 Hello everybody tuning in. Welcome to another edition of DM 25's coordinating collective meeting today. We're going to talk about Europe's burning issues and how DM addresses them, which is what we do every week. And then we're going to have an interesting discussion on identity politics. So let's kick it off straight now I'll hand it over to Yanis to start about talking about Europe's burning issues. Thank you my friend. Thank you everyone. Greetings DMs and non DMs who may be watching. Vaccination politics. Today, I was very glad to see that DMs are proposals regarding vaccination and in particular how to make vaccines available to everyone, three of charge, and not just within the European Union, but more broadly, has seen the light of day published in DM 25.org. It's a policy that has been worked at previously and which are validating Council which for those of you who don't know what the validating Council is. It is a body comprising members of DM that have been selected randomly by suspicion to validate our CC's recommendations regarding policy and other matters. They've approved it with a cash majority and now this is official policy. So let me say a few words about what this official policy is and why it is so very pertinent in the context that we find ourselves in. You have to have hidden away from civilization from the media from newspapers and so on for the last week, at least, not to have mentioned, not to have noticed that there is a scandal at Piasco regarding vaccination across Europe. I won't say much about that except to opine that it's a combination of opacity, the opposite of transparency, lack of transparency, and corruption. Not just me and the companies there is of course incompetence and incompetence and Brussels go hand in hand have been going on in hand for a very long time, especially after the euro crisis or after we all know that. But this is far far deeper than just lack of competence. The way in which the deals have been struck between, you know, within the Commission, within the Troika, within, you know, the powers that being on the one hand and between them and the companies and the big, big farm has been characterized as the definition of capacity. You can see that they already signed NDAs, non-disclosure agreements. We have the crazy situation where the Commission is begging AstraZeneca to publish the contracts, which means that there is a clause in the contract which says that they are not to be released to the public. So the Commission on behalf of Europeans is signing contracts with clauses that prevent the European Commission from telling the European citizens what it is that they designed, you know. So whenever you have this kind of lack of transparency, the first thing that follows after that is corruption. And we have deep corruption. Let's face it, we don't have a European Union. We have the Franco-German axis, which oligarchically determines. So they decided that sometime in July, August, they decided to split the pie, the vaccination pie between a German company and a French company to, you know, to purchase some like 300 million doses from one and 300 million doses from another. The German company, of course, is Biontech, which is associated globally with Pfizer. And Sanofi is the French company. Now the French company in the end did not produce any vaccines. It dropped in clinical trials. So, you know, we are now 300 million doses short. And then there are all these, you know, the Brexit stepped in, intervened. And, you know, one of the reasons why there is this kerfuffle now with AstraZeneca, which is the Oxford University representation of the representation of the Oxford University developed vaccine. You know, they were not going to buy any from them because of Brexit. In the end, they bought some. Anyway, the rest is history, our policy. So, so as to go straight into what we're proposing. Look, there is no doubt that Pfizer and AstraZeneca do not have the capacity to provide enough doses quickly for Europe. And I would say taking a leaf out of Norway's very decent attitude to the problem, we have an obligation to people outside the European Union, especially in the developing world, to provide not only Europeans, but also non Europeans with doses of the vaccine. It is our internationalist duty as Europeans to do that. So Norway has a policy, you know, they pay for one vaccine for non or Norwegians in the developing world for every vaccine, those that they pay for Norwegians, we shouldn't be doing the same thing. Now, of course, we need to increase production and increase it very quickly. DEM25 has always been a movement that combines pragmatism, you know, policies that can work today with long term radicality. And you can see that not only in our European Green New Deal, where we have very, very clear policies on how, you know, you can have green investments today without having a revolution first, using existing instruments, remember that was always our mantra. And at the same time plan for post capitalism with the same way regarding vaccinations, we have, if you read our policy that was published today in DEM25.org, we have a policy for providing vaccines immediately, and then also thinking about patents and property rights, but in the medium to longer term because what matters now is to save lives. So, already we saw that the factories of Salvi who in the end did not produce any of the vaccines have now been enlisted to produce the Pfizer vaccine. So we have all sorts of pharmaceutical facilities, production facilities across Europe that could produce the Pfizer vaccine or the AstraZeneca vaccine or the Moderna vaccine. And as long as those companies license the production in the particular site, the only thing that stops this licensing from happening today is money. The only thing that stops, right? Now, DEM25 has a very sensible answer to this. The European Central Bank has already produced 1.8 trillion euros from the beginning of the pandemic in March and has provided it to the financial sector. That's free money for the financial, socialism for the few, as we say, right? 