We are everywhere...
For centuries, people have used squatting to take control of their own lives. It is a tool, a tactic, a practice, and a way for people to live out their struggles. For decades, squat movements across Europe and beyond have fought capitalist development, contributing to local struggles against destruction; providing alternatives to profit-making and consumer culture; running social centres and participatory activities outside of the mainstream economy. Demonstrating the possibilities for self-organising without hierarchy; creating international exchange and solidarity networks. These networks have changed many lives, breaking away from social control and providing free spaces where people can live outside the norm.
Today, 19 May, we are demonstrating in defence of free spaces and for an anti-capitalist popular culture, and we recognise that this struggle goes far beyond Catalonia.
All over Europe, repressive agendas are being pushed by governments. They are attacking long-standing autonomous spaces such as the Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen, Koepi and Rigaer Straße in Berlin, EKH in Vienna and Les Tanneries in Dijon, squatted social centres in London and Amsterdam, student movements in Athens and Thessaloniki, etc. All over Europe, independent cultures are being threatened.
Several months ago we saw running battles in the streets of Copenhagen in an explosion of anger at the eviction of the Ungdomshuset social centre.
Last week thousands of people took to the streets in cities across Germany in protest at attacks on houses and projects linked to the protests against the G8 summit this summer, shouting
Today in Dijon, France, people are demonstrating to save the CSA Les Tanneries, through streets that recently burned with anger at the election of the right-wing president Sarkozy.
We are motivated by the same passions, we feel the same determination, face a common enemy in repression, and are united across borders by our desire to build a world of equality and self-determination.
Unaligned and ungovernable, islands of uncontrolled freedom we will continue to act in solidarity, strengthen our international links, no matter how many kilometres there are between us.