CODE IS POLITICS
OFFDEM community is larger than just Brussels. For years we have pursued to organize OFFDEM events in a decentralized fashion. This year OFFDEM leaves Brussels. We want to thank BalCCon2k26 organizers for welcoming a half-day OFFDEM workshop during BalCCon2k26 build-up, on Sept 17th.
War cannot save us, it can only accelerate extermination of people and the planet.
This call only focuses on one major OFFDEM topic as we will only run one afternoon workshop.
To join please join the dedicated group: O₆f₂fdem - hexaoxygen difluoride - OFFDEM
Where:
BalCCon 2k26
Congress Center, Hajduk Veljkova 11 Novi Sad, Serbia
BalCCon is a non-commercial, community-organized event, with talks and workshops by the Balkans hacker community for the community. BalCCon provides an opportunity for all the people in this part of Europe to connect and to cooperate.
When:
→ Thu, Sep 17 12:00 PM→Thu, Sep 17 6:00 PM
During BalCCon buildup in the workshop room
Register:
To join the workshop please register to the dedicated workgroup here: O₆f₂fdem - hexaoxygen difluoride - OFFDEM
OFFDEM at the borders of Europe
BalCCon2k26’s OFFDEM workshop aims to transform the discourse and challenge monolithic thinking that paradoxically presents a polarized and globalised world, where we have to “choose a camp”, to position irrespectively of our multiple attachements. Here, at the thresholds of Europe, are “Borderlands”, zones of multiplicity and transformation where a diversity of opinions are represented; Free Software propagation is also borderless and does not comply to the geopolitical incentive to polarize: we stand at a place where offensive strategies of resistance can occur.
Conceptual Basis at OFFDEM demil
We acknowledge that warmongering is an economic fact affecting all industries – they all serve the military, knowingly or not; the warmongering effort depends on and fuels digitalization and software production that powers the military-industrial complex – and its means of resistance; warmongering requires war propaganda that divides and polarizes to hide its global reach and prevent questioning – all “camps” abuse it, and we’re not in any of them; the required asymetry and extreme violence to assert global dominance requires global logistics – and that is brittle; there are a finite number of industrial actors involved in warmongering – and they have vulnerabilities.
- War kills, war pollutes, war destroys communities and cultures, war opposes democracy, war threatens habilitability, war won’t feed anyone.
- Acknowledge that military production is embedded in all spheres of the industry, including free software, and research.
- Acknowledge the dominance of digitisation and software powering militaro-industrial complex.
- Examine the omnipresence of war propaganda (including polarization) and the authoritarian context it entails, whichever camp it came from.
- Explore the global network of logistics and its vulnerabilities.
- Tentatively identify who are the industrial actors involved in warmongering and what are the paths of resistance
What obstacles have we encountered so far
- Difficulty to seize and appropriate such a topic as we feel powerless
- How many of us work in relation to the war industry or ‘dual use’ projects, how many of us do not know they do?
- How to thwart war propaganda: the ideas that there is an enemy, piling weapons is necessary, war is a solution, there is no alternative, they will strike first, etc.?
What do we want to do… more
- Identify ‘dual use’ projects
- Make visible the current situation, including in the free software community
- Address free software use in the military
- Support existing unions
- Question key concepts (‘dual use’, the necessity of war, the enemy, TINA, transition…)
- more…
Opening questions
- What are the impacts of data centers and technosolutionism near you?
- How are you or some of your close social circle engaged in the militarization of society?
- Surprise us! There are many ways in which the military have been taking over our daily lives: can you tell us about something specific to your region?
Notes and References
War as an accelerant of extermination.
In her book Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua presents the border as a place that is non linear and subject to multiple embedded transformation that nevertheless should be understood with a holisitic approach.
With regard to the notion of margins, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, in From the Margins (1994 scidb), has argued that
“the zones of unpredictability at the edges of discursive stability, where contradictory discourses overlap, or where discrepant kinds of meaning-making converge.”