1.8 trillion. But surely they can produce another 50 billion in order to pay for whatever it takes to those companies to provide the patents to all the pharmaceutical production facilities around Europe, to produce 500 million, 600 million vaccine doses for Europeans and another 600 million for non-Europeans across the world. And they do it today. It's just a question of political will. And there's nothing stopping the ECB from doing this. It is not against the fiscal compact. It is not against the Treaty of Lisbon. It is not against the Charter of the ECB. What it is against the Charter of the ECB is for the ECB to print money and give it to Italy or give it to Greece. But here we are talking about a situation where they print money the way they have been printing money. And you can have a technical solution for how to pay Pfizer. Pfizer issues a perpetual bond that is a debt that is never to be repaid at zero interest rate and the ECB purchases it. This is completely legal within the remit of the ECB today. So we could just deal with this problem right immediately and simply. And at the same time, we propose that we have everything about the legal route towards changing property rights over patents. So that patents do not belong from now on to companies that operate within the European Union, without the European Union and the citizens of Europe having a right to ask for those patents to be distributed in any way we want to. Because let's face it all these companies rely on the kindness of the treasury of Germany or France of the European Central Bank and so on. And I'm saying that because they've been calls including from my former colleague Tsipras that you know the European Union should you know confiscate the patents of Pfizer and make them available to everyone. That is a dumb idea. We should never propose that. Why, because even if the Commission were to agree with us to confiscate the patents of Pfizer, right, Pfizer will go to the European Court of Justice and win. And it wouldn't work. You need to change the law for that, so that any such confiscation. I'm not against confiscating patents of multinationals, but I'm against policies that are silly. This is why DM 25 policy is the right one. Finally, I'm sure that other comrades will want to say much more about the vaccination policy of the European Union and vaccination issue. I want very, very briefly to mention two other issues. Epigrammatically, both of them, which I think are important to mention. One issue that is not making the headlines across Europe, but which I think needs to be discussed is that there is a development in Greek Turkish relations, which is not huge, but it is significant. We have a new round of debate discussions of lowly officials, not ministers, lowly officials between Greece and Turkey. These are usually the more useful in discussions. It's much better for lowly apparatus to be speaking to one another than ministers because ministers need to grandstand and they need to perform for the media, you know, bureaucrats have their uses when it comes to effectively throwing oil over troubled waters in the region and reducing the tensions. And since one of us is going to be a member of the Greek Navy very soon. Yes, Eric, I'm referring to you. You know, we don't want war for many reasons, one of them being we don't want to lose one of our CC comrades. His ship sinks without a trace in the region. But more generally the Mera 25 DM 25 position, let me just share this with with all of you regarding the Greek Turkish situation is this, we are against that against bilateral discussions between Athens and Ankara or Ankara and others. Why, because these discussions always take place under the edges of Berlin and stroke or Washington. This setup of having Erdogan and Mr.akis under Merkel or Biden or whoever is a sure way of driving these negotiations to failure and therefore to enhanced tensions. The Mera 25 in Parliament has been now saying for a year and a half that what we need to do, the opposite of the Greek government because we can only propose to the Greek government we cannot propose to the Turkish government being in the Greek parliament is for for for Athens to issue a call and invitation to governments from all over is the Eastern Mediterranean, every single country in the Eastern Mediterranean to have original international conference without Merkel and without Biden without patronage, in other words, to have one issue and one issue only the delineation delineation of exclusive economic areas at sea and generally the delineation of our waters in the Aegean in the Eastern Mediterranean. Only such original multilateral conference can reduce tensions