Friday, 25th august Autonomous Spaces

the meeting without a name

introduction round & objectives for the meeting:

- london: possibilities to see what we have in common, so we can work more together collecitvly, to be able to fight capitalism

- lithuania: wants to see what experiences there are for squatting, wants to set up a squat/autonomous space in lithuania, but there are none yet.

- dresden: wants to talk about exhange of resources between 'rich' and 'poor' regions (in terms of resources and possibilities for squatting)

- rostock: meet other people, get new contacts, find a way to connect for a more extensive period of time. to present the idea of the karavan.

- budapest: lives in an autonomous space that doesn't work too well, wants to discover other ways of running such spaces, make people aware about problems. brought a vision about squatters exchange network thing, that will be printed out in the newspaper

rostock left?

- munich: interested in autonomous spaces that are not in the classical radical movement, for instance a trailer place of non-political homeless people. interested in the connection to social struggles. interested in the point of difference between 'rich' and 'poor', what does this mean for your own autonomy if people have the money to rent appartments

- barcelona: participates in social centers. in the social center there are differnt collectives ideology. variety between political view of the people that make activities (anarchist, communist, ecologists, etc, people that work in neighbourhood). interested in meeting the other experiences and forms of organization and especially start to create connections in europe.

- augsburg: involved in a rented social center. people can't live there. would like to get better connected to other projects in europe. wants to here about other social centers. wants to have it more open.

- california: ? hopefully do something

- germany: was living last four years in france in a collective project in the countryside. i'm rather in touch with the squat scene in france. wanted to do many practical exchange about how/what strategies are in autonomous spaces in france and elsewhere. wanted to learn from the persons who prepared this program. found it interesting to see the program, how to connect to other spheres. like the discussion during last week. were much more persons discussing, there are some concrete problems now, for instance legal advice in differnet ocuntries, squat.net, objective for this meeting to see how we want to continue discussing, what people want to do with this theme. if we continue with the program or if we do our own themes, what form do we adapt, do we write articles?

barcelona: yesterday was the crossover between digital media & autonomous spaces

. we didn't have time to finish that meeting. she doesn't think that will happen

. would be nice to talk something similar as yesterday

california left

she is some way is doing what she was doing, make links, there was some ?? make articles on the different aspects.

- holland: would like to reflect on culture around squatting and autonomous spaces.

particular objective, if you squat something, how to avoid eviction, what can you do about a threat? maybe share experiences.

more general discussion, it's a problem between political situations in different countries. what happens when several cultures come together?

as i think, my experience in romania, there is another culture of squatting. like many roma people squatting. it's interesting, the ghetto aspect, why don't we go there and learn from their experiences?

the problem for us to find a connection was first that we were not courageous enough.

meeting moves to the sunny outside

rostock returns

the roma. the people who we met from the roma, were really individualistic. they were more like thinking about clan structure of organising themselves. strictly family based society. for such a community they appeared to be individualistic, because they saw the place as something like a charity thing. this is a social institution and they can take whatever they want. if their attitude is questioned, they are really surprised. this even came to a conflict.

are you talking about roma people going in his social center? it was interesting when there's a squatting culture, why it's so difficult to learn from them. or share knowledge.

most of them are really suspicious. some think we are like police agents ro something. basically, in hungary the genreal attitude is suspicious, keep distance, don't talk to anyone you haven't known for years

same like the radical scene, no?

does not agree, i network in roma, .. (offtopic: miscommunication about the city of rome and stuff)

maybe start picking an objective?

if we list our objectives and questions that can create continuation for the whole thing.

just let it flow and we will see what interests us.

i agree with the restricition of taking notes what are the questions left unanswered, this can lead forward to a more structured discussion tomorrow

talk about the resistance about the squats, about how to resist eviction, we are gonna explain you we were talking about that before. although that in every country was a different situation, there was something in common. how important is the space compared to the project? depends on the neighbourhood and the support around. other people made some caravan, they were moving around with the project, the space was not so important don't put in the project just to defend the property.

would be interested in questions you have

it's abstract, i'll talk to different people individually, would suggest to split in small groups

we are already small group, lost track of what happened in all the splitup groups sofar in the conference.

can you explain more about the project in your home town?

there are more people with difficulties squatting in their home town

in my country there is no social/autonomous space. wnats to start one in home town, all of us have different ideas on it. issues with homeless people and children. some other people want to do more with art. all this is about to have political and educational context. there is asocial spave to meet and do stuff together. at the same time try to be social and cultural space. this is what i imagine from the space that i want to start. we can't just squat, cuz' we owuld get evited immediatly. so how do we start it off? buying is hard, the problem is how to keep the place, atleast for a couple of years?

are you alone hwo wants to do this?

ther are now few of us, five people who talked about it and shared ideas, more peopl will join.

we had this discussion before it's interesting we talk about AS, we talk about squats, it's not the same. in the DDR all the punks and anarch's met in the church, because it was the only AS. maybe we should look at other possibilities to start and grow out.

