Suite au décès récent du militant et historien Nigérien Sam Mbah, on traduit et diffuse l’extrait d’une entrevue avec Sam, enregistrée en Mars 2012 à Enugu, Nigéria. Vous pouvez aussi écouter l’audio de l’entrevue ici.
Intervieweur: Ces dernières années on a définitivement vu une multiplication de régimes autoritaires dans plusieurs parts du monde, et de mesures d’austérité, à la veille des attaques terroristes du 11 septembre aux États Unis et la crise financière mondiale, plus récemment. Comment vois-tu ces enjeux, et comment ont-ils affecté l’Afrique et la lutte ici?
Sam: Quand j’ai écrit l’Anarchisme Africain avec mon ami, nous l’avons écrit sur la toile de fond de trois décennies de régime militaire, presque quatre décennies, au Nigeria. Le règne militaire était une forme qui croyait en une sur-centralisation des pouvoirs, et la dictature, telle qu’elle était, et une varitété qui a évolué du capitalisme. Or alors la société Nigérienne et la majeure partie de l’Afrique était sous l’emprise d’un régime autoritaire militaire, aujourd’hui nous avons nominalement une administration civile, une démocratie civile nominale.
Stratfor, a private intelligence organization hacked by Anonymous in December, has been investigating the Occupy Movement and Deep Green Resistance (DGR). The emails released contain information gathered both through Stratfor’s internal investigation and through a contact with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Internet group Anonymous has leaked information from October and November 2011 suggesting that private intelligence firm STRATFOR has been working with Texas law enforcement to infiltrate the Occupy movement and spy on the Deep Green Resistance movement.
In December 2011, Anonymous attacked the STRATFOR website, allegedly stealing 200 gigabytes of data and shutting the site down for weeks. This isn’t the first time Anonymous has gone after such corporations. In early 2011, Anonymous went after internet security firm HBGary, releasing private documents that included secret plans by HBGary and others to attack and discredit Wikileaks on behalf of big banks.
The information released by Anonymous is a partial “teaser” of the information taken from STRATFOR. It consists of emails in which STRATFOR employees discuss Occupy Austin and Deep Green Resistance. STRATFOR “Watch Officer” Marc Lanthemann writes about receiving information on Occupy Austin and DGR from a “Texas DPS agent.” The Texas Department of Public Safety is a statewide law enforcement agency that includes the Texas Rangers, Highway Patrol, and an Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division.
“Law enforcement sharing information about local activism with private intelligence firms should be a huge scandal,” writes Rachel Meeropol, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Privately funded surveillance and infiltration of activist groups is especially chilling, as time and again we see such corporations operate as if they are above the law and accountable to no one.”
In the emails, the staff discuss how a STRATFOR agent went undercover and tried to gather information from an Occupy Austin General assembly. They discuss DGR Austin holding a public meeting on what radicalism means for Austin (wrongly describing the purpose as “indoctrination”), they write about the book Deep Green Resistance, and they speculate about the relationship between DGR Austin and other groups.
If there is a silver lining here, it is that the emails we have do not paint a picture of a very competent organization. Between hasty generalizations, the STRATFOR staff get a number of important facts completely wrong. First of all, they confuse members of the DGR action group in Austin (which does exist) with another group they call the “Phoenix commune” (which may or may not exist).
They also allege a conflict between members of the DGR Austin group with Occupy Austin that doesn’t seem to have happened. It’s not clear if this is part of the strategy counterintelligence groups have used in the past to try to provoke conflict between different social movements—the FBI used this very effectively against groups like the Black Panther Party—or whether STRATFOR is simply relying on unreliable or incompetent sources.
Elsewhere STRATFOR displays a perception of radical environmentalism that falls somewhere between muddled and simply wrong. One agent suggests DGR is inspired by Nazism and philosopher Martin Heidegger, while another declares that DGR “is focused on creating a situation where violent confrontation will be the ultimate outcome.” Both of these assertions are just plain false.
There is a long history of clandestine groups releasing secret information about the surveillance of social movements. In 1971, and underground group called the Citizen’s Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI field office and released thousands of pages of secret information, revealing that the FBI had attacked 1960s social movements with methods ranging from surveillance and infiltration to targeted assassinations. Though we have no contact with Anonymous, their leak of information about government and corporate tactics of repression is part of an important tradition.