in the area. And finally, let me say that we need us them to take a very close look at the reasons why the Dutch government collapsed. The absolute scandal that brought that government down needs to be discussed everywhere in Holland in Germany in Greece and Portugal everywhere because you see the class war in action there. The Dutch government came down because it was revealed through investigative reporting that thousands of poor families were targeted by tax authorities. And they were defrauded. They were taxed, in other words, for child benefits and poverty benefits and disability benefits in a way that made it almost impossible for them to survive. And it was a tax of authorities or that were essentially, you know, taking with one hand the money the benefits that were given to these poor families with the other hand. Prime Minister Ruder came out and apologized for that. He resigned only to be reappointed Prime Minister. So we have, you know, Revolven Doors, my former colleague Gerund Deizelblum and his party is also implicated in that. You know, it's wonderful when the conservatives of northern European governments, you know, point an accusatory finger at the rest of the Europeans for being corrupt and for being in need of reform. Let's not forget that it is every single government and every single state across the European Union, which is in need of reform in a way that lessens the class war waged against the many by the very, very few. Thank you. Thank you for that summary, Janis and staying on the topic of Europe's burning issues and what DM can do about them. Let's open the floor to comments. Claudia. Yeah, I just want to thank you all for this immense effort we did to have this statement out today on the free free the vaccine, because I find that very important and the idea came came very short notice and I'm really proud that we did it and that this will be a start for a really great campaign because there are so many topics on this issue we can work on financial wise as Janis did say already and also many other topics, because they're such a big failure for the rest of the world and how they deal with that topic. All the governments in the European Union or the rest of the world. And therefore I'm really happy and want to thank everybody who was involved in this and hope we can continue later in our non live stream area to talk about how this can be a real great campaign with petitions and everything a campaign needs so thank you for that. Thanks, Claudia, Renata. Yes, just quickly on the fourth of February, it is a crucial date for all this struggle which is not only for vaccines but all the, you know, the medicines and the diagnosis treatments for COVID for the rest of the world and it is for any and every European people that Europe is, you know, boycotting the motion of India and South Africa to waive the IP rights on this and it should be like the next time that any free trade agreement is this is being discussed we should remember this moment this very moment when lives were passed because of decisions made in the past to lock a system that should be like activated to help people so all our eyes will be on the sport of February World Trade Organization meeting and I think that is a great opportunity to push forward a different trade policy with a huge impact over the world in Europe is Switzerland, Japan, the US and Europe the ones blocking that at the World Trade Organization and without consensus that cannot pass so I will be keeping an eye as well and informing what is like what the rest of the world is is struggling with. Thank you, Renata. Everyone's keeping to the two minutes. That's fantastic. Srećko. Yeah, hi everyone. So, I would say I mean, as someone from the Balkans, from a country which is part of the European Union, but which is also the periphery of the European Union that once again you can see what what we have been criticizing all these years, which is that there is a clear divide, as Yanis said between the Franco-German axis, and then the periphery of the European Union, you know, Croatia. Now at this moment is even speaking that some citizens wouldn't even get the second doses, because apparently it's not needed. But the real reason is of course that it didn't arrive yet. While at the same time as Ivana will be able to witness Serbia received one million doses from from China. Well, where you can see again in the same way as you can as we could have seen with the Greek crisis, in which way you know the big companies were bailed out austerity was imposed on the so called pigs on the periphery of the European Union and so on. And by that basically the European Union geopolitically speaking, opened the way for Chinese, Turkish United Arab Emirates and so on capital, which penetrated even deeper into the European Union, which don't get me wrong. I don't think it's necessarily wrong. Of course, I think in this situation today. Yes, those countries who are part of the European Union should pose the question as well, why wouldn't we also receive, for instance, Chinese or Russian vaccine, because we can't receive it because some papers and so on. In this respect, I think I usually don't agree with Victor Orban. Of course, and we criticize him but Victor Orban recently made a very interesting V phrase of Deng Xiaoping, you know when Deng Xiaoping famously said that it's not important whether the cat