 will kick off. So warm welcome and thank you everybody for joining tonight for events, Solidarity is more than a slogan, International Workers Aid during and after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1992 to 1995. Warm welcome from our side, from the Rosa Luxemburg-Schriftungs Brussels office. My name is Axel Ruppert and I will guide you through this evening tonight together with my colleague, Alexandra Spitt and we're looking forward to our study presentation and panel discussion. Tonight we will address a question that some of us might have asked each other or ourselves at one point already and the question of how to practice solidarity with those who experience war and armed conflict and how can such solidarity be practiced in very practical terms? What form of solidarity is actually helpful and with whom to solidarize and how can we organize it across borders? How can we organize it democratically? And we want to look at these questions tonight through the perspective of International Workers Aid and we don't want to do so by idealizing or romanticizing this endeavor, this experience but look at it as one International Workers Aid member actually described it as an experiment, as an attempt to practice solidarity and I'm very excited to do so with our wonderful panelists and speakers that we've invited tonight and I'll briefly introduce them before I'll give you one. At the same time I'll give you an idea of what we're doing tonight before I come to some technical announcements. So first of all I would like to welcome Nicola Small. Nicola, you are a historian by profession living in Sarajevo and you've written this great study that we're actually launching tonight. We've just published it on our website so it's basically experiencing a life launch event. Alexandra will post it, the link to our website in the chat. Here already a big thank you Nicola for writing, for composing this study and for all the work you've put into it and we will be discussing with you about this study in a few minutes. Next I'm really excited to introduce our three panelists. First of all, Franziska Bachmann. Franziska, you are joining us from Berlin tonight. You've been actually 18 years old when you joined International Workers Aid and you've been one of the first volunteers working in IWA's Tuusla office. So really excited to hear from you a first-hand experience when being an active member of International Workers Aid. The same goes for Wolf Andersen. Wolf, you've been a member of IWA and you were a co-founder of the Swedish International Workers Aid branch and we're also very excited to hear from your experiences, from your first-hand experiences and last but not least, very well welcome to Leila Majdansic. Very pleased to have you here with us tonight and to hear your perspective as a Tuusla resident. I'm joining us from Tuusla tonight and also during International Workers Aid time you've been head of the International Students' Union in Tuusla. So we will first hear from Nicolas and discuss the study and then we'll go into a discussion with Franziska, Wolf and Leila. But you are of course very much welcome to share questions, comments and remarks in our Q&A box and please use the Q&A box that you find in the Zoom bar below for questions. We'd like to reserve the chat for sharing links, making announcements. So please share your questions in the Q&A box and we'd like really like to encourage you to do so because when we will talking later on we want to get into a conversation also with you and are very keen to hear from you. If you have any technical problems please don't hesitate to write to Alexandra or me in the private chat using the chat function you also find in the bar below. All right, before I hand over to Andreas Tomsen, head of our Brussels office for a welcome. Quick question to Alexandra, did I forget anything really important, any announcements that we have to make? Perfect. All right, and we're recording this session. We will put it down on YouTube channel later on. Yeah, if you have an issue with your name appearing when we for example talk about the Q&A later on then please let us know and we'll take care of that. All right, then again one welcome, great that you're all here and I hand over to Andreas. Yeah, I'm also very glad that you're all here and that we have the opportunity to to have this launch event of this study and publication and I'll make this very briefly but basically I want to say thank you to some people being involved in developing and publishing the study and this is quite also a story which is in many ways a bit similar like international workers aid worked then it had it had to do with some coincidences and it began for me it began with the meeting in Tuzla some years ago and I had a feeling there's still a story to be told and there's still many and that there are still many discussions we can have about the experience of international workers aid and to approach so I met with Ulf and Ulf so as the first person I would like to thank here I met with Ulf in Sweden and we were speaking about the beginning of international workers aid which is really an expert in that and basically also he was saying yeah and this is what we can say but you have to speak to Ulrich who's the next important address and I didn't actually reach out for Ulrich this time since Ulrich came to me and said we have this archives of Miggurts and Sørensandagard and they are decomposing since they are all on paper and this was the first thing we did digitally sized them we brought them to Berlin and then we had a lot of data and this archives electronically so the next persons I had to thank here are obviously Ulrich and Søren also and then I was sitting in Brussels and they had this data and I was thinking now what we needed what we really needed was a historian who maybe has also some knowledge about this time and this region and is interested in the topic now next thing that happened was that Francisco called me one day and told me she incidentally met such an historian with exactly this profile so thank you very much Francisco for making this contact and I believe this was really more than an incident and so we met Nicholas and Nicholas was really the perfect match for doing the work on this on this archives we had and this in the end and then thank you very much Nicholas as well this in the end led to the study and then the publication and the publication of course was the publication of a study by Nicholas and then carried out and it was a lot of work for my colleagues in Brussels so those are two colleagues I have to thank here as well and you also see them Alexander and Axel also thank you very much for moderating facilitating this this event this is the line like the storyline for this study and I'm extremely glad that we now managed to finish it to publish it and now to launch it and for me and for my time also in for my Brussels office this is also my nice arc of work on this on this topic so this was very briefly but there were obviously a lot more people to thank also Leila for for participating here I would leave it with that with that and hand back to Axel I believe to move on with the more important information and discussions it's me thank you very much I'm so sorry no problem thank you very much yeah we are all very very very happy to see that publication published right now and you have written a very comprehensive and insightful study but before we go into the details perhaps a very simple question to start with what is it actually about can you summarize what international workers aid was about and what we need to know to understand this experiment as it was called by the members yes do you hear me okay yeah thanks so hi everybody and yeah I'm really also very happy to be here to see the book finished after this long journey and Andreas told some of the steps and and I really also want to thank Andreas Axel and Alexandra yeah for making this book possible and now organizing this lounge and I see now the list of names so it's great to see names that I know but it also great to see names which I don't know so hopefully also the activists is also a story which will be more known when it is now and actually yeah that's a little bit also to come to your question Alexandra I mean I also didn't know much about international workers aid or nearly nothing three four years ago and then by this coincidence meeting Franziska et cetera this what Andreas told I discovered this initiative also a very rich material which was left and which really and I met so many of the different former activists and and I was wondering also I mean how come that it's not so much known and and actually it's not the only initiative from the 90s which was very committed towards Bosnia Herzegovina which is not known but there have been a lot of lot thousands and thousands of individuals in different European countries which were engaged but actually with solidarity mobilizations are not very much known in general in Europe today except for those who participated in it but in general it's not a topic which many know about and I mean there are different reasons for it I think one of the reasons is certainly also that the dominating picture about the attitude of Europe in the international community towards Bosnia during the war is indifference passivity so the world is looking but not doing anything concerning all the violence in Bosnia Herzegovina and the war and the politics of ethnic cleansing and in the same time so I think it's true yes there have been this passivity this indifference or complicity even on the side of many other governments but actually in the same time there have been all these solidarity mobilizations on the grassroots level which have been developing and yeah which are probably also suffering a little bit from this general picture of indifference but actually all these people who were engaged and these groups also very often were very critical towards their