Taking to the streets: no wars, no tyrants
In the coming weeks, the Institut Novact de Noviolència is calling for a cycle of mobilisations to defend a simple idea: we want neither wars nor tyrants. On April 26 at 12 pm, at Plaça Universitat in Barcelona, we are convening the demonstration “Against war, stop rearmament”, together with social organisations, trade unions, movements and collectives committed to a just peace. We will also mobilise on May 16, in the context of Nakba Day, and on June 14 in Brussels, during a European day of action to demand a shift in priorities. We call on everyone to take part and fill the streets in the face of war and authoritarianism.
At a time marked by genocides, rearmament and new authoritarian drifts, authoritarian leaders promise order and security while restricting rights and democratic space.
Across many parts of the world, we are witnessing the same pattern: fear and conflict are fuelled, enemies are constructed, and democratic institutions are dismantled.
For us, resignation is not an option. Democracy only survives when people participate, organise, build solidarity and imagine alternatives.
Security is not built with weapons
The global spiral of militarisation is one of the clearest signs of the current crisis. The return of war as a normal tool of international politics brings death, destruction and instability, without freeing peoples or resolving conflicts.
At the same time, pressure is growing to increase military spending. The European Union has launched plans involving hundreds of billions of euros for rearmament, while environmental and social regulations are being relaxed to favour the arms industry.
These are resources taken away from rights, jobs, care for territories and the ecological transition.
We firmly state that security is not built with weapons, but through shared security, disarmament, social justice, cooperation between peoples and respect for international law.
Defending dissent and social spaces
The rise of authoritarianism does not only affect international conflicts. In many countries, spaces for freedom and democratic participation are shrinking.
Attacks on press freedom, criminalisation of dissent, repression of social movements and activism are increasingly visible trends, including in Europe.
In this context, independent social and cultural spaces play a fundamental role. They are spaces for participation, mutual support, accessible cultural production and community-building.
Yet they are increasingly targeted by attacks, evictions and delegitimisation processes.
Defending these spaces is defending democracy.
Anti-racism and migrants’ rights
In recent years, European migration policies have consolidated an increasingly violent and dehumanising system.
Migrants and refugees have been subjected to criminalisation, detention and deportation. At the same time, border control regimes and externalisation policies have intensified, making routes more dangerous. The Mediterranean has become one of the deadliest borders in the world.
While celebrating a historic extraordinary regularisation achieved through collective action, the anti-racist movement continues to demand a radical shift: ending discriminatory restrictions on international mobility, closing detention centres, ending agreements that generate violence and deportation, advancing regularisation policies and the means to implement them, ensuring dignified, public and universal reception systems, and ending administrative violence and the impunity of racist institutional violence at borders and within our societies.
No wars, no tyrants: mobilisation for justice and against rearmament
Wars, repression of dissent, racism and authoritarianism move forward together. In the face of this, neutrality is not an option. It is time to take to the streets.
We join the global call “No War, No Kings” and bring it here: to say no to war, no to racism, no to rearmament, no to tyrants and no to all their complicities.
See you on April 26 in Barcelona, on May 16 and on June 14.
No wars, no tyrants.