is white or black it's important that the cat catches mouse and Orban was of course referring to the Russian and Chinese vaccine. So I think we as the progressives as the left also need to develop not only a criticism of the current vaccine nationalism and vaccine geopolitics, but also go a bit deeper into the geopolitics in which way geopolitics is now becoming very important in the redistribution of vaccine. And one last point I think also besides our policy we should also start developing going into direction of developing the theory of praxis if you want of planetary commons, where not only air, water, national resources would be considered as commons but also health. So in that sense that we should go a step further and consider also health as planetary commons, but to come there I think we have to start from the geopolitics. Thanks, Richard Eric. Yes, thanks. So it really plugs into what I wanted to say to also further feed into what Janis was talking about from the perspective of Brussels, right, it is true that these advanced purchase agreements that the European Commission signs on behalf of the European Union on behalf of everybody and all its citizens, earmarking European funds to buy all of these vaccines are secret, you know, we don't know what's in there. And the CEO of AstraZeneca is claiming one thing that you know his company only signed up to a best effort agreement to to give certain a certain number of the vaccines by the first quarter of 2021, which is now in the European Commission claiming that it was a specific number and that they have failed to provide us with here. I'd like to underline this notion of vaccine nationalism, essentially, which is the pursuit of national, you know, national goals through vaccine diplomacy and vaccine politics. The European Union as a response to this entire situation and with without a fair degree of irony. It decided to institute a transparency mechanism for all companies that produce vaccines in the European Union. So if a company produces vaccine doses in the EU, they need to fill in the register so that the EU knows where those vaccine doses are going. So that in cases like AstraZeneca where a company might be breaching its agreement with the EU, the EU would know because they'd be able to track where the vaccines are going. Because it's important to note many politicians and also committees here in Brussels, don't believe the official story of AstraZeneca that these doses were simply not produced. They believe that instead the company decided to give those doses that it did produce to a higher bidder, somebody that paid more than the European Union for those doses. So in order to secure the EU against this, they've instituted this transparency mechanism. Now, the problem with this is that already other countries are calling foul play, including the UK, which is afraid that based on this transparency mechanism, the EU will try and block vaccine doses from leaving the EU and going to the UK. The Prime Minister of South Africa as well has joined his voice to a number of others who are also saying that essentially the EU is throwing around its weight blocking these doses from going to the rest of the world. And there are countries in the EU that are pushing, like Malta for example, that are pushing for the EU to buy even more doses to make up for the doses that we're not receiving by some of these secret contracts. But the EU has already bought up to 1.7 billion doses for a population of a continent of half a billion, so three times more than our population. And each dose that the EU secures is a dose that doesn't go to another country to another patient. So there's definitely a lot of this kind of geopolitical play going on on the basis of the production of the vaccines and how these vaccines get to go to their destination. And Brussels definitely has its hands dirty in that entire game. Thanks Eric. There's a comment on YouTube wondering if you're a Norwegian heavy metal guitarist. Flows, Swedish and not a guitarist, but a heavy metal guitarist. Finally, someone from someone found out who Eric really is, is that Swedish? Judith. One more thing that may have gotten lost in the news about how do we prevent vaccines from going outside the EU. There was a small comment by one of the MEPs who read the curavac contract. I forgot his name now I couldn't find it again, that this contract included a clause that of all these billion doses that the EU bought that will be too many at some point maybe next year, the EU will have too many doses of the vaccine. The EU is not allowed to give these vaccines to poorer countries and this is a clause at least in the curavac contract. We don't know about the other one. But basically the company will have a say on what the EU does with the doses that it purchased. Thank you Judith. I'm conscious of time because we're sort of pushing up. We said we'd have 45 minutes for both topics and we're just finishing the first one. So unless anyone's got some really important thing to say I propose to move to the next topic. Okay, cool. The next topic. Identity politics. Well, DM is a movement of action, but also a movement of free and open debate. I mean, this is a meeting of our coordinating body you're watching right now and we're live streaming it. Identity politics. If you're a progressive activist, you would have to have been living a very quiet