own governments and said we have to do something to show support to show solidarity etc etc and yeah so as I said international workers aid was not the only initiative but I think and it would be worth to make a study of each of these initiatives of course I mean but I think except the coincidences which led to also to to make this study now I think there are also good reasons to have chosen international workers aid for this study because I think in this field of all these solidarity mobilizations it is in the same time and organizations which reflect different tendencies but it's also very original in itself and there are several factors which come together so so what is international workers aid international workers aid is a group of people mainly from the political left can be socialists anarchists syndicalists drugs kids people also who don't define themselves in a category but who basically say at one moment yes we cannot stay indifferent we have to do something yeah and it's a process which was there for many persons so some went into actions after not so for international workers aid basically it was something which was triggered also by knowing about the fate of the town of Tuzla in north on Bosnia because they were Tuzla as a minus town as an industrial town actually was very strong also in the experiences of international solidarity also in the 80s and before and actually Tuzla in a certain way embodied all the values the people who then joined under international workers aid wanted to support yeah a multi-ethnic city a worker city industrial city fighting against all nationalism etc etc so I think this was one specificity there have been other groups which focused on Tuzla but many of the international attention also of solidarity groups was on Sarajevo yeah so not so much on Tuzla so that was perhaps one of the specificities to say let's do something another specificity is I mean there have been many humanitarian groups who helped there have been many political groups who supported in one way and there have been those who combined both so how to combine humanitarian and political work international workers aid was one of those who tried to combine both so we bring food yeah because Tuzla in 93 was starving yeah we bring food to this city of minus we but actually yes we wanted to link it with a political message so we just don't want to just bring it and then distribute it in general no our target are really the miners there who are defending the city who are embodying the spirit of the city and so the contact cooperation was established with the trade unions coal miners trade union in Tuzla and the idea was really to strengthen those who are defending this idea of a multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina and the miners and the workers rights etc so that's another I think this link of political and humanitarian aid and once again also other groups did it but here specifically also combining trade union syndicalists activists from western Europe and then from Tuzla and the third aspect which is quite original many of the other initiatives which existed who tried to support Bosnia-Herzegovina in one way or the other were very mononational it meant it was a group in France who did great things for example Sarajevo or for Tuzla or it was a group in Germany in Austria but there were not so much groups which really tried to have an international approach and this is really international workers aid as the name says that was really grouping at least groups from 10 different countries in Europe yeah so to try to and to try find ways how to work together because in a certain way they said also I mean yeah it was the idea also to believing in a in a Europe or in an international solidarity which they embodied in themselves also and this international cooperation so between people from Sweden from Denmark from Belgium from France Germany Austria Italy Spain Switzerland forgot certainly now two or three yeah this I think it's also bad this is probably the most specific aspect but I think these three things together yeah also focusing on Tuzla linking political and humanitarian aid and especially also with this idea of supporting miners and trade unions and then this international approach I think this makes really this makes it worth to make out of international workers aid an object of study by itself so perhaps I can show also some because for the studies of it I mean you can Alexander already shared the link but so just to give you an idea how the study looks like and and also yeah so here you see it that's the the front page and maybe I can just interrupt because that concerns my second question and you're already answered it but maybe just again very precisely you have chosen the slogan solidarity is more than a slogan as the title of the study can you explain where this expression comes from and why you have chosen it yes yeah actually it's a quote from a film which was made about the very first convoy of trucks which came from western europe to Tuzla in 1993 so there's a documentary movie which I quote also in my book which is made by an australian photographer and filmmaker who was actually part of this very first convoy in 1993 yes and this is a and in this documentary movie actually at one moment there's this quote and what we did showed that solidarity is more than a slogan and I think for me it was something which also embodied also a little bit the spirit of international workers aid of course also of other groups but that's why I think also it's a where international workers aid is so interesting because it reflects also many other groups yeah so the idea okay on the one hand you can sit in London in Copenhagen in Paris or in wherever and say Bosnia has to be defended or the war has to stop yeah but the other thing is yeah if you remain just in your at home or it I mean it is better than nothing to say this but it's nevertheless also not really helping or supporting or doing something concretely so basically also this idea yeah what can we do that solidarity does not remain a slogan yeah but becomes more becomes really a practice and I think this I tried also to show in the study I mean how to transform solidarity from an idea in a practice and that's super complicated I mean this is super challenging and and it's in general challenging but if you do it by going into a war war zone as in Bosnia has a governor between 92 and 95 it's of course even more challenging and difficult and I quote one at one moment in my book also Mick Woods who was one of the pioneers of international workers aid so he was in the very first convoy as a driver and then continued made more than 20 convoys to Tuzla and he says at one moment after the war he made this quote yeah saying yeah it's what I just said also it's on the one hand yeah it's easier to to to make some slogans but it's much more complicated to go away from just from a slogan and then put your life at risk yeah of course by going into a war zone and then also basically also this what international workers aid did was also very how to say a lot of totally annoying things to be done I mean all the administrative paperwork which needed to be done to get a truck into Bosnia has governor but also I mean international workers aid which was not had not very much money acquired three trucks at the beginning and these were two older former trucks from the eastern German army which actually were old models and of course so they had to be repaired basically every second day or falling apart and you had to get this part and so organizing all this solidarity was extremely annoying in a certain way or exhausting in different ways and then I think also the most difficult part in solidarity is of course this human social part and this was also something what I think what international workers aid experienced itself so how can we do because delivering food to others is of course creating a hierarchical hierarchical situation or relation yeah you bring food to people who are starving or who need food or who don't have enough food so you are creating in a certain way not a symmetric relationship so but then it becomes very dangerous yeah because you can what about the dignity of those who are in this situation of war and who are in need yeah so how can you respect this dignity and these were questions which were very important for the different persons of international workers aid and I think the book tries also to show us how they reacted to very practical questions so I think one just to give one example to show also what was the approach of international workers aid was to say when we bring the food to Tuzla we don't want to distribute it ourselves yeah we want really to give it to the trade unions and they distribute it among the miners because we don't want to make the trade union superfluous we want to strengthen them yeah and if we come and give the food directly to the miners then it changes everything basically we are bypassing the trade unions we are putting us in a situation of force and etc etc so this was something international workers didn't want to do yeah so we wanted to empower in a certain way the trade unions in the same time this was also not easy because of course also in a in a war situation you have a problem of black market etc where everything is scarce it's so there were soon also rumors of coming up that some of the food brought to Tuzla ended up on the black market so how do you react to that yeah so how do you and so yeah how do you react to all these challenges and to bring a last challenge which is not directly linked only to the question of solidarity but in general it's it's very practical challenges all the way along in this in this work is for example yeah very concrete questions so there were some European community sponsored organizations in one day they gave a lot of material food food to international workers actually many in international workers didn't like the European