"Stop the war against Iraq!" - millions of people all over the world, in hundreds of different languages and thousands of dialects called it out - shouted it out. The overwhelming majority of the world's people were against it. They did it anyway.
"Stop the war against Iraq! Occupation is not liberation!" - millions stood up, daily, on every continent, in almost every country. Stop the war! Occupation is not liberation! The vast majority of the world's people are of same mind. But it went on anyway, around the clock: the bombs fell, the cannons thundered, the tanks rolled, the soldiers marched and the governments lied.
The number of dead and wounded grew hourly: sleeping children, fleeing families, pregnant women in hospitals, people defending their country against the conquerors, and even the rank and file soldiers of the invading army who do not understand for what purpose they are being misused. Thousands and tens of thousands, seemingly without end their numbers grew amidst the millions of souls that will be scared for a lifetime by the trauma. They call it "liberation". It is a crime.
Their greed appears unbounded. They call for permanent war. They claim that their "war against terror" is "preventive". They call it "self-defense" and "security building". That talk about a "new democratic order". It is imperialism. A worldwide network of exploitation and oppression. And they are all involved: the powers which are currently waging war in Iraq - the USA and UK - and those which at the moment present themselves as the "anti-war bloc" - Germany, France and Russia. Their dispute is real. But it is not a dispute over war and peace, but rather a fight over the division of the spoils: Iraq's oil, the control over of Gulf region and Middle East as a whole and in the final analysis over the entire world - its resources and its people. More than anything its people.
But we are not "collateral damage"! We are not slaves or robots! We are human beings and we demand a world in which we can live as such; a world in which the drive for profit of a tiny minority no longer rules over the lives of millions;
a world in which murderous wars of conquest - and war in any form - is something that is known only in the history books and violence between people no longer exists;
a world in which a handful of rich countries no longer dominate and exploit the overwhelming majority of the world's nations and people;
a world in which women and men are truly equal and where no woman anywhere must fear violence or abuse at the hands of a man;
a world in which cultural diversity is respected and treated as something that enriches human society;
a world in which the people consciously and voluntarily work together to meet the needs of everyone and to further develop themselves and society as a whole.
It is the power of this vision that enables us to overcome everything which appears to divide us, and to unite in struggle for this future. For more than 100 years May 1st has been the international day of struggle and celebration for all those in the whole world in whose hearts this vision of the future is beating.
Such a society can never come about under the System that is currently ruling world. It can only come about through revolution from below. Such a revolution in Germany and around the world is today more necessary than ever.
The capitalist/imperialist Profit System has failed completely. The rulers in Germany are not only waging war abroad, but at home as well. They are trying to give us the blame for the failure of their system! According to their politicians and experts there is mass unemployment because the people are to "lazy", wages are too "high" or because social security is "too expensive"; our food is poisoned and contaminated because people want to "buy too cheaply"; women and children are sexually abused and mistreated because they are "too weak"; the environment is plundered without mercy because it stands in the way of "technological progress"; immigrants and other Non-Germans and people of Islamic faith are discriminated against and outcast because they are all "criminals" and "terrorists"; refugees and asylum-seekers are persecuted, rrested and deported because they are all "parasites"; etc. Under the label of the "war against terror" they are instituting complete surveillance and police state.
The tiny elite that today rules over the world and enriches itself at the expense of the overwhelming majority always tries to maintain its rule by dividing the great majority and turning the people against one another. Every difference between people - skin color, nationality, gender, religion, language, age, etc. - is used by those ruling over us to breed intolerance and hate; to justify repression and oppression; to carry out torture, mass murder and war.
Their reign and their bloody offensive must be met with out determined resistance! In the final analysis only a world wide revolutionary upheaval can finally put an end to all this. This revolution does not look at the world "from a German perspective", but from the point of view of internationalism: the understanding that the future - the radically different world - for which we are striving can only be achieved through a common world wide effort.
We cannot wait passively for this revolutionary change to take place. It will only be possible in the future if today we take up the struggles against what our rulers and their system are doing to us everyday.
Among other things that means supporting all the people around the world who are fighting the same enemy and system that we are up against: in Iraq, in Afghanistan and Iran, in Turkey, Kurdestan, Indonesia, Peru and the Philippines, in Nepal and Palestine and South Korea, in the streets of the USA and Northern Ireland, and the suburbs of France...
We especially must support the struggle of the tens of thousands of progressive and revolutionary people around the globe who because of their political views and actions are being held captive in the dungeons of this world -- mistreated, tortured and murdered; like the thousands of political and revolutionary prisoners in Turkey who are continuing their struggle against the F-type prisons. Or like our brother Mumia Abu-Jamal in the USA, who is directly threatened with execution. The prisoners from the RAF -- some of whom have been imprisoned for over 2 decades -- and all other progressive and revolutionary prisoners in Germany must be freed.
This is the vision and struggle for which the Revolutionary May 1st Demonstration starting from Oranienplatz has stood for the last 16 years - ever since the mass rebellion in Kreuzberg in 1987. And that is why every year the rulers launch a campaign in the press to try to denounce and politically isolate it, so that they can split us, forbid the demonstration and when all else fails use their clubs to try to stop it. Up until now they have not succeeded. And we are not planning to let them stop us this year either. That is why we say:ON MAY 1ST 2003 YOUR PLACE IS WITH US, ORANIENPLATZ, 1 PM!

War Against War Abroad and at Home!
NO LIBERATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION!

Occupation is Not Liberation! All Foreign Troops Out of Iraq!
No to the Observation and Police State!
End Solitary Confinement and Torture!
Free All Political Prisoners!
Fight Rape and All Forms of Women's Oppression!
Fight Racism and Fascist Violence!
Stop the Anti-Islamic Hate Campaign!
No Deportations!
Oppose All Attacks on the Right to Asylum!
No to Cuts in Wages and Social Services!

Revolutionary May 1st Coalition