Add a statement on the torchlit hike to give proper context - sites - public wiki contents of suckless.org
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HTML Author: Laslo Hunhold <laslo@hunhold.de>
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:56:48 +0200
Add a statement on the torchlit hike to give proper context
Especially to make clear that no political symbolism was intended.
Internal discussions lead to us not adding a dedicated FAQ entry, but
I personally still stand behind it fully, repeated as follows as my
personal position, if you care about it:
While one can rightfully claim, going back to Aristotle, that everything
is political, this question pertains to political ideologies in terms of
the set of norms, ethical ideas and symbols that explain how a society
should work. In this sense, I understand suckless as an organisation that
aims not to represent a certain position, especially not far-right or far-left
extremist positions, which it clearly distances itself from. Suckless by
choice, I understand, is limited to the KISS philosophy and strive for simplicity.
In the past, some members were politically vocal as representatives of suckless
in a private function, and there was a misunderstanding regarding the
torchlit hike in 2017, which is addressed on the conference website to be
fully non-politically intended and a relatively common leisure event in Germany.
Since then, we have come to the understanding within suckless that, obviously,
more care must be taken to separate both, and to confirm this, such political
statements in association with suckless have not taken place for many years now.
Suckless has members from all walks of life: left-leaning, right-leaning,
all genders, religious denominations and ethnicities. Suckless may be extreme
when it comes to simplicity, the KISS philosophy, and one may call us
unfriendly to newcomers because we don't cushion the entry, but apart from
that, I understand our aim to be welcome and exclude no person, under the
condition that they don't use suckless as a political platform or discriminate
against other members. In particular, I of course understand suckless to
distance itself from nazism and fascism.
One important point is also taking a stance as an organisation on certain
topics, especially those with a high societal and ethical relevance. While
it is tempting to use the influence provided by being a voice in the field,
becoming publicly vocal about this requires being able to give qualified
responses on the topic. More importantly, being associated with politically
vocal organisations for very obvious and supportable stances can land you
in prison or worse in many countries in the world. Just standing for
simplicity and the KISS philosophy makes it safe to proclaim oneself to follow
suckless philosophy, and there are already enough excellent, dedicated
platforms for representing political causes.
One can, for this reason, accuse suckless of not taking a stance on certain
important topics and thus implicitly leading to harm, but this can be said
about all aspects of life and how far you take the 'everything is politics'
philosophy. What matters to suckless only, in my understanding, is the KISS
philosophy and the strive for simplicity.
Signed-off-by: Laslo Hunhold <dev@frign.de>
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M suckless.org/conferences/2017/inde… | 15 ++++++++++++++-
1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
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DIR diff --git a/suckless.org/conferences/2017/index.md b/suckless.org/conferences/2017/index.md
@@ -7,10 +7,23 @@ slcon hackathon 2017 was held in Würzburg on 2017-09-(01-03).
In contrast to previous years we didn't conduct regular talk sessions
but worked on our projects instead.
-We also introduced the annual suckless torchlight hike for the first time.
+We also went on a torchlight hike.
[](hike2017.png)
+Because of questions raised by many people about a potential political
+background of the torchlight hike, we would like to underline that such
+a symbolism was not intended in any way. The questions were justified,
+especially because the hike took place just weeks after the 'Unite the
+Right rally' in Charlottesville, Virginia, and torchlit marches
+('Fackelmärsche') in Germany are associated with NSDAP rallies in the
+Third Reich.
+
+This needs to be separated from torchlit hikes ('Fackelwanderungen'), which
+are a common pastime in Germany for groups and families and can be booked as
+guided tours as well, obviously with no political context. We also weren't
+aware of the Charlottesville rally at that time, as none of the participants
+came from the US and the riots were not part of mainstream news in Germany.
Previous conferences
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