community because they thought that it's a capitalist enterprise so suddenly you have a very concrete question what do we do with the food donated by this with the 12 stars of it because we don't want to make propaganda for the European community but in the same time it's food I mean people are waiting for food so should we throw it away what should we do with it so these are all kind of questions which appear all the time and this is what I tried also to to to show in the study actually yeah this all these practical challenges on very different levels and what kind of answers international workers I tried to find yeah so perhaps just to show now I'm so you see the so why can't I go down now oops strange so you still see the front page okay wait I will try to find another way I'll stop hello I'm back so I knew it's something like that would happen let's try again there is no proper zoom event without a technical failure so we're just checking boxes here actually now it's crossed on perfect so here you see just to give an idea about the structure of a book and then you can discover it of course by your own so basically it has two big parts because the idea was on the one hand to tell the story yeah so basically to do the work of a historian and then but also there have been so much documents yeah because really I mean as Andreas mentioned the archives of big boots but also the archives of others which many of the former members of Ibar shared with me and it was it's such a great experience anyway as a historian to touch original archives and I mean as Andreas mentioned it's paper and it's not only paper most of it is fax paper because in the 90s of course most of the communication went by fax and most who remember fax it's you know it's it's very uh this paper which is falling apart I mean to read some documents 20 years later it's quite a challenge but so nevertheless it's to discover these archives etc it was clear that it's the book should also include really reproductions of facsimiles because making a facsimile of a fax which you can't read anymore would be a little bit difficult so to reproduce things so you see actually it comes at the end documentation but basically it's half of the book are original documents from the time which are reproduced so that next to the historical narrative and my interpretation which I give there are also really original voices and original aspects who are who are coming so basically as you see you you have these different parts here also at beginning it was important to put a map so thank you also to Irfan Salih and Sarajevo who made this map yeah because to show also the different those who are not so familiar with Bosnia-Herzegovina and to understand also the military situation and to show as you see also the the route the convoys most of the convoys took um and that it had to go through different territories controlled by different armies and of course each one time was meaning checkpoints and all the problems bring with the checkpoints so yeah you have yeah these different chapters so first it's in a chronological approach yeah and you see also I want to thank also Melanie Hendrich who made the great design of the study also and also all the former IVA members who gave me photos because all the photos you see in the book are really photos which have been taken by persons from IVA during their activities in a certain way yeah and so you have this this structure where you see so in different this chronological order within this text part I have written and so that's and what is also important I mean you know many NGOs or other organizations ones that the war ended decided to go away again but actually IVA was one of those who said we staying yeah we there are still things to do it's not because the war over that the problems are over so this is the chapter yeah how to continue in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina because of course the situation is not the same so the question is food convoys now does it make sense no so we should invent something else yeah so um this is this part and um yeah I mean the international workers I had lasted from 93 until 2000 so as I write also in the book in the journal you can say it's perhaps not very long but these years are usually important I mean even if it was just one year or six months yeah but staying seven years for a group of volunteers I mean IVA were basically most of the persons all of the persons were volunteers yeah it was not a professional aid organization it never wanted to become one um so in a certain way it was also normal in my view that after a certain time it just ceased to exist so it didn't end with a bang it just yeah faded out in a certain way yeah so just to show you also um so here after I try to summarize in this fifth chapter yeah what is this IVA experience what is the specificity of it and also what are the legacies yeah um Andrea has mentioned that there was a meeting of the former IVA members with their friends from Tuzla in Tuzla in 2018 so this talks about about the legacies when you have also some annexes yeah chronology all the different organizations which were part of international workers aid which I try to reconstruct through all the archival documents with different activities also um which were made and also a little chapter about yeah what was specific about Tuzla because I think this study is also meant of course I'm glad that many former IVA members are there and I'm really looking forward of course for their feedback but of course it's also especially written for people who have never heard about IVA who have never heard about Tuzla who perhaps don't know nothing about Bosnia Herzegovina to explain so also here the context and just to show the last part as I said the second part is the documentation um and as you see also the idea was to regroup documents under certain um categories so that um we understand better yeah but we have political aims again the challenges of the compromise of the national campaigns the local projects and also the discussions they had yeah because there were very controversial discussions about many things within IVA should we focus on Tuzla or it's not only on Tuzla why not also should we support the military intervention or should we not support the military intervention yeah all questions which many of the groups which were engaged were asking themselves that in IVA you you can find them yeah and the the last chapter I'm also very happy that it is in this voices from Tuzla because it's true that it's written from a perspective the sources that I have are from persons who were from once again from Sweden from England from Germany Austria Italy and so who were coming to Tuzla I didn't have much sources from people from Tuzla to see what were their reactions but so I nevertheless put some of these voices of Tuzla I want to thank especially also Victoria Musayurich who gave me her extract of her diary which she wrote as a 14 year old teenager in Tuzla and where she met Franziska and other IVA members and so where she writes also her impressions about that so I think these are wanted to try also to bring in a little bit also these these reactions from from Tuzla yeah so you see how it looks like these different documents and then also photos coming yeah here series about the convoys and others so where there's a little appetizer I hope it gives appetite to look more in the book and yeah and just for the end yeah also a glossary because we thought it's good to have something once again for people who don't know much about Bosnia Herzegovina so but yeah what is Herzeg Bosnia what is yeah because I mean for people who are familiar they will immediately know what it is but once again I think I hope very strongly that this book will also be interesting for people who don't know much about Bosnia Herzegovina who don't know much about the 90s but that through this book can learn about it. Thank you very much and yeah as we could just see you analyzed a very rich archive of documents photos and also personal accounts in exchange with a lot of different former members who are to research and so my last question for you as an historian and also trainer in the field of intercultural cooperation and dealing with the past living and working in Sarajevo what's the value of studying and learning about the International Worker's Aid for us today? Yeah I mean I think there are several aspects which are important I think on the one hand as I said at the beginning first it's really I think Bosnia Herzegovina and the war Bosnia Herzegovina is not that much present in the collective memory or awareness of Europe in general yeah it was already a tendency at that time to say this has nothing to do with us we so these are these violent people who are killing each other this has nothing to do and so it was sort of evacuating the war which was a war in Europe and which was a European war but of course it's easier to say it's the Balkans etc etc so and in the same time all these people who were engaged like people from International Workers Aid were exactly also going against this idea yeah no this is part of our life this is our society this is our continent this is our values everything what we cherish which are under attack and which people in Tuzla and elsewhere are defending yeah so I think it's and so these solidarity mobilizations which are part of the war story both of them are so the war is known yeah but the solidarity mobilizations are not very much known so I think the first important aspect is really yeah if you want really to understand that Europe is that southeastern Europe is really a part of Europe yeah like any other part of Europe these solidarity mobilizations can also perhaps contribute to understand this yeah because I think this is really to share and not to to make a separation between them and us but to bring really a common idea of Europe where everybody is part of it and then we are I mean there are several