29.03.2023

We never give up! Now more than ever!

We never give up! Now more than ever!

Painfully we feel with our colleague Sarah Vecera, who is now afraid for herself and her family and fundamentally questions her important work. This is because society, church and we ourselves could not protect her sufficiently, when she presented our common work against racism and discrimination in Leipzig with a reading from her book "How did Jesus become white" and was immediately threatened by a person. The security service that was present was able to protect her.

That this could happen is wrong at all and we vigorously oppose any dangerous distortion of the perception of the situation. It is not she who must be afraid. Not the people who work for an open and just world should be afraid, but exactly those who try to achieve the opposite! 

The attempted assault on our friend and colleague is not an isolated case. We know and hear again and again reports of people of color who only appear in public with security at their side and often can no longer feel safe, even in private. We also know from other affected colleagues that incidents and experiences are not reported to the police, out of shame, out of fear of pressure to justify oneself, out of consideration for a society that does not want to look at its own mistakes.

As the international Management Team of the UEM, we stand by the side of exactly these people! This incident confirms the need for this work and reaffirms our commitment to protect our colleagues and to work for an open and discrimination-free world. If you attack our colleagues, you attack all of us! We will not tolerate this.

We never give up!

The Management Team of the UEM

Bambelela, Bambelela, 
Oh, Bambelela, Bambelela 
Bambe, Bambe, Bambe, Bambe, Bambe
Oh, Bambe, Bambelela 

Never give up, Never give up, 
Oh, Never give up, Never give up 
Never, Never, Never, Never, Never
Oh, Never, Never give up 

Statement of Sarah Vecera, Senior Coordinator Globale Education of the UEM at Instagram