Ce mardi 24 Octobre, la deuxième semaine d’Occupy Oakland eut passé, et le charisme de la marche de Samedi dernier s’estompa alors qu’un raid policier était imminent. Au-delà de la spéculation répandue que la ville et la police planifiaient la destruction de la Place Oscar Grant, il y avait quelques indices laissant croire que ce lundi serait leur moment choisi. Il y a que la ville avait issu des lettres à des commerces sélects autour de la place sous-entendant de l’activité policière au cours de la journée à venir. En plus, la ville semble avoir forcé les pompiers à saisir les réservoirs à propane (nous empêchant donc de cuisiner sur place).
Avant les balles de plastique et les grenades chimiques, la centaine d’arrestations et les nuages de foule enragée paralysant le centre-vile d’Oakland, on se barricadait dans la joie et l’impatience. Ce fut la nuit des vidanges. Les rues déjà désolées entourant la Place Oscar Grant furent rapidement nettoyées de quelconque débris pouvant agir pour repousser la police. Près d’une centaine de barricades,sous verrou près de l’Hôtel de Ville, furent libérées et placées stratégiquement autour du camp. Des infos arrivèrent lentement : plusieurs unités de police, de plusieurs agences jusqu’à Vacaville, se mobilisaient en direction de la Place en moto ou par le BART (métro). Des querelles éclatèrent à l’occupation – certaines appelant à une stratégie unifiée de déjense alors que d’autres continuèrent de barricader, faire des graffitis et faire des projectiles avec le pavé. Éventuellement, autour de 4h du matin, les sirènes entendues au loin se révélèrent celles de plusieurs dizaines d’unités de police en formation, donnant des ordres de dispersion avant d’attaquer notre camp.
Il y avait de l’espoir mais peu de certitudes que les gens de la place et leurs barricaes purent repousser la police, ou seulement défendre le camp. Quand les phares des hélicos de police balayèrent la place, les gens déjà nerveux furent pris de panique. Il ne fallut qu’un momemt pour réaliser que rester sur la place était désespéré. Ceux qui prirent position pour rester cloués à terre furent la cible de projectiles, matraques et arrestations. Ce fut une scène de panique, d’oppression et de défaite. Pour l’instant, la lutte pour la place était perdue et la plupart des occupants se dispersèrent.
Loin des barrages de police, plusieurs cherchèrent à se rassembler, d’autres arrivèrent en répondant aux SMS d’urgence et appels téléphoniques – ils se retrouvèrent tous-tes coin 14ième et Franklin, à une rue à l’est de la place. Pour la police c’était clair que cette foule grandissante ne serait pas réduite à l’état de spectateurs impuissants. Laissant le trottoir pour prendre la rue dans le trafic matinal, la foule remplit l’intersection de slogans haineux à l’égard de la police. L’impatience et la soif de vengeance étaient ahurissantes. Ç’eut grandit à presque 200 personnes lorsque qu’une unité de police à moto intervint pour intimider et disperser la foule. Changeant leurs habits et retournant des bacs de vidange, le group fit cap dans la direction opposée. Cris d’excitation, insultes et un orchestre de vacarme et de chocs envahirent les rues. La police s’était préparé à une attaque sur la place, mais pas à ses conséquences. De 5 à 6 heures du matin les rue à l’est de la place résonnèrent avec familiarité pour certains et comme une émotions inattendue pour d’autres.
Une décision offensive pas la ville et ses alliés a donné l’opportunité à ceux exposés à son autorité de plus en plus insensée. Mardi matin, la ville se mit à activement décourager les gens à travailler dans le centre-ville. Malgré cette recommandation officielle, on pouvait entrevoir les gardes de sécurité, voirie et autre employés de service se déclarer absents au travail de leur propre initiative. Quelqu’un initia une campagne pour destituer la maire Jean Quan. Des Tweets et SMS explosèrent avec l’annonce de se rassembler à la Bibliothèque d’Oakland à 16h. Le Conseil des travailleurs du Comté d’Alameda dénoncèrent comme d’autres syndicats les actions de la police et de la ville.