aspects but just to limit it one other question which I think fundamental for today is yeah I mean once again it's linked to the title solidarity is more than a slogan I mean solidarity is such a task a challenge such difficulty in everyday life it's it's a question which arouses among so many things and and yeah how can you practice solidarity in a democratic way in a way how can you support people who are in a in need or who are in a situation of violence yes without humiliating them yeah how can you really build try to build a partnership with them how can you yeah how can you avoid just to stay at home and to say it's important to do this but in practice to do nothing so I think that's why I hope for those who read it it's also a trigger for for thinking about what can I personally do today with others so it can be for causes in other countries but it can be in your own country it can be in your neighborhood yeah just to perhaps to stimulate this reflection and as I write in the book of course what international workers they did it's not a copy paste you cannot copy paste it and also as you said it's beginning actual it's not to be romanticized or idealized well also of course there are also critical aspects and I talk also about them but that's part of it I mean nobody says that this was a perfect finish I mean when you do solidarity or when you try to do solidarity to practice it it's as I said in the beginning it's super complicated yeah and so yeah I hope that the book can participate at this discussion yeah for for for today yeah thank you very much I would also like to interrupt you because we have such an amazing panel tonight that I would like to give actually the opportunity to also ask questions to our other guests now yes thank you very much Alexandra thank you Nicholas before we do that there are already a couple of remarks and questions in the Q&A section which is great there are spend the questions that some participants are really interested in who else is in here so we have the zoom webinar format which is different to the zoom meeting format in the meeting format we could all see each other but then this format that we've chosen this is unfortunately not possible and we can also not just tell you who is in here because that might not be comfortable for all participants who have joined so what I suggest the chat should now work for all participants so if you like you can write in the chat hello I'm Axel joining from Brussels tonight good to see you all and I think it would be a nice way for everybody to see who's actually joining in from where so if you want to do that feel free to use the chat it should work for that now if you would actually like to make a comment if you actually would like to speak this is possible and I think it would be a nice opportunity to use this function later on if you would like to make a comment by switching on your mic then I suggest we use another function which you find in the zoom bar below and this is the raise hand function so if you want to participate by saying a few words then please click on raise hand and when we open the round in a couple of minutes then I will yeah promote you to a speaker and then you can also join here and speak and ask your question in person otherwise feel free to use the Q&A box for further questions and we will also get back to the question regarding websites documentation and the book later on but first of all I'd like now to exchange with Francisco Olf and Leyla and to dive deeper into some of the aspects that Nicolas has already mentioned and to get deeper into into these aspects and of course also to look at them via your perspective via the perspective of of those you've been active and working on the ground so Francisco I'd like to start with you when I've been reading Nicolas study what I found interesting is and we talked or heard about that already a lot that the question of solidarity and as Nicolas mentioned already solidarity can mean a lot and especially when practicing solidarity in the in the context of human humanitarian aid it's a delicate balance between providing humanitarian aid that is meaningful and helpful for those who are the receiving end to make sure that's not taking away dignity to make sure to build partnerships while doing so but if I if I look back at what you've been doing and if I try to imagine that doing in today's context and doing in very practical terms I was wondering okay how do you actually do that when you work together with partners on the ground you have different expectations there are different perspectives you have on on support on aid different needs so what was your experience on balancing these expectations and practicing this this form of solidarity to not make it let's say a destructive example of humanitarian aid but really building partnerships and meaningful solidarity may you want to start out anyway first just to say thank you one more time for Nicolas for writing this book and very much as Andreas has already explained it was actually a good example of how IWA was working you know with lots of strange coincidences then summing up in something good sometimes they ended up in total catastrophes in smaller or bigger catastrophes but very often also the willingness of us members also to let things go really led to something good you know and so yeah I mean Nicolas we didn't know you before and I was very happy when I first read the book I was very touched and then also we called Andreas and said thank you that you actually took the initiative and were pushing that this would happen and because at least us who have read it already we really feel that you understood and really picked up the spirit at least how it was for us working in it so thank you very much for that and then going back to your question about what I or what we learned about building lasting partnerships and balancing own expectations and it's also pretty much also what Nicolas has picked up already I mean the way we started to work down there was really we also in the like I actually maybe if we show this film about the first convoy in the end there you can also see it you know when Jenny for example that was typical the example how we worked when she first arrived with the first convoy to Tuzla which was to provide humanitarian aid back to the and distributed through the mine workers trade union she met with many different initiatives and she she was open and she listened to what they wanted and to what their needs was and what their ideas was and that was the basis and that I think carried on in most of our project to really be the basis to go there and meet people and really listen to them and their needs and be open towards that but at the same time we also you know we didn't we didn't have like a hidden political agenda we were very clear and very open about our values and about our ideas but there was a great you know acceptance of other opinions you know and when we went there and met people and when we got ideas from them what campaigns actually we could work about we you know we were very open you know telling them in what way this would fit also into our ideas and you know what we could build on things and what we couldn't you know and then I think one very important thing was also that most of us we really we we try to be really honest also about our possibilities and really not raise fails hopes and people also saw we were really coming back to them even if campaigns that we wanted to do didn't work out we were giving them feedbacks about things that went wrong also you know and things that didn't happen in the way we wanted and in there for you know try to try to live a bit this equal partnership which of course is never possible to all extent in this it's just you know the situation is out of balance but I think we were trying to to meet this in the best possible way and I think it was also I think our non-hierarchical structure in our organization it was also very visible I think also for the people into love and you know that also avoided like also maybe more hierarchical feelings also in the partnerships you know they they didn't see you know these structures within the organization as we were living it and yeah I mean basically also just yeah I mean apart from being open and listening to individuals and structures that we were actually trying to build projects with it was also a big part also was how we were socialized in Tuzla the ones who were working there I mean we were we were socialized really with the people from Tuzla and not among the other you know in the communities of the other eight workers of course there was some exchange but I think we were yeah it was like so also outside work we were just socialized really in Tuzla and also that you know in the evenings also you know when it was curfew and we could go around meeting everyone and just listening and just really listening to the very concrete problems that everyone had and sharing the small and bigger stories you know and when you do that I think it gets quite easy also to be able to to follow the way of the people that it's actually about and not be you know not be disappointed if you maybe couldn't push things through sometimes the way you want this because you know when you're so close such you understand you know this is not about me you know and we're not there because of us but because we want to you know do something with and for the people who are actually living there and yeah I don't know sometimes it was also you know also funny aspects like when I arrived there for example like it's just in one of these many anecdotes I'd you know I didn't expect you know coming to a war zone and the the most important thing the teenagers I met were talking about it was that Kurt Cobain had died and they all hated Kurt me love and her role and I mean that was the big thing not the war that was going out on around them and that they were living in yeah one thing that I maybe also wanted to