• Fri 09 09 2016 / 7 pm •
Bachtyar Ali

with BACHTYAR ALI

For some time now, the issue of the so-called refugee crisis has stood at the center of political debate. But all the rhetoric tends to obscure the great philosophical meaning of the experience of flight itself, even if it is born of physical necessity and subject to biopolitical control. By fleeing, you define the world anew. You declare borders between countries and political divisions to be unnatural and meaningless. Refugees can break many of the things held sacrosanct by those in power. How do they live with this subversive, even revolutionary dimension of flight, and what might it mean for us today? Could refugees be considered as a new people? Such are the questions posed by writer Bachtyar Ali as he follows the escape routes of today’s immigrants, whose failure to integrate may not just be a reactionary search for a space outside of politics, but an invention of a new politics altogether. After his talk, he joins in conversation with writer and Academy member STEFAN WEIDNER.

Venue: Stadtgarten, Venloer Straße 40, 50672 Cologne
Combined ticket for Bachtyar Ali and Mazzaj Rap Band: 8 €, reduced 5 €
In German