Ce qui suivrait serait soit un spectacle ou une véritable rébellion. Oakland, une fois de plus, s’ouvrit aux libertés trouvées dans le champ des possibles…
Bibliothèque. Émeute. La suite
Mardi, de 16h à minuit
12 heures plus tard, le plan de contingentement approuvé par l’assemblée générale en cas d’un raid est mis en place. À 16h, près de 1000 personnes s’assemblent à la bibliothèque centrale d’Oakland pour entendre des discours inspirants et des condamnations envers la police. Nul ne pouvait ignorer le sentiment général d’animosité envers ceux responsables de l’expulsion de la veille. Quelque chose de spectaculaire était pour arriver ce soir.
Après les élocutions, les gens ont marché à la prison du centre-ville en support aux arrêtés-es la nuit précédente. Le long de la route, la marche a croisé deux lignes de police séprées, mais à le troisième, alors que la marche était rendue à une rue de la prison, la police a tenté de la repousser. Les policiers ont saisi deux personnes du devant de la marche et les a jetées au sol. Voyant la scène, la foule a immédiatement entouré les flics, hurlant contre eux, essayant de saisir leurs camarades et de les libérer. Les manifestants ont poussé et ont projeté de la peinture. Pendant que la tension continuait à monter, la police a vu qu’elle livrait une bataille perdue d’avance, or ils ont amené les renforts avec du gaz irritant et des flashbangs pour disperser la foule. Au milieu du chaos, ceux arrêtés ont été menottés par les porcs et chargés dans un fourgon. Un des arrêtés a été abusé, et en en prison fut appelé par des insultes racistes et physiquement harcelé. Et après cela, comment est-ce possible de ne pas détester la police ?
À travers toutes les arrestations des résistants Occupy Oakland, nous démontrons la solidarité avec les otages de l’État dans une multitude de manières, émotionellement et physiquement. La marche a regroupé et a procédé en longeant la prison en faisant le bruit pour rendre ceux à l’intérieur -chacun d’entre eux- conscients du fait que la marche était pour eux, dans la pleine solidarité. Un camarade arrêté la nuit précédente a dit, une fois libéré de prison, que c’était une des choses les plus belles et les plus puissantes qu’il ait jamais vu. D’entendre et de voir 1000 personnes faire du bruit en dehors, montrant leur solidarité avec ceux sur l’intérieur. Solidarity means « attack »!
La marche est revenue à la Place Oscar Grant, où le groupe a tenté de reprendre la place. Après 20 minutes de confrontration avec la police, coin 14ième et Broadway, des coups de gaz irritants et des flashbangs ont été employés de nouveau (on a compté environ sept cas de recours à ces moyens par la police afin d’essayer de disperser la foule. La foule n’a pas pour autant détérioré , ni cette fois ni à tout autre moment).
C’était seulement le début…
Ce premier gazage majeur fut également l’incident où un vétéran a été frappé à la tête avec un capsule métallique de gaz irritant et l’a soit assommé ou mis en état de choc nerveux; il reposait au sol face à la police avec ses yeux grand ouverts, figé et ne répondant pas à quoique ce soit. Les gens ont immédiatement couru à lui pour le mettre à l’écart, alors que la police a jeté un autre flashbang directement sur lui et ceux qui sont allé à son aide (et où était la très sainte Croix Rouge?). Ça vaut la peine de le répéter : la police a jeté une grenade flash directement sur quelqu’un qui reposait immobile au sol, dispersant la foule qui essayait de le prendre hors de danger. Le manifestant blessé a été par la suite emmené à l’hôpital avec une fracture du crâne et est actuellement un état critique, sur le point de subir une chirurgie. Beaucoup d’autres ont été blessés. Pas tous ont rapporté leurs blessures pour des raisons évidentes.
À ce point, la marche avait doublé à plus de 2000 personnes. Le groupe a marché sur Snow Park pour s’y regrouper, mais peu de temps passa avant que la foule retourne sur la place Oscar Grant. Dans ce qui devint une norme de la nuit, la marche a confronté la zone maintenant militarisée faisant face à une pluie de flashbangs et de gaz CS faisant tomber des gens et causant des vomissements. Mais ç’a pas arrêté personne; ça a au contraire seulement galvanisé la foule encore plus et a incité beaucoup à lsortir de chez eux pour se diriger le centre ville et joindre la résistance.
La marche commença à 17h et dura jusqu’à tard dans la nuit avec plus de 6 heures de marches en serpent des confrontations presque constantes avec la police partout dans le centre ville.