pick up the issue with the the women's paper that we were involved in that was a project that was already towards the first issue also kind of difficult and also because of some rivalry among different participates in Tuzla maybe and also so already to bring out the first issue was actually going quite a long way and then the the first issue wasn't really anything that we maybe would have hoped it should be the balance of contents yeah was yeah as I said maybe not what we had wished for in the sense that we knew we could use it for campaigning to you know gain more money to continue with it but it was from the women who were doing it in Tuzla they were proud about the magazine and especially you know in the balance of content that it was and then it's also in a way you know who are we to say about what what they should publish in their in the paper which was really theirs and also of course I mean you know who are we to say maybe in this you know in this sickening war and post-war situation you know maybe it was more healthy for the individual and a bigger relief to read more about Richard here then like feminist analysis okay and that's I think also but you know I think we we were quite strong also in accepting things of course it also brought limitations to you know of course you know this was a project as such that we maybe wouldn't continue or couldn't also with the structure of our campaigns at home continue to support but yeah the acceptance that it was from whoever was living there and for them doing it for them was you know balancing out like you know is the point of the you know balancing out like you know disappointments or something and I think you know we just saw all the time some campaigns they went in a way we wished and some didn't and some were sad some made us angry some things we could also really laugh about I mean that was also some you know we yeah we were we were also looking at the things that were going wrong and yeah didn't have a problem with that as such and so yeah what what did I learn about it or maybe it was more that within our work I felt the proven that's like independent of if you're doing solidarity or political work or actually in your daily work whatever it's just you know listen to the people you're working with and put them in the focus and also step out of your own reality into the reality of the persons you're working with and yeah that's also something that you know goes for many other ways I mean also you know when I was a totally different thing but when I was biking home today I also thought you know you know when you for example first wrote and suggested this day for the meeting in my reality I thought you know who on earth would have time on a normal weekday at this time of the day to at all listen to anything like this and then there is quite many people who have time in this moment and so you know it's always good to leave your own reality and look at it from another angle and it actually counts for all great thank you very much for that um yeah and I think find interesting what you also mentioned regarding uh regarding the structures of international workers aid and and how they also influence um how you actually took decisions and then and then practice solidarity and but we'll come to that later um and yeah you just mentioned the reality of those you're working with the realities of those who were living in Trusla during these days and Leila you raised your hand and yeah it would be really interesting to hear from you um how how this was perceived by by residents in Trusla and and what the work of international workers aid meant for residents in Trusla meant for you back then and what your experience was like uh yeah hi I was listening Francisca and that was very emotional and I am emotional right now but you know the thing that IWA was listening to us it came to some bigger projects it's not it wasn't only a distribution of fools uh it was more than that uh thanks to Francisca, Jenny, Aldegonda and some others who were listening students of mining and geology uh we realized one project with the YS5 new solidarity with Worma Yusla and it was like a three years project but at the end uh now they are independent at the university and 26 years after that we still have summer university at Trusla they supported us they listened to us we had a chance to go out one delegation student delegation went out make some connection with other universities from western Europe had a chance to bring some professors student to to Trusla but also very important thing that three years after the first summer university we had students from Banyaluka in Trusla as well Banyaluka was in Republic of Serbska and that was very difficult to bring people who were fighting with each other back together this summer university helped us and we have it right now the one thing is that we have also is doctors, professors who are going abroad and exchanging knowledge with other colleagues it was really interesting to be in that delegation in 1994 and to discuss with the people in Europe about the situation in Bosnia when they at one moment they on one meeting one of the students from Poland asked me why we should support third world countries although we're very in Europe that really hurt a lot but I survived that and I stood up and fight for my country but that's all thanks to to my colleagues from IWA and YSY and thank you guys I love you I will talk more at the moment I cannot really speak it's really really difficult so please sorry sorry yes yes thank you Leila thank you thank you for your honest remarks and and for sharing your impressions I find it really touching as well yeah coming coming to another aspect I would like to take off in the in the round here as well that we that we heard about before and and Francisco also mentioned it and and that's another aspect that I found striking when we did Nicola story Nicola study is and also if I look at it from today's perspective and if I look at what the left is really good at and what the left is not so good at is how how on earth did you actually manage to come together from so many countries and organize this in very practical terms and how did you manage decision making and how did you manage to not get stuck on on certain questions that are that are then ideological and that can really really take hours and I guess you had these moments of discussing for hours etc but how did you actually manage to overcome them and not to get stuck at a certain point but to move on and solve these questions without breaking apart while still sticking together and still making this move and jointly making this this work across borders that I find really really interesting would be great if you can if you can share with us how from your perspective that actually worked out yeah it's a it's a tricky question and and I was quite impressed when I read how Nicola described our way of working and I've been thinking a lot about this now before this launch of this book and I think that first of all it's important to remember at this time in the 90s the opinion was quite divided and in the left wing you had quite strong forces that that saw Serbia as a victim for aggression from imperialist powers like Germany and the United States and that was their main focus in this conflict and you also had politicians like John Major in in UK and you also had sentiments in France going back to the first world war but when they were allied with Serbia and of course during the second world war also but people who joined the IWA had some kind of analysis that this is the struggle between forces who wants a racist Europe where you divide people according to ethnicity and religion and if you are an anti-racist, anti-fascist back in your own country you would see the struggle in Tusla against the aggression as part of the same struggle and then of course if you have this in common and you can be a socialist or anarchist or Trotskyist or a syndicalist or social democrat and we also had support from one MP from the Christian Democratic Party in Sweden and if you share these values then of course you have to realize that okay you can be seeing European community and the process of getting European Union as some kind of things that you want to resist or you can be a left-wing supporter of the European Union but now it's the question about supporting the trade unions and the people in Tusla so you have to agree to disagree about a lot of questions and I think that the people who were active in IWA in different countries they were quite pragmatic of course they had their own beliefs but they realized that now it's time to go together in this solidarity work and I think that many people also had a lot of humor they were not very of course they had their own firm beliefs but they could also accept and respect other opinions and I think that we tried all the time to be having a campaign where people should be treated equally whether in a certain country or in the international campaign and we had this principle I don't know if it was ever written down but we should try to make joint decisions by consensus so we had these international meetings and long discussions about things and very seldom we had to put a vote or otherwise we just use time to discuss to join the yeah to agreement how to handle things but of course as I think Nikola has mentioned of course there were very tricky questions like you had the bombings from NATO after Srebrenica in Srebrenica was in July 95 and you had the NATO bombings beginning I think in end of August and September 95 and I don't think that we ever tried to get a joint view or position about the NATO bombings so I mean it was tricky all the time and also Nikola has mentioned if there is some food labeled by European community what to do about it but I think that this pragmatic approach and respect for different opinions was the answer behind the success yeah thank you very much for sharing that and yeah there is probably