life not to have come across this topic. It's a vital issue for the left and it's about time that the DM took it on DM's coordinating collective took it on and our members took it on. And last week we kicked off the discussion with a private chat with our coordinating collective on this. And there's several opinion pieces on our site, which hopefully we can link to in the description down below or in the chat that have advanced the thinking on this topic submissions from people here in the coordinating collective and also from our members. So the way this is going to work is everyone's going to speak for two minutes, elected members first, and we will kick off this discussion with Juliana. Yes, thank you. Well, I think that first of all, Eric's piece did a great job and bringing awareness about this topic because I realized that I'm kind of new to it. I had lots of first thoughts about it the last week. And I think that the burning issues today showed like how many, you know how many problems exist in this in this world which are evolving around money and the economy and profit. And you know that that's kind of, and I'm getting straight to it and that's kind of what I'm missing in this identity politics debate also that followed yesterday for at least one hour is that there is the separation between what I defined as as a left core value is to be kind of this anti capitalistic anti systemic movement, you know, as a whole, and then the perception of identity politics to say to say that kind of as well you can integrate capitalist and this identity politics concept. Because you know I asked myself the question, you can be like a venture hardcore venture capitalist and be an oppressed woman. So you would join a demonstration, for example, against oppressed women. But that's kind of like, what's the point of it then you know it's like, I don't believe in the liberation of society through, through micro lenses. And I, yeah, that's what I want to say I'm kind of new to it. And this is, this is what I feel is like, I don't feel that connected to how it's handled the identity politics topic, because I miss the core values that I've, I've, I've thought to be important. And when it comes in terms of changing the system and what what is causing the suffering and what's causing us all to be not free. And I think that everyone that is on a payroll is in a certain way enslaved in our society. So, so the majority is there and the majority has not the luxury of never working and being able to express themselves in the sense where how they identify identify themselves. So, so yeah, I think I'd leave it with that and maybe say something major, but as for someone who is kind of the first time thinking about identity politics in this way. Yeah, this is where I tend to see the core issue at the moment that I that I think there has to be a connection between the social sociological view of society where it's about awareness, and where it's about, you know, pointing to what's important to to each other and building tolerance, which I think tolerance is not the same thing as understanding each other. But, but there is no real political answer at this moment, from the view of identity politics that I can identify and really argue about and maybe you, you all can help me to to see it if I miss it there. Thanks. Thanks, Juliana. Sorry to cut you off. We're going to shoot for two minutes per person. So everyone gets a chance to speak. Ivana and then Renata. Thanks. I am also glad that we have this debate opened because we do really need to approach certain topics that we were kind of dancing around, which are delicate or hurtful for some but not so much for the others and instead of making these divisions of us and the others, we should all stand united and be more open and more honest and we must be better at listening to each other, be more tolerant in these discussions and more compassionate to each other. It is good to have open debates about these sensitive issues, I think, and I think that we are in a good way to have these debates in DM spaces for internal debates and we will use DM processes and so on to have final stands. I'm hoping as a movement about certain issues. So, I agree with you, Juliana, because I'm not, my background is not in leftist activism for a very long time. I wasn't really confronted with all of these language problems and the way how we call things rather than the substance of the problem. So for me, I would like to be a member of DM where we are all united and where we are all good at listening to each other. Savannah Renata. Sorry, I will stick to one minute I think because I have something burning, a burning issue literally in the kitchen. For me, it is something that I, you know, like I work on feminist issues, and I'm trying to build feminist technology like of course this, this topic touches my heart and the core of my values. The most important lesson that I have learned working in the field and working in the topic is that we need to come at these issues with empathy, understanding and a long term vision. That's not with micromanagement management of comments and different opinions. That's with a vision of a future that is feminist that is sexy to all the people in our society that is convincing, you know, like the building that positive vision. DM is the perfect place to do it. And, and, and, but we need to be very, very