Come to the Squatting Days 2014 in Hamburg!
From August the 27th until the 31st we will make squatting a topic again. Let’s share our experiences together, discuss, roam the streets and start some action.
The reasons for squatting are numerous and various: to protest against unaffordable and increasing rent, to prevent a building from being torn down, out of the need for new self-organised and non-commercial spaces; for living, as art studios, workshops, cultural centres and many many more.
The houses around us are empty.
Many people sleep on the street, in parks, under bridges, in their friends‘ livingrooms, in gyms, in refugee accommodation or emergency shelters, and in highly overpriced community rooms. Living prices are rising, urban districts are facing gentrification, alternative places are in danger or – inspite of resistance – unfortunately lost. There are enough reasons to move into abandoned houses or just not leave our flats.
To fill vacant properties with life again, to acquire and use the rooms, offers the possibility of living life in a (more) self-organised way. Squatted houses can be places for utopia, can be places for self-created living, just as they can be workplaces for groups and initiatives, for a cooperative attempt to try and deal with new problems and solutions….
Activists tend to understand squatting as an attack on the political situation, as a symbol against capitalist housing policy and to connect the fight for housing with the fight for a better life. How can we increase the success of squatting? What are the problems holding us back from just taking houses? And how do we get to a praxis which leads our ideas to reality?
When we find common interest and learn from our experiences, we can avoid many mistakes, and support and inspire one another. Together we can face our fears and stand together against criminalisation and repression.
Start moving!
In all the differences and contradictions in our methods of fighting, living and discussing, the Squatting Days will be a chance to benefit from all of this. There is a lot to learn, to discuss, to question… and a lot to experience.
While browsing through conference reports of the past decades, while reading books or watching films, in conversations with activists from different contexts, the whole range of the squatting movement is present. We are looking forward to investigating squatting theoretically and practically with everyone interested. Abusive attitudes and behavior such as racism, sexism, homophobia or anti-semitism, in our understanding, stand clearly contrary to the constructive dialogue about social relations and will not be accepted here. We want to process strategies and concepts, in solidarity with one another, and put them into practice. Let’s get connected and start movements together.
Saturday, the 30th of August 2014, will be the action day both in Hamburg and everywhere else where you wish to take action.
Let’s go!
Hereby we encourage you to start the debate now. We are excited to recieve texts, reports, questions, ideas, contributions to discussions by you, your groups and projects. Put them to paper, record videos or radio shows, send them to us via squattingdays@riseup.net (see website for encryption-key) and/or publish them on indymedia or through other channels. Use the time of the Squatting Days in Hamburg to present your own input, to offer workshops and to disseminate knowledge.
No matter if you live or have lived in a squat, if you are experienced with occupying houses or not, if you like partying in abandoned buildings, if you are threatened by eviction or are campaigning for the right of living and housing, if you are searching for a flat right now or have just started being interested in vacancies and the possibilities of alternative use,
Come to Hamburg!
Squatting Days
27.-31.8.2014
squattingdays.noblogs.org