not not the one answer not the one magic solution but it's a continuous struggle with and with the right attitude that he has mentioned I guess and can I just add one thing there was one British guy I interviewed him sometime and he also wrote the very good thing in 95 or something like that about the Bosnia and he was attending or giving a lecture at some meeting in London is called Lee Bryant and at this meeting in springtime 93 there came a lot of left-wing activists and he was explaining that he saw this war going on in Bosnia and especially the defense of Tosla as compared to the Spanish civil war as an anti-fascist struggle and all these people from different small left-wing groups in UK and he said to them okay you can discuss different theories and things like that but you should also do something about the conflict going on in Tosla and Bosnia and support the trade unions and I think it was he said that some of the people attending this meeting they were part of this first campaign in UK the work he said for Bosnia so it was about making analysis and also doing something practical yeah thanks a lot we also have questions in the Q&A and I will now hand over to Alexandra who will share them with us and yeah from now on feel all welcome yeah to answer to these questions as you see fit and as you as you would like thank you and if anyone wants to ask the question as Axel said before it's also possible so just raise your hand and I would first like to read a comment before asking a question from Jasmine and she's saying I would say that in Tosla the international workers legacy and the memory of its solidarity work is quite strong and rather well known amongst both the activists seen and ordinary citizens I'm proud to have known them back in the 90s where many of us worked and resisted the war in internationalists and fascists and socialist manner it was a huge pleasure and a testament to the politics we share to have seen some of the activists joining the Tosla Plenum in 2014 solidarity is still there then one question from Vicky from Germany did you have any fears and concerns when you first started this initiative and which were they concretely you know you are going into a war zone what made you still want to actively help in Tosla which I know was more than just bringing and delivering food thank you who wants to answer first yeah Hanses guy thank you I think also we have to say that in many in many ways we were also pretty blue eyed I mean we all had never been in a war zone and we didn't know what it meant and I remember also when we first were there it was probably it was hard for example for for Robert we were staying with we were renting a room with I mean with you know and then also maybe a bit the some also Bosnian natural attitude it was a bit hard for him seeing young girls walking around in Tosla you're saying this is not a mountain in Switzerland you're walking through a war zone huh so of course but I also I also don't think that we acted too irresponsible and but of course when we were there then we then you also understood more what it really meant to be there but at the same time because we were so attached to to the people it you know it then felt better to still be there with them than to be outside and you know that was hard then and then I don't know that's maybe an opinion other share as well I mean for me it was anyway then even when having been there I mean war is really it's a it's just totally sick and it's like very strange that like or for me it was like whenever you when you left even if you were like more or less next door to the where the war was actually happening you still can't imagine a war being there because it's just it's it's sick as such um yeah but I think it was yeah was a combination and then just really being focused on what we wanted to do and not thinking very much about what could have happened and as for me I can also say I didn't understand until much later for example I didn't think at all also for what it meant for example for my parents or whatever and I'm very grateful afterwards that you know that they they didn't put their fears in my way but kept them for themselves um yeah thank you very much anyone else wants to answer the same question yeah Laila please uh it was great to see young people coming to Tuzla to the war zone to support us at that time we had already huh let's say too many uh international humanitarian organizations but they were not listening to us they were bringing food to refugees we were living in our town uh we didn't leave the town we were not refugees we were not allowed to have that uh humanitarian aid and we were suffering a lot and to have that people besides us uh with us uh who were listening to us supporting us talking with us that was really great thing uh they were all young but I remember that my parents were also taking care of them trying to take care of them Francisco remember some things about wet hair um or some other things uh we were trying uh or they allowed us IWA allowed us to be on the same level as they are they accepted us as we are and thank you guys for that uh you didn't make any difference between you us them we were all together uh and we supported each other I think at the same time uh it was a great pleasure to share that life with them and uh I know that besides what they did for us uh that we have friends always that will support us think of us be with us and I will be always there for you as well thank you it's really difficult to to speak after you because everything then sounds so trivial in comparison uh but Ulf you also want to add something yes uh I can't find my my raise the hand button uh this question about fear I think that during the war we I mean in Stockholm we used to have weekly meetings and of course we were always a bit afraid when we had people going on convoys from Makarska in Croatia up to Tusla and when we had people at the Tusla office from 94 and further on and I mean we didn't have any any real policy if something serious would happen to people from IWA what could we do I mean we were under the umbrella of United Nations so at least people had some protection that they had the right to be evacuated from Tusla in case of emergency or something like that and now when you look back to this this the the years of war I mean we were quite lucky that that nothing serious happened but I think Nikolas is mentioning in the book that two of our tracks were lost at Igman mountain outside Sarajevo in 95 and no no in the end of 94 and one of them was hijacked by the Bosnian army so suddenly we were out of tracks but but the driver's work was safe and I just remember now when there was this is fire from January 95 until April or May 95 there was one serious shelling from the Bosnian Serbian army against Tusla and a lot of soldiers were killed in March 95 or something like that and when you hear this news and you know that we have people in Tusla at that time of course we we would fear for for their safety and I mean of course it's now you can it's difficult to compare if you're living all the time in the war zone if or if you are going there for a mission and staying one month or or a few weeks or something like that but but we had this this feeling that that it's also about the safety for IW activists who doesn't have a yeah I don't remember if people had a proper insurance for going to war zone thank you very much and there's one person from the audience very patient for quite a long time Roland from London I would like to invite you to ask your question I'm Roland in London I was involved in Worker's Aid for Bosnia and then IWI from the beginning I've just had a chance to download the book and glance through it and for a start I have St Nicholas I think that your account of the separation between IWI and Worker's Aid is slightly inaccurate it's not really the time to go into it now but it doesn't chime with with my recollection of the events but I want to say because it's absolutely right what I think you say this in the book and I think Alfa's referred to it this actually stymied the work of IWI in Britain having two rival campaigns and at the time the political issues that divided us seemed and they were really important but at the same time the things that that we were agreed on that separated us from much of the rest of the left in Britain were much more important and a particular story I have to tell about this is that soon afterwards I was invited to a meeting of the Jewish Socialists group in London they were considering doing some work some solidarity work on Bosnia one of their leading members Charlie Potins was a member of Worker's Aid for Bosnia and they wanted to hear both the arguments for both campaigns before they decided how to work and what to do so I went along to the meeting Charlie went there we both prepared speeches about our relative campaigns and before either of us could speak somebody from the audience raised a whole set of issues about support for Serbia on why the Jewish Socialist group shouldn't be involved in support for Bosnia at all and Muslim fundamentalism and all sorts of nonsense like this and it turned out that having gone to this meeting in order to argue against each other Charlie from Worker's Aid for Bosnia and I united to argue the case for solidarity with Bosnia as a whole and I think there's an important lesson to learn that the differences the difference on open the northern route the difference on how the relative autonomy of the local campaigns the difference on how you relate to the communities in Bosnia were important but I think that to an extent we lost sight of a much more important thing which was that we were we were confronting most of the left who didn't want to support Bosnia at all and I think we've seen this in subsequent campaigns and in other areas as well I mean I think that there is a lesson that we all need to learn from this about remembering what are the essentials and just one