Alliance of left and radical democratic university groups
The alliance of left and radical democratic university groups (short: LiRa) was an independent association of left student associations in Germany. LiRa groups existed at many larger universities and technical colleges . LiRa was founded in 1998 in Bochum during the student protests in the 1997/98 winter semester. Politically, the alliance was close to the Young Democrats / Young Left and the then Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
At LiRa there was a broad spectrum of left-wing and radical democratic approaches and dealt with different political theories and with topics such as trade union orientation and the way to overcome capitalism and patriarchy .
In addition, LiRa mainly worked in various alliance projects, especially in the field of education. It was a founding member of the Alliance against Tuition Fees (ABS) and the Alliance for Political and Freedom of Expression (bpm). Until 2003 LiRa published the LiRa mass newspaper and seminars were offered on topics such as university development, Marxism or gender relations.
Conflicts between independent university groups on the one hand and university groups dominated by the Young Democrats / Young Left on the other, as well as the process of merging Linkspartei.PDS and WASG into a nationwide new party, which began in 2005, led to the deep crisis at LiRa. The constituent groups from Cologne and Göttingen left LiRa in the conflict. At the same time, through the formation of the Linkspartei.PDS, member groups disbanded, or former active members of LiRa joined the newly founded university groups of the WASG and Linkspartei.PDS, for example at the Frankfurt Goethe University , the FU and the HU Berlin , the university Hanover or at the University of Giessen .
LiRa as a university group alliance has now been dissolved. In May 2007, many member groups joined the newly founded university association of the Left Party, Die Linke.SDS . There is no formal resolution to dissolve. However, the last LiRa delegate assembly in March 2006 in Siegen was no longer quorate. Due to the resignation of the board members and their partial transfer to the university association Die Linke.SDS, the association was unable to act towards the end.
At the Bergische Universität Wuppertal there was still a LiRa university group, which, contrary to the trend of the federal umbrella association, only formed at the beginning of 2006 and explicitly denied any party affiliation. This last group no longer exists since the end of 2011.
Web links
- former LiRa website ( Memento from December 22, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pascal Beucker , Niels Holger Schmidt: New Trend: Indoor Demos. In: taz ruhr. Uni special edition . April 1998, accessed December 1, 2015 .
- ↑ Franka Nagel: Revolution, the second. How the left tries to revive the old SDS. In: Berliner Zeitung . October 13, 2008, accessed December 1, 2015 .
- ↑ http://www.lira-wuppertal.de/