careful of something that you know like we are a movement and movements are diverse and people come from different very different places very different backgrounds and we cannot demand and police people whose backgrounds, whose upbringing we do not know we need to come to these issues with empathy with love and again, not with trying to correct the correct the right now the moment the comment the tweet. We need to build a long term vision for in 2050, a feminist Europe with, you know, economic racial and gender justice at its core that's what we are building here. So, my mind, you know, and my reflection on all this is that we need to dismantle the structures of oppression. That's a long term work and we need as many people as possible. And that's, that's to bring as many people as possible. We need to build a place of empathy and comfort and learning together and have to have that position and build together the positive division from different places and not to become an elitist speech police basically. And I have to go from and be right back. Thank you, Renata. Simone and then Eric. Simone. You're muted. May I share an image with you before talking. No, I cannot share the. Okay. You could describe it. No, it was a useful because it says everything. Okay. So, no, I, I must disagree. I very well. I think this debate is very welcome. And yes, we, we had to, to have it as soon as possible. It's very sensitive. Actually, identity is a soft spot for the left. Yeah, and Eric is totally right on this. And identity issues can be easily weaponized by the Liberals, like it happened with a sandwich or with Corbin. Nevertheless, the solution to this ability of identity to be weaponized is not to tell its identities are neutral and we should just focus on class issues for getting all the other differences among people. And it's not only because there's differences frame the structures of power in our society, and exactly because they are used to put a work male white worker against the woman, his wife, because he's, he would be like Yanis said in his article, the last in the, in the biking. Unless he had a woman to to beat and sorry, what feminism and diversity issues address is this framework of power, and we cannot unite the leftist unless we address this framework as a whole. As a woman, I'm not oppressive the same way. My husband is, and I'm not oppressive the same way an immigrated woman is. And if we don't consider differences will make equality among unequals. And this is the most unfair thing you can do. Yeah, sorry. Okay. Sorry, just trying to give everyone a chance to speak. We have a comment on YouTube. What we have is politically correct neoliberal feminism which only supports capitalism. And that's just a small margin of women succeed. We need feminism for the 99% Eric over to you. I couldn't agree will with that statement and unfortunately in its neoliberal form identity politics focuses overwhelmingly on, you know, superficial symbols of progress rather than the election of politicians who have an actual plan to replace the entire system, which had made it impossible until recently for women and minorities to have been elected in the first place. This is a massive problem with identity politics and something that we need to meet head on I think as the by reproducing politics as a kind of pageantry of symbolism. We don't only empower the status quo we perpetuate the inheritance of patriarchy and colonialism by reducing people, you know, to to their identity. Every time we were seen to celebrate an ineffectual candidate or ineffectual politician who's been elected. In the basis of their identity we alienate people whose lives are unchanged or even worsened by the election of that person who we are seen to celebrate you know and that's how you drive them to the right. So we cannot build the foundation for an inclusive society based on an ideology and on a language that focuses on divisions. It's a very strong ingredients. Identity politics is very useful analytically academically describing the world that we live in now, but it's quite bad at describing the world that we want to create in terms of its ability to unite us it's failing you know not only because it's the struggles of different groups to the four, which is a very positive thing but because it fails to integrate all of those groups into one common overarching struggle, even through intersectionality. It's the difference essentially between an alliance and a federation, you know. So, let me say just one more thing I'm keenly aware of the time about the language that is also used by identity politics. A lot of what I've just said in the past two minutes is unintelligible to a lot of people and that's because the language of identity politics is essentially intellectual and academic. It's, it's both the language and the rules which are used to navigate the language are very strict and the people that protect the language and the rules are very strict about the zealous you know gatekeepers of how they protect them. So anybody who tries to even engage on this topic will very quickly be slapped around and be told that they're doing it all wrong and that they're perpetuating patriarchy just through the way that they speak, which might be academically correct. But it does nothing at helping create a mass political movement around the goals that we're trying to achieve. So