small point that I want to make by the way I don't know what's happening in other countries in Europe but in Britain over the past year there's been the development of a whole network of mutual support organizations for people who are involved in lockdown and affected by coronavirus and many of us who've been involved in this have been trying to take in to these campaigns the message of solidarity not charity and I think that this is actually a lesson again that we've learned from the IWA campaign that there is a way in which mutual aid and mutual support and mutual solidarity can be can be developed can be expressed without coming over as this I mean I think Francesca spoke very well about this but this is something I think that we've all learned from the IWA campaign that our solidarity is not because we're benefactors coming to help you feel better but your struggle is our struggle I think it's a lesson we all have to learn from this. Thank you very much. Thank you Roland I mean we didn't have an opportunity to to speak yet I mean I hope we will can continue and I'm glad that you disagree with what I'm writing because I mean of course it's as a historian I was not there yeah so I read the sources I spoke with some persons not everybody so I have my interpretation but I and so and of course the perspective of a historian is a different one than from somebody who is involved but I think that would be a great conversation to continue to also to see these different perspectives I think it would go too far now in this circle because it would go too too much in the specifics but I'm glad that you say that you don't agree with some interpretation I give because that could really be a good basis for for more discussion so I hope Roland that we will have the opportunity to to talk more now that the contact is established here also and yeah once that you had read the entire book also to speak about that yeah but once again I think this was also for me as a historian once again yeah to reconstruct from the from the documents and speaking when I spoke I spoke I think with I made interviews with approximately 12 persons former persons from international workers and of course everybody has his own perspective on it and for me this was also fascinating of course when to try to put the puzzle together yeah and to confront it also with the documents you have to have the documents because also the documents are not telling everything so yeah so just this is a as a fast answer as an invitation for further discussion about that yeah I think it's important what Roland is saying but I mean the main reason for the split in 93 between Worker's Aid for Bosnia and what became International Worker's Aid it was this meeting in Manchester and I see that Søren Sundegard from Denmark is participating and Søren and I and we were both present at this meeting and I mean it was really sad but if we hadn't split then I mean for Worker's Aid for Bosnia at that time it was more about making propaganda against United Nations saying that they should open this northern corridor from Sopangia and Croatia through the Brødsko corridor down to Tusla it was logical if you look at the map but at political military it was crazy because United Nations had no idea of creating a war zone to help these strikes delivering aid to Tusla so it was really sad but I think it was important to hear Roland's comments thanks thank you of course disagreement is also welcome and there's another question Desmina okay can you hear me now yes hi my question well I have lots of questions but I will actually keep it brief I was also very touched by some moments here like Leila especially because we all work together I think it came back in 93 and 94 especially considering the true projects that we had and we had strong cooperation with IWA I worked for Oxfam but I also was an activist in the local red lily organization of young girls there was quite a lot of work together back in 93 and 94 so I have I think that international workers aid in terms of how it operated in the field was an exception considering the politics of humanitarian aid in Bosnia and how it operated as much as Tusla was exception in all sorts of ways from from the ways in which the war was waged elsewhere especially from the defense itself from the way the city operated etc so it is kind of quite complex to explain this whole story I understand fully because it completely undermines the dominant and everyday narratives of what was going on here locally um so so that was just a brief uh uh interlude my key question is what are your plans about uh promoting um this book in Tusla and organizing um public classrooms or events around that because I think that it is really prescient and it's really the time for the community in Tusla to kind of revisit these emancipatory episodes from its 92 to 95 period which we often forget as much as the international community is forgetting as well and considering that especially because I think that in I'm not surprised that Nicholas never heard from IDA about IWA for me you know in Tusla it's kind of funny that somebody would not hear about that but it also explains how different our local histories are in the 1990s between Tusla and Sadev or Tusla and most that and other parts because there was we were all like in many zones yet still connected somehow somehow by the live stories and um that is my question what are the plans for the local debate around these issues and uh thank thank you Nicholas and thank you um those are some of the tips for uh for making this book happen thanks thank you very much for your comments and your question who would like to react yeah Laila please yeah I agree with this Mina as well I mean it's very important especially those days that we discuss about things like solidarity and the about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and how IWA helped us during that period and what solidarity is and I think that we should somehow organize it yes Mina maybe here in Tusla to talk with people in municipality or somewhere else to see university as well university that's more important maybe because it's very important that young people learn what the war is what solidarity is how we can help each other not only in the war zones how we can help each other in everyday life you know it's uh it happened that we had war it happened that we needed help and thank thanks to IWA we had it but it's also very important to learn our young persons that we have to be uh solidar with other people not only in Bosnia we had that help from abroad maybe we can help somewhere else it's not the end we got help we have to help other let's share it let's share love thanks sorry yes Mina no yes I agree with that I think you know it was very important that you and me you are official policy for what was not to give you know very few uh organizations that made an exception it was one of them uh and hence that you know hence the importance that why they stood out why they are remembered as well so strongly because of this kind of uh solidarity that was because there was a big problem it created a huge lift between every piece of local policy that was hopefully there in the period between 90 to 95 which was not the case inside of because inside of what they helped everyone but for you know for two or four reasons unknown they were only giving aid to refugees so um well so I just wanted to actually mention another reason why why it is uh in a more well known in Tuzla than in other parts of Bosnia the whole effort because of this uh because of of this key gesture and especially the workers but in Tuzla helping the workers or helping the people union means helping a significant chunk of town considering the number of people who are inflow it by create back back in the 1990s I think it had like you know 10 000 employees it helps several thousand uh people that mean a lot of families in Tuzla yes thank you Yasmin I think Nicholas you raised your hand yeah no I mean concerning the succession um uh what you said uh Yasmin I mean I hope that um I mean for me as who has written the book that's just it's just the first step to have written the book now the book is alive and now the book should get a life by its own and hopefully yeah um can trigger some discussions like now uh so I mean I would be very happy of course to come to Tuzla I think it would important of course to talk also here in Sarajevo and other parts about Bosnia Herzegovina because as you said there's this so strong local zones experiences which often ignore what happened in other parts of Bosnia Herzegovina I'm happy when I'm in Germany or France or wherever when to do something there so I mean the advantage of international workers aid that you have former activists in each country nearly of Europe so actually it will could be quite easy to organize uh also some events in whatever I mean of course with corona now it's more complicated but it can be online it can be uh physically I mean I think anyway the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation plans to do something in Tuzla for sure but I think there are many things to be invented and I think this format also here to have really persons who were involved and in the same time to talk about that and as you said and especially to raise so to learn about this story but to raise the questions yeah for today what can we do for today and it's just perhaps to share one other experience from international workers aid because what you just said Leila how can we share what we experienced with others I mean there was this attempt during the Kosovo war where actually especially different persons from Eva wanted to launch a convoy from Tuzla to Mitrovica yeah because they said also especially in the Kosovo war to share the experience from Tuzla in Mitrovica actually it was before the war started because then it became possible to share this experience could be super interesting and several persons also the municipality