to, and not because you must, and through it all, produce that what you yourself and others need and then simply have everything else at every ones free disposal. Simply a requirement economy, no "free market economy". A way of producing in which the producers decide what they want and are able to just as much as the consumers, and in which the sole drive is not striving after profit, but, really, striving for the meeting of the needs of the people.

Capitalism claims to be able to do this too. The sole purpose though of capitalism is, by careful management, to obtain a profit and thus it invents and maintains inequalities.

As long as money is earned from people having particular needs, these needs will never be allowed to be totally fulfilled, in fact, the deplorable state of affairs will get greater. The needs not being removed means the system can function further. So, for example, if all have a place to live and there is no more homelessness, the "free" accommodation market will collapse, the oil industry will go bust if sensible energy sources are used that do not poison our last breath and there is no pharmaceutical industry that doesn't have any interest in taking preventative measures and people not becoming ill in the first place, or eradicating especially "profitable" illnesses etc. Those who have the say as to what happens in this world use their power to stop alternative research initiatives, as they don't profit from these. Who has the money, who has the power. We want nobody to have power, we want nobody to govern us, we need no leader, we can think and act for ourselves. We need no elections, because if elections changed things, they'd be illegal, we won't let ourselves be made fools of. We want to be able to live freely. To be oppressed by no one and to oppress no one. Therefore we are not a party, with us there is no members, no hierarchy, what we do and write we decide together. Our leaflets and newspapers are not supposed to depict universal wisdom, they are our thoughts and supposed only to stimulate people to think for themselves. The people who read these should build their own opinions, we are only seeking to inform and to say that there are other possibilities to the way things are now.

Apart from the usual things, politically expressing ourselves (flyers, newspapers, rallies, demos....) we also attempt to communicate something through street theatre. That we however have no broad audience is obvious, we have no television station or a newspaper circulation in the millions. We finance our writing, office and actions through voluntary self exploitation and occasionally festivals. We ask for no money for any of our productions, whatever they may be, we are obviously very happy to receive donations and feedback (even when it is critical). As a result it is possible for us to carry on working.

WE WON'T GIVE IN, THEY WON'T BREAK US!

rosa antifa wien