Vers la fin de la nuit, les gens ont commencé à craindre d’être coincés par la police, alors certainsse sont chargé d’installer des barricades autour des intersections environnantes. Cela donnerait le temps aux personnes de réair avant d’être pris, la latitude suffisante pour soit contre-attaquer ou battre en retraite. Les barricades comprenaient les propres barricades de la ville qui avaient été installées dans tout le secteur, les bacs à déchets (certains de ces derniers ont été enflammés pour contrer les effets prolongés des gaz CS présents dans tout le centre ville et pour causer plus de problème pour la police si elles osaient intimider ou assaillir la foule).
Alors que la nuit continuait, le groupe s’est lentement dispercé de lui-même, confiant que ce combat n’était pas près d’être terminé.
Reprise de la Place Oscar Grant
Mercredi, de 18h à minuit
La nuit précédente, il était évident pour tous que les gens allaient reprendre la Place Oscar Grant. À cette heure, la police était nulle part autour de la place. La seule chose restant de l’expulsion, une barrière en métal érigée autour du lieu de l’occupation. Mais ça ne dura qu’un bref moment. Avant que l’Assemblée générale ait même démarré, les gens ont spontanément commencé à démolir la barrière. Au début, une certaine « police de la paix », tentant de les forcer à arrêter en vomissant quelque chose au sujet de la non-violence; ce qui fut naturellement vain alors que la clôture était promptement démolie.
L’assemblée générale qui se déroula au cours de cette nuit fut la plus grande à ce jour pour #OccupyOakland, avec plus de 2000 participants-es. Vu la largeur de l’AG, tout a pris plus de temps, mais il y a eu une proposition qui a eu la valeur de toutes les autres. Après des annonces que plusieurs occupations à travers les États-Unis participaient à des marches de solidarité, et que les gens au Caire étaient pour marcher sur la placeTahrir ce vendredi en disant que « le Caire et Oakland sont comme les doigts d’une main » la proposition de déclarer une grève ce Mercredi 2 novembre a été passée avec une majorité écrasante (97%).
À la suite de l’AG, des gens ont annoncé que OccupySF était à son tour menacé d’expulsion. Un appel a été fait pour que des personnes se rendent à San Francisco et concrétisent leur solidarité. Mais ça ne put se produire, car avant que les gens se rendent seulement au BART, la station fut fermée. Frustrés, le petit groupe de support a pris les rues d’Oakland, où le reste de l’AG, encore dans les environs, s’est joint. La marche a immédiatement pris la direction de la prison pour montrer de la solidarité avec ceux encore à l’intérieur. Tout le monde pouvait apercevoir les mains des incarcérés et les lumières clignotantes de leurs cellules, signalant qu’ils recevaient notre message.
Durant les heures qui suivirent, le groupe marcha parmi le centre-ville d’Oakland avec aucune interférence policière. Il y avait des rumeurs que la police se positionnait pas loin, mais ils ne se sont jamais fait plus visibles que par quelques voitures à l’avant ou l’arrière. Probable qu’à lumière de la nuit dernière, ils ont réalisé comment ils ont raté leur coup. Cette nuit-ci, c’est nous qui avons pris le contrôle de la rue. Ça c’est finalement terminé à la Place Oscar Grant, avec plein de gens célébrant et s’assoyant en plein milieu du coin de la 14ième et Broadway (la principale intersection du centre-ville), avec aucune tentative de dispersion de la part des flics.
À seulement une semaine de la grève générale sur laquelle nous nous sommes entendus, il y a beaucoup de travail à faire et beaucoup de contacts à établir ou renforcir. Des gens ont commencé à rebâtir le camp sur la place occupée, alors que d’autres profitent du moment pour se reposer, et se regrouper pour ce qui reste à venir…
On Tuesday July 19th, hundreds of people took to the streets of San Francisco in order to demonstrate their rage against the recent murders of Charles Hill and Kenneth Harding in the city by BART police and SFPD respectively. We marched behind a banner reading “they can’t shoot us all; fuck the police” as an expression of our intention that police murder will be met with resistance and retaliation every time they rear their ugly heads in our city.