and trade union said yes we also want that could be a great idea I mean when there were a lot of difficulties finally it doesn't take place but it was at the beginning it was the same idea how also as you said how can what we shared or we experienced some solidarity from others so how what can we do now perhaps to share it with the persons in Kosovo yeah or so this was a question in 1998 but as you say for today it's the question what can we do today to to to practice solidarity in our neighborhoods with our countries within our society and I think yeah this the story of international workers aid is can really be a good trigger to for this kind of questions yeah thank you would actually also like to give our colleague from our Tuzla office the word in a minute to react to that as well looking at the time somebody asked in the in the Q&A section if there is a time limit unfortunately yes we have a time limit I think we could continue talking for hours I still have a couple of questions the back of my head that I'd like to ask but yeah I suggest that we try to close within the next 10 to 15 minutes still we have Franz Peter and Malina in the participants list to raise their hand I would like to share a word then we have our colleague from Tuzla office and then still a question in the in the Q&A so with these three contributions I would leave it close to Q&A now yeah and give the water give the word to Hans Peter and Malina okay hello I'm a bit abroad I'm occupied with other things I just join your meeting and I don't have too many things about like balancing and so to say I just I just I'm proud to having been a member of this organization and I just listen to your balancing and it's quite interesting but I have no idea of any future common work so I'm just a spectator yeah that's all I have to say and Malin is in kitchen unfortunately hey thank you very much all right then I would hand over the words to our colleague Emin from the Rosaloxen work shift office in Tuzla so welcome Emin yes can everyone hear me hello everyone thank you very much for this very very interesting discussion and Nicolas I'm very much looking forward to reading the book in detail and learning a bit about it because the first time I heard of workers aid was was some three years ago I think I think from from our colleague Andreas with regards to promoting promoting this whole story of international workers aid and in Tuzla and during the war we actually did plan for our office opening event in September hopefully if the pandemic permits to have a program point and Andreas is also invited as a speaker on that so I think it's going to be on September 4th I will of course notify all the colleagues if it'll be recorded if it'll be up on YouTube it's going to be a bit of a closed event because of the pandemic and yeah but this could this could be a kickoff and definitely I also have personally interest in continuing talking about international workers aid and in the future work that we do here at the office so yeah that's basically it great thank you Emin maybe you can share in the chat your email address if you'd like or the ways of contact or to follow you and the RLS Tuzla office that would be great there you go okay great then yeah it's almost almost a closing question um with two questions that are to a certain extent similar I would like to combine them with one question from Yannick Dupont who's actually asking all of us saying that today the same left divisions exist on Syria with significant parts of the left defending Assad and how to mobilize the left against for the real victims in Syria and counter this intra-left division but this is not exactly related international workers aid and we have another question that is that is focusing more on our today's discussion I would like to yeah well we can't put these questions together but focus on the second question that we actually have in the chat which is asked by Ina and I think it's a good way to close also for tonight Ina is thinking for for this talk and the question is do any of you old IWO activists have ideas of how we can use the experiences today there are horribly many protractive conflicts around the world but most are not in Europe have you had any thoughts on how to use the international workers aid experience and solid territory that you work with for example Palestine I have also asked myself this question looking at other conflicts that we that we have outside of Europe what is your take on it or what are your thoughts on using the international workers aid experience for thinking about what we can do in these regards so I might yeah I'll suggest that we do a round with you of Francisco and Leyla on this if you'd like to share your thoughts on that and if not just feel free to share any closing words you'd like yeah please be brief in your reply so that we can end shortly any volunteers anyone you'd like to start yes or yeah of course you can learn from IWA in certain aspects if you want to organize solidarity work but but I think it's difficult to to just copy our work because every conflict has its own background and its own problems and and what was for us unique with Tusla was that we had I mean we were a grassroots movement in Europe and many had experiences from trade union work so it was quite easy to relate to to to our partner in Tusla the the trade unions the minus trade union and if you take other conflicts like like Syria of course you're so supportive real weak victims and I agree with Yannick that it's a tricky question about the the left-wing stand about Syria but I mean we had other conflicts in in Europe we have Azerbaijan Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh we have the conflicts in Georgia we have the frozen conflict in Moldova Transnistria and it's difficult to or or now the ongoing tragedy with Israel Palestine but it's difficult to just copy IWA I think it's impossible but of course if you are active in solidarity work in in other regions you you can learn from what we did so so that that's that's my answer thank you yes Francisco um also yeah I agree with Wolf that it's not possible or that's also not at all the issue or what a book would want to do like this it's really not about copying it but it is maybe it is maybe an example that that can be that can give hope to other initiatives or other sparks that actually also with very limited resources quite many things are possible and yeah I also don't have you know there is enough conflicts and it's also always coincidences that have to come together to give like you know the basis of any campaign I I also wouldn't know really where or or how to start there was something else I wanted to say I don't know yeah and just about yeah also I also like what what Nicolas said you know this this book can be put alive it can be you know it can be a tool also you know to to open discussions also with a relation to conflicts that are happening today and then maybe you know maybe something will grow out of it or not we all don't know but it's just the beginning yes thank you Francisco thank you for this outlook and for this idea as well Leila then yeah it's up to you for a final word if you like just the final word I just want to say thanks to all of you for organizing this for writing the book and first of all thanks to all IWA members all the people who supported Bosnia and Herzegovina who supported trade union in Tuzla who supported students unfortunately Francisco we didn't mention the woman that we supported here in Tuzla and we are strong woman and we can do a lot of a lot of it and we show that we we really are strong you know that my doors are always open Tuzla is will always welcome you you're always welcome to Tuzla please come and please also bring your kids and tell them what you did explain to them what happened try to talk with them about the situation maybe about the war somewhere else you have experienced you can explain to them what happened let's learn them to be better people let's be better people thank you very much and cheers with Tuzlan school ciao thank you very much Leila thank you very much we couldn't we couldn't find better better closing words than yours I just realized there is a question from or a statement from Ulrich Hall and Ulrich wasn't on this panel but yeah Alexandra yeah discovered his message rediscovered his message in the Q&A and we'll share it with us and then then we close thank you Ulrich I don't know if you don't do if you want to talk otherwise I would just read it okay and I think a very strong motivating factor for international workers aid activists was the very powerful reality of experiencing Tuzla as an anti-fascist city a city with its own rich history of practicing solidarity where the legislate felt very much alive and not just that Tuzla solidarity with a British minor strike etc it was a very inspiring and positive atmosphere despite the dreadful world situation I remember Tuzla minor saying we see what you people are doing it's like when we were kids we collected help for the Vietnamese thank you for your contribution Ulrich and yeah at this point also a big thank you to all our participants for staying now we took almost two hours to exchange with each other thank you very much for joining us tonight for staying with us a big thank you to all our speakers to Nicholas to all to Francisco to Layla for joining us tonight and for me personally it was really enriching I I read Nicholas study but talking with you tonight actually I think I I understood much more about what IWL was actually about so thank you very much for that I feel I feel enriched now so thanks a lot for that I hope some others have the same feeling after our event tonight yeah stay tuned for the event of our Tuzla office share here again the link to the study once more and yes have a great evening everybody thank you very much for joining and see you hopefully at another event soon bye bye thank you also very much for organizing yeah