the goal seems to be much more,., offcourse we want to stay as autonomous as possible, but we can ??

in munich squatting is not possible, we tried onec, but it only lasted a couple of hours. so we squat somehting temporarily for something we want do. we have to be very mobile, i know this problem that the movement cannot grow if you don't have a proper room. if new people come to the town, they dont know where to go

for us, if we have a permanent group, we can still manage rto be mobile, but we need a stable place, because we want to address social problems.

in rusia groups met everyday under lenin (in public), weekly demos become social places to meet friends. maybe we can collect these acitivities to create TAZ's

what will they do in the winter?

for me it's also to discover other AS's then in the radical left scene. there are squats we don't know. there was a big trailerplace we all didn't know, i didn't know because they were homeless people. maybe to look outside. we didn't think it was possible to have such a place.

it's the very beginning of squats in lithuania. what we want to do is something we havne;t done before

to have a doubt when you say before that you don't wanna do only politcal things

social also, also from differnet contexts

why do you say that? what's the difference?

there is one infoshop, but it's more just a small friends only place, now it's being closed. it's very hard to do anything. police stopped food not bombs because of no license. another question. can we stay as autonomous and inofficial as we want?

what was the public opininoon on these problems with legal harassing?

they gave the fine, police was crazy, the opinion is hard to say.

if you don't think it wasn't good to repeat the action, do that again and if that kind of reaction comes again, announce it to the press. or do it and have journo's with you

the problem is the neighbours who called the police. ended up that whatever happens, you habve to close at ten.

in our situation, support from the neighbourhood is most important

i want to work on good relationship

for who do you try to open a space? the space we open is for all the neighourhood. we want to be able to the people who want to come. for which people do you want to open?

homeless and youth from different context, from poor families, young peopl that have nothing to do

and you have problems with the neighours?

our place basically it was just events at concerns and some neighbours called the economical police.

it was really interesting, in utrecht on one is really with the police when ythe y arrest persons. what is so difference in hte culture about the public space?

it's really complicated that this society is very conservative. they see people who look very strange. dirty punks, they think they are drug addicts. everybody doens't take us as normal people. for the future we want to make the relation with the neighbours very well

is there a tradition of resistance in lithuania? in ddr there was a camp around some catholic vilalges that ??

maybe i look so negative. the people are so .. that's why i wnat to do this, there is no tradition of resistance. offcourse everyone hates the police. but in a case of resistance, most people go away. it's really the beginning.

did i get it right you were organissing gigs in a living area?

the few people that were living around always called the police

when the people want to squat, when they open a squat, they give letters to the neighbourhood, have better communication.

in lithuania, we now realised neighbourhood is really important, this is a breakthrough

the first time the neighbours called the police, in which area was it? was it a living area? rich or the people you try to reach with your project?

in the previous place they were trying to talk to the neighbours, but they were just assholes, nothing really worked.

same question again

simple regular people.

maybe you have more support in something like a barrio

we're a little bit away of what you were saying. are you trying to ask the council for a space?

not straightly, now i'm thinking to go and ask for the local counbsil about it, but i'm not sure we van really trust that, cuz' there is a similar place, they had an agreement they could have the place for many years, but if it's bought up, they loose it. if the counsil gives us the place,

this discussion is strange. more exchange.

i have the same situation, because we have the last days always discussion about the cities and movements where there are already squats, i think it's interesting. we asked the counsil several times. we make manifestation against them. they don't support at all.

in any of the possibilities you cannot have a place for sure for a long time. if you squat or rent, at any moment you can be kicked out. there is no security for any way that you can have a place.

for the point of our discussions in the last days.

i first wanted to point out, i think it could be a chance if you have a space and get kicked out, because people see that you are doing something and maybe the group becomes bigger and more powerful

i think when there's such a repressive situation, if you get kicked out and make it public, you get more attention. but we did this and it was quite a good big campaign, but i don't have the experience that it worked out with the poeple again because they were frustrated and this proposal to be more mobile is okay, but it's shit to do longer, because it's draining energy. for me it's the question in the international movement, if we should all move out of the repressive situations? i feel left alone a lot of times.

<NOTE - minutes are done on pen and paper and will be more summarized from here on>

- there's not many people who prioritise squatting

- when squatting is impossible, do it again and again, but that means striking all other political activities

- you can not change anything in a secure way, be prepared to take risks

- belonging to movements: when there is no movement around you, this gives a bad feeling. international solidarity is important for the places where squatting seems to be impossible. one idea is fundraising.

- buying can be an option for creating a stable place. however, the notion of fundraising as means of international solidarity was more meant for legal support, supporting prisoners, etc.

- situation in germany: people are related more to other movements

- establish mutual aid, but avoid situations of 'the rich' helping 'the poor'

- diverent experiences in different cities ask for exhange, therefore it is important to visit other cities.

STAMP: AutonomousSpacesMinutesFriday (dernière édition le 2008-12-19 18:59:56 par anonyme)