Labour Rights
Our collective is labour rights based. We support unionisation, informal labour rights networks and protections for freelancers. Any partners that do not, need not apply.
Substance Usage, Sanis, & Sobreity*?
We are not in principle as an awareness team for or against any substance, we do not encourage harmful substance use though we will handle its effects with compassion. We believe that certain substance use are so problematic in terms of implementing awareness for the kinds of safer spaces we want to build, that enabling use is simply not tolerated at the present moment and we only wish to work with venues who are also serious about this policy.
For example, this means any specific and individual substance use that leads to abuse of others. People who have been reported to us who are suspected of problematically selling or distributing substances will be asked to leave voluntarily or in collaboration with security. Abusively behaving people will be ejected when they are sober enough to leave, this may include a ban from the venue, while ensuring that whatever substance they had with them does not remain at the party with friends or associates.
Regarding casual usage, we do not believe in policing behaviour and primarily respond to complaints. We cannot make legal determinations. We believe enabling is different from harm-reduction strategies as harm reduction does not make space for problematic use but tries to minimise it. The complexity of the difference is not lost on us and we are keen to talk to our partners about this policy and answer any concerns/ questions they may have as well as work together to find respectful non-stigmatising individualised solutions.
In the case of a medical emergency, AAA are not sanis, we are also not prepared nor willing to provide first aide as a group though some of our staff might decide individually otherwise. We are prepared and trained to make determinations about when someone needs first aide or an ambulance and recieve specific training for this related to substance use and other health conditions as a part of entering the collective. Refusal to call sanis or staff them at partys that have a record of health emergencies will not be tolerated under any circumstances.
AAA works under a program of sobereity*; which means nobody on shift is engaging in problematic usage (e.g. sanctioned prescription abuse nor self-medication abuse), neither are they too tired nor failing to medicate (prescription and self-medication are both considered viable by AAA). Further this means we are read as sober and approachable by guests and open to critique, discussion, and support from our team members regarding successful and unsuccessful medicating. We have a supervision and rehabilitation plan in place for any AAA members who might experience such adversity.
Respect & Security
Many of our members have had discriminatory experiences and some of us have even had the course of our lives defined by such experiences. We are all too familiar with the kinds of boundaries that people will cross to try to control a situation, gaslight, or defame victims and survivors. If an awareness team member following these protocols encounters abusive behaviour towards themselves, pushback following kindness, blatant disrespect, etc.; we believe that said person should be ejected, depending on the team members judgement, after an attempt at dialogue where the ability to take turns speaking and to listen are the first tests. If they cannot listen to awareness they will not listen to anyone.
We also believe that mutual respect is necessary between sanis, security and awareness staff; this means if security wants to eject someone who has become violent or been found to abuse house rules the awareness team will respect this decision and help when asked, but it also means that if someone has been asked to leave voluntarily by awareness and refuses, that security will recognise the necessity of ejecting this person from the space.
We are happy to leave events that do not back-up our workers. We especially do not work with partners that allow or enable abusive behaviour of people known to them or working with them.
Ultimately, security is our number one partner and we do not like to work without security as they enable us to do nonviolent conflict resolution and we enable them to focus on the most difficult tasks involving physical threats and violence. That said, we believe everyone is responsible for awareness who is working at a venue and that even security can accomplish this.
Safer Spaces & Barrier-Freedoms
We are aware that certain people are targeted for bullying by abusively behaving people – sometimes common discriminations, sometimes within-group discriminations, other times due to personality or neurodiversity factors that may not be immediately apparent. We believe that people who are commonly abused are the number one passive allies of awareness team members as if they aren‘t having a good time, we or those we collaborate with are missing opportunities to make the space safer and more enjoyable for everyone.
Further AAA has a worker-support model in place to enable barrierfreedoms for people disabled by the society we live in. This could mean that a person with minoritised or marginalised status is never expected to work alone at an event filled with majoritised people. It could also mean certain team members require the support of other team members or accomodations related to mobility and the experience of psychological difference. It could mean that when we are asked to supply minoritised or marginalised persons to an event that does not represent them, we might say no, as this is too much work to expect of such persons (if your event has this problem, consider booking training with AAA first).
We believe that only having “resilient” people offering this work leads to a silencing of concerns of others who commonly experience problems. Finally, we accomplish psychological supervision and support internally with plenum and individualised support systems.
Restorative Justice & Conflict Resolution
Unlike many similar groups, AAA staff will spend significant amounts of time with whoever has practiced abuse as well as of course the person the abuse was directed at. We believe that abusive behaviour is primarily learned as a strategy to cope with adversity and a loss of control. This learning happens through societal, religious, familial, affinity-based, and schooling relationships within our present mass-media influenced contexts. We believe that certain forms of drug use can lead to amplifications of abusive behaviour especially in attempted safer spaces, where kindness is the focus. We believe that restorative justice-based discussions and consequences centering the afflicted persons wishes are a key to extinguishing and intervening in such behaviour. We do this even in the case of an ejection via venue security or more often following awareness dialogue, voluntary exit.
Anti Anti-German? YES!
We believe that Anti-German political stances are deeply bigoted and misappropriative, but also unfortunately deeply ingrained in the communities we care about across Germany. We see such political abuses in the form of instrumentalisations of Arab, Israeli, Kurdish, Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, Black and Brown, and LGBTIQA+ identities to serve what we see as problematic as well as stultifying guilt-narratives which seem to centre the sufferers of such guilt above current political traumas as well as above and beyond their ancestors’ historic victims/survivors. We also find misreadings and misrepresentations of the critical theorists to be willfully dishonest at worst and simply based out of ignorance of the texts in question at best. We refuse to work with Anti-Germans or those who would support them or give them platforms.
We are aware that this is not the only form of discrimination and bigotry in Berlin‘s progressive and radical culture today, only the most tolerated. We also stand against hierarchical political philosophies (e.g. fascism) as they tend to exclude people based on place of origin or their fundamental personhood (e.g. sex/ gender, orientation, physical features/ abilities).
For more information on the history of this deeply bigoted political cult please see this article.