even though identity politics has all the right goals. It's way to achieve them, I think is deeply, deeply problematic. And as DM 25 we shouldn't just settle for the mainstream political analysis but really reinvestigate and reanalyze this and integrate it in a new way in how we go about it. Thanks Eric. Another comment from YouTube while I'm reading them. Identity. No, where is it sorry. I lost it. Identity politics is individualistic class politics is communal slash collective from Constance Arans on our chat if you've got comments and you want to weigh in on this debate. Please also add them into the chat. Now, over to you, Burrell. This identity question. I would like to suggest that we have first of all to focus on that global belief notion and approach to race and races. You can understand it's living in a quite racist country. I think I mean to go to the historical root of identity discrimination, the identity discrimination and condemnation starts with race and races. However, we know that race doesn't even exist in humans. I think race is a tool of political and economic interests. And, but scientifically it is not a biological concept. So the convention conviction that race is existing in the world is not the truth. So it is actually extremely socio political prejudiced judgments and the main reason of all genocids and hostilities between countries and communities. So this notion of race extends itself easily to gender and other discrimination. I think the hidden key issue of European policy is, for example, to obstruct the migration and mixing because races are being mixed by migration. Throughout the history, this happened in the world and race is mixed. But this is not accepted. And so politics, economy and religion use race as a tool for their goals. So we have to obstruct this condemnation. And I think race doesn't matter and doesn't exist, but cultural diversity matters and exist. But cultural diversity is polluted with races. And I think as DM25 we have to make creative projects to set a right this delusion and exterminate this fatal condemnation. And we can do this through explaining what racism is and how it makes the world unhabitable for humanity. Another comment on YouTube that I'll read to you, identity politics can be deeply interlinked with class politics, which may not be obvious at first glance. For example, in the Indian caste system, people of the lower caste are also mostly from working class. Yeah, thanks for the comments. I think that's precisely where I want to jump in. And I hope I mean, I promise I won't take more than two minutes. Because I think this is a crucial comment which was just given and I would love to remind mainly our German friends of the symbolism of the rainbow flag. I mean, it's not just our German friends, but it's interesting that mainly the German friends very often forget where the rainbow flag comes from actually. And of course, not just the Germans, because you know probably that the rainbow flag as the symbol of gay pride LGBT and so on, became really popular in the 60s and especially in the 70s after the assassination in San Francisco. But the true origin of the rainbow flag was of course goes back to the great Germans peasants war from 1525 and to Thomas Munzer. And if I would have to choose between Martin Luther and Thomas Munzer, I would always choose Thomas Munzer, because he's the one who famously said Omnia Sunde Comuna, which means everything should belong to everyone. And it's not an incident that Carl Kautz Keith, Friedrich Engels and then later also ends brought and ends brought to Thomas Munzer as the true proto communists, you know, and at the very origin when the peasants were marching with Thomas Munzer, the rainbow flag presented basically a class struggle presented hope it presented equality. It presented imagination. And that was what five centuries ago. So in that sense I think identities of course, very important, especially if your identity is oppressed, but at the same time in in an age as our age in the 21st century when our identities are being commodified in various ways, very often by Silicon Valley and so on. I think we should go back to Thomas Munzer, but not in the sense that block went back back to Thomas Munzer in this way, even Karl Marx of secular apocalyptic in the sense that you know there is a messiah coming and in the sense of Thomas Munzer it was the return of Christ, in the sense of block Marx and so on it was the return of communism. I'm for a different sort of apocalyptic apocalyptic without the messiah. And, but I'm going too far. What I want to conclude is to say that there is no identity without the class struggle and we should go to the original meeting or meaning of the rainbow flag and go back to Thomas Munzer in that sense. Thank you so much. Another YouTube comment from Bada Meinhoff. Identity politics is all about Google targeting ads at the right groups. Renata. Very quickly because the words of Dreschko inspire me and remind me of something about transformative process that was possible among very, very, you know, not poor people but poor people in the economic and what the sense of that was measured by Western societies which is the Sabatistas. You know indigenous community I come from Guatemala I'm very familiar and I have worked with Mayan communities and indigenous communities, without that transformative process