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Hello comrades from our around the world!
We are organising an anti-fascist march on the 25th of February against a neo-Nazi demonstration that is about to happen for the 20th time in our city, Sofia (Bulgaria). This is the big annual event for Bulgarian fascists, commemorating the death of the pro-Nazi general Hristo Lukov, also leader of a Nazi organisation from the time of the Second World War.
For more than ten years now, there is resistance to this demonstration, which was until recently held as a torch-lit march through the center of the city. In the beginning, it was also widely accepted and portrayed in the media as a 'normal' patriotic event, commemorating a Bulgarian hero. However, after years of organising, even if we didn't manage to stop this event, we managed to change the narrative so it is widely perceived as a neo-Nazi demonstration, which is in recent years not officially permitted to happen by the City Council of Sofia, but it takes place anyway. The number of people going to the fascist march decreased over the last few years, mainly because of conflicts between the neo-Nazi groups themselves, and because of travel restrictions, which stopped their wide international support from far-right groups to come and attend, as they were doing on regular basis in the past, using the event to organise international neo-Nazi gatherings in Bulgaria. We expect them to be more this year though, as they mark 20 years since their first Lukov-march.
In the meantime, our demonstration grew bigger and now matches their numbers. However, we feel that the general climate in Bulgaria is slowly changing and many people are tired of the nationalist/neo-Nazi stories and the hateful culture they propagate. We feel that, even though it seems we cannot stop them to commemorate their general, there is a lot of potential to attract much bigger numbers to the streets and show the fascists that times are changing and their ideology has to disappear back where it came from - from the trash bin of history!
Last year, we also managed to organise a successful blockade, which although it lasted no more than half an hour, was very surprising both for the Nazis and the police, and big success, given it is the first time such action happens here. Normally, the police does not permit both our demonstrations meeting, so they are separated, but a group of people took the risk to confront the neo-Nazi march.
Our intention is to build on this. Our capacity is very limited, also the number of people actually organising in the anti-fascist movement here, but we want to propagate more, use all possible mediums to reach out to people, who can come to our demo or use their platform to show support, including limited, but targeted, advertising. At the moment, we are also pushing for the commemorative stone plate of fascist general Hristo Lukov to be removed from the house where he lived - we know the Nazis have hired a lawyer to defend it, but we will not back down until the memory of this Nazi scum is taken down.
We call for your financial support for our cause, because as things stand, we have the funds to organise the demonstration, doing posters and leaflets and paying for a sound system that has made for a much more festive atmosphere at our event, but we want this to grow and, hopefully, extend much beyond the period of the demonstrations. After all, our goals is to change the general culture in order to have real change.
We are already working on videos to introduce ourselves better, to introduce the problem visually to the general public and the new generations. Our plans are to organise a few cultural initiatives, including to clean the city from Nazi graffiti and attract radical artist to create murals, publish more booklets in print, which is still very important even in this digital age, as well as more posters and creative content.
We need funds to invest in legal support as well. In previous years, we were able to secure a lawyer for no fee, or for a very small fee in case of a bigger accident. However, now we are not in this situation, and given our desire to continue with our attempts to go beyond what is permitted, we would need support to hire a lawyer - for advice, for being with us at the demonstration, and standing up for our comrades that would want to block the Nazis on the streets.
We will be preparing also an online free-for-download zine about our demonstration, the fascist march and the broader picture in Bulgaria, that we will publish here for you in the last week of our campaign with FireFund!
You can also follow us on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/antifabg
and Facebook - https://m.facebook.com/493141834041952/
(Antifa Bulgaria/ Антифа България).
Strength to all our struggles!
Another world is always possible!!!
Antifa Bulgaria
