Published on Southwark Notes Feb 21 with lots of images
How is it in London in 2015 that people who reside in public housing can be subject to such extremes of subtle and unsubtle violence? When we use the word violence what do we mean? Well for starters we mean the slow burning, long-term violence done to those who are being forced out of their homes in the name of ‘regeneration’ with it’s routine accompanying upheavals, anxieties, stresses and affects on physical and mental ill health.
Note: Regarding this article, it is important to also read the comment about problems with the film and also two texts written as a response, currently only on es.squat.net, “Comunicado de Juan Pintos, detenido/encarcelado/condenado por el montaje del 4F” and “Cuando una imagen no vale más que mil palabras“.
Ashes, blood and orujo mingle with the rain, showering the crowd in front of Barcelona’s city hall. Diana Torres has mixed her beloved Patri’s remains with the eye-watering grape liqueur — famous for its use in invocations — and her own vital fluid. She sprinkles the concoction over just some of the thousands who have gathered in solidarity. “I want vengeance and retribution, that word we inherited from the witches,” she says over the PA, as Cindy Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ reverberates throughout the square. Then she calls for a minute of screaming, and the plaza erupts.
[Read More]
We come from counter-summits, Climate Action camps, No Border villages; struggles in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, the Susa Valley or in the Sivens; anti-nuclear struggles such as in Valognes, Montabot or Bure; social, feminist and anti-authoritarian struggles…
If all these struggles are singular, many of us will bear the same horizontality structured ideals and reflections to combat all forms of domination. We also find common ground in modes of life and action. These battles sometimes intersect and reinforce each other.
The capitalist logic transforms the territory, devastates our environments, seeking to reduce our lives at work and by consumption. Faced with this we respond with squatting, blockades, sabotage; by practices that acquire autonomy outside of this world. [Read More]
Just days to go and we’re warming up for Saturday’s birthday celebrations.
There’s an exciting line up, and more information about workshops, activities and timings below.
Don’t forget to bring along seeds for the seed-swap, cakes for the cake competition and instruments for the jam.
There’s plenty of space for camping. Join the Grow Heathrow camping crew and bring a tent and sleeping bag. We also recommend warm layers, hot water bottles and friendly bodies to provide extra cosy heat.
If you can donate any mugs, please bring them along as we want to make sure everyone can drink tea! [Read More]
[Posted on their website Feb 20]
*We wondered where our wages went*
*We wasted most by paying rent*
*Since, we’ve learnt to change our lot*
*So now we’re living in a squat*
[Read More]
Every eviction has its price! Attack with paint against the office of the ‘Bauverein Reiherstieg’ housing cooperative in Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg:
On January 26th, 2015, Heiko was evicted from his home at 10 Otterhaken in the Wilhelmsburg district of Hamburg. For a long-time he was an obstacle against the ‘Bauverein Reiherstieg’ housing cooperative because of his organising against rising rents and due to more involvement from tenants. Since Heiko paid his rent late several times, he had to be thrown out this time.
Nearly 200 people in solidarity tried to prevent this happening. The eviction was delayed by a good 90 minutes. Unfortunately, the cops then succeeded to get through a door at the rear of the building with the help of the BFEs [special units of the German police]. The stairwell was blocked by supporters, but was then violently evicted. All this in the name of the ‘Bauverein Reiherstieg’. [Read More]
Spanish firefighters are refusing orders to participate in evictions because their duty is to “serve the public ” and intervene in “emergencies” and not to be “puppets of the bank or its servants in the government”.
Firefighters in Galicia, Catalonia and the Madrid region have rejected any action that “contributes to inequalities and miseries suffered by the working class,” said the CCOO union.
[Read More]
Today 8 housing activists from An Spreach Housing Action Committee and from D8HAC were up in court. All 8 were charged with trespassing on the 29th of July 2014 in a vacant flat in Charlemount Street in Dublin’s south inner city. All charges were dismissed by the court. This is a small victory for the housing groups, but the struggle continues it is not the end of the campaign to highlight the homeless and housing crisis.
An Spreach was formed to help highlight the homeless and housing crisis by methods of direct action. In the sort time of An Spreach’s existence it has been involved in helping stop house evictions; banner drops around the city; removed homeless spikes that were erected outside the Department of Social Protection (homeless people were sleeping in the Department’s doorway to try get some protection from the elements (these spikes were made from cement and bolted to the ground to prevent homeless people sleeping there); and An Spreach liberated a vacant flat in the Tom Kelly flat complex in Charlemount Street in Dublin’s south inner city. An Spreach was created by housing activists that were sick and tired of the lack of action and change from politicians and community representatives in trying to combat the problems of the homelessness and the housing crisis. [Read More]
On the 25th of October 2014, the death of a man by the police on the ZAD of Testet marked the beginning of two months of struggle in Toulouse, that continued with demonstrations, public actions and occupations. This movement echoes those of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, Testet, and elsewhere where an occupation was set up to confront detrimental State projects. The different ways of organising and communal life practiced on the ZADs have been put in practice in Toulouse, in spaces momentarily snatched away from the control of the Metropol.
By the Metropole, we are speaking about the authoritarian and destructive organisation of territory, put in place by the State and the multinationals that determine our lives. A real steamroller; reducing environments to their ability to be converted and economically managed, modeling spaces and practices for the market imperatives, and extending in all directions their infrastructural tentacles of steel and concrete. Here an airport, there a fast lane, a dam or a touristic park. [Read More]
Yesterday, an empty flat in Elveden House on the Guinness Trust estate in Brixton was occupied by local residents and supporters protesting at the threatened eviction of dozens of Guinness tenants from the estate.
More people have joined the action today and they plan to keep the occupation running until Guinness agree to halt all evictions and rehouse all the tenants in local social housing.
[Read More]
An Old Snake in a New Skin – From Raymond Masondo to Heinrich Bohmke and Bandile Mdlalose
In 2006, when we made it clear that we would not give up our autonomy to the NGOs and walked out of a meeting at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) at UKZN, some NGO workers, such as Mondli Hlatswayo, rushed to call us criminals on emails and in the press.
[Read More]
In April 2015 the municipality of Calais in collaboration with the socialist state government intends to open the Day Centre Jules Ferry for all migrants living in and around the city. This centre is sold by the government and its media as a humanitarian gesture. This is bullshit! This is a poor attempt to alleviate the catastrophic situation of the migrants here. A situation that is created by the very policies the government have put in place. The opening of the day centre will go along with the mass eviction of 2000 people and the destruction of their homes: the squats and jungles of Calais. [Read More]