that the and through a very, like, you know, patriarchal cultures. And so, and the amazing thing, the most amazing thing that the Sabatista revolution can taught us that it is not a matter of, you know, going to university to transform your movement into a feminist movement from its roots. It's about sharing a struggle, sharing ambition and committing to learning while this struggle is taking place three decades later, it is a model of through rooted feminist politics in building a better world. And I think that if a millenary culture could, like, you know, in three decades, eradicate, of course, not eradicate, we probably there's still like things going on, but shape their institutions and shape their leadership to respond to a feminist vision. It is possible and we should, we have a deadline 2025, so we should accelerate the process, but we have technology and we have many other tools helping us, we could, we could is possible and class education that is not a struggle is committing to the common good, I think. And that's a great example. We should ask them for advice. Thank you, Renata, another YouTube comment. Identity politics is fragmentary by its nature, fragmentary in its goal, fragmentary in its focus, fragmentary in its analysis of the underlying problem, fragmentary in its compassion. Janis. Thanks, my friend. Discrimination has a capacity always to divide and multiply. I wrote an article, it's on dm25.org. So, you know, I'm one of those privileges. I've already put my case in writing. I don't need to spend much time, but I want to highlight this point. The way in which conflictual societies divide the various pies by definition, by construction, by the mere fact that they are divisive and conflictual societies, whether we're talking about, you know, an ancient society based on slavery, feudal society, capital society, divisions become solidified and patterns of oppression become more stable when the oppressed are divided. So, there is a natural tendency almost spontaneously without even anyone realizing. For instance, you know, the wives of the proletarian will always be more exploited than the proletarian and that solidifies the exploitation of other proletarians. But it goes beyond that. Allow me to just highlight one example. We see that in the schoolyard, when you've got bullies around, you know, there is a division between left-handed and right-handed children. So, even the most arbitrary and ridiculous discriminant becomes the evolutionary lever by which discrimination creates division, solidifies oppression and builds identity. Suddenly left-handed kids acquire an identity as left-handed kids, just because of the pattern of discrimination and oppression which evolves naturally in primitive societies and we live in primitive societies. It would be absolutely mad for anyone to come and say to me that, you know, I am a proletarian, I'm being exploited in the factory and I think that my exploitation is more severe and more problematic than that of a woman, a transgender person, a black person, so on. These hierarchies of discrimination are just absurd, ridiculous. What they do is they reinforce the pattern of oppression and division. So you see, of course, identity is crucial. Identity is crucial, language is crucial, symbols are crucial. Think about it, people die for a piece of cloth that is painted a certain color. It's called a flag, my goodness, you know, and we can even appreciate why they would die for that piece of cloth, for that symbol. So identity is crucial, but let us not mistake, and I think this was one of the issues with the title of Eric's article, which I agree, by the way, I agree with the type. If you confuse identity politics with emancipatory politics, then the title of Eric's article is offensive. But for me, identity politics is the opposite of emancipatory politics. And you don't have to think that identity is neutral, it doesn't matter to believe that. For me, what matters is the emancipation from all kinds of discrimination, because all kinds of discrimination are intertwined, and one kind of discrimination leads to another, to another, and to another. Therefore, what is the point of DM25? What was the point back in the Volkswune on the 9th of February, 2016, we go together, men, women, you know, Northerners, Southerners, Greeks, Czechs, you know, even a Krod, and you know, and we try to build what? A movement of solidarity for destroying every discrimination, every pattern of discrimination, without hierarchizing any one of them, without prioritizing any single one of them. That's what DM25 is about. Thank you, Janice, one more comment from YouTube. Before gender, color and ideology were all human beings. Practice humanity before ideology, after all, it's what being humane is all about. Simona. No, sorry, it was a mistake. Okay, does anybody else have any other comments? I'm just conscious of time here, because we've gone 15 minutes over with this fascinating debate. Anyone else want to weigh in or should we wrap it up here? We've got a lot to think about and we will be extending this debate to our membership and hopefully the chat can continue on YouTube, people weighing in there. I think that concludes it then, I know one's got their hand up, so thank you very much for joining us. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of DM's Coordinating Collective Talks Identity Politics.