Notes Concerning Recent Actions against the Police
The march began at Dolores Park where nearly 200 of us departed and began moving towards the Castro. The route followed MUNI rail lines, obstructing the functioning of the rail system as it proceeded. Upon reaching the Castro MUNI station, all hell broke loose. While approaching the intersection (home to the underground MUNI station as well as the crossing of several MUNI rail lines) a significant portion of the march had donned masks and hoods. What had now become a mob moved effortlessly past the bewildered cops and descended into the station. Down below on the mezzanine level, trash was set alight and thrown down onto the tracks below, followed by advertisements and signs. The ticket machines, the fare checkpoints and the agent booth were all smashed with hammers and flags – totally ruined. Smokebombs and fireworks were thrown throughout the station, adding to the chaos as the group resurfaced. The march then moved back through the Castro, hurling bricks over the heads of riot police and through the windows of Bank of America before heading into the Mission.
Those at the front of the march, made the spontaneous decision to continue onwards to the Mission police station on Valencia street. As the march approached, the pigs moved into formation to protect their sty. This didn’t stop us from throwing flares, a paint bomb, and a hammer at the façade of the building and at its defenders. The crowd, now swelled to almost 300, stayed in front of the police station for a while, screaming in the faces of the scum that patrols our streets and kills and imprisons the people we love. After making it abundantly clear that we wanted them the fuck out of our neighborhood, we continued through the Mission . At this point, the march dwindled slightly but continued down Mission St. Things escalated again when CBS news began harassing the crowd. People grabbed the big ass camera and smashed it on the ground. Police moved to make an arrest, but were repelled by the stick-wielding crowd.
After leaving the Mission, the crowd took Market St. and began moving through downtown toward Civic Center Station (the site of Charles Hill’s murder) and then onto Powell Station. At this point the number swelled again to more than they had been at any point, as countless onlookers joined the anti-cop demonstration. The crowd was big enough to block both sides of Market (a rare occurrence). The police began issuing dispersal orders from their sound truck tailing the march. Not giving a fuck, however, hundreds of us drowned out their orders screaming “SHUT THE FUCK UP” over and over. As the march turned up Powell (where we had intended to disperse) riot cops were able to surround and kettle about 30 people. As they filled in to enforce their kettle, hundreds of people pushed against them, hurling projectiles and screaming at them to let them go (and die). Skirmishes broke out as a handful of friends were unarrested and several more attempts were made to free those trapped inside police lines.
When it became clear that it would be impossible to free the 30 or so friends caught by the police, the strategy shifted to outright fighting. As the police began moving the vans containing the arrested, our crews and others did everything we could to stop them. The vans were chased and blockades attempted. The police and their vehicles were pelted with rocks, bottles, D-batteries and whatever else could be thrown against them. All-out brawls broke out leading to police injuries and a handful of arrests. Several police motorcycles were knocked over and stomped on. The night ended with a tense standoff against police. At this point, hundreds of people from the surrounding area had flooded the scene, screaming at the police or just looking on in awe. More shit got thrown at them and eventually people left, as we had word that several of the arrested were already being released.
It is the humble opinion of these participants that this last round of events was marked by some of the most wild physical fights with police at a demo in a long time. By the end of the night, all but one of the arrested had been released with misdemeanors (for disobeying orders and/or battery). One person remains in jail, being charged with Felony Assault with a Deadly Weapon and Felony Vandalism. (Updates soon)
RESISTANCE IS SPREADING:
Yesterday’s attacks come in the context of a growing campaign of diffuse attacks against the MUNI system in retaliation for the murder of Kenneth Harding. On Saturday, within moments of his murder, people on scene began attacking the police with bottles and trying to disrupt the T-train. In the subsequent days various crews of people in and around Bayview have spontaneously and diffusely taken up a campaign against the MUNI system: blocking tracks, breaking the windows on trains and busses, attacking agents, fighting with the police. Most of this resistance, of course, has gone unreported by the scum media. At a press-conference held in Bayview on Monday, many family-members of police victims and other angry people gathered to denounce the most recent murders, share stories about how much they fucking hate the pigs, and articulate a strategy of resistance.
The message at the conference and in people’s actions is clear: “We want pigs off the MUNI system and we want the system to be free, or there will not be a system at all.” People vowed to continue their attacks and blockades against the trains and buses operated by MUNI until they are fare-free and cop-free. As austerity takes its toll on poor people in the Bay Area, it is becoming increasingly clear that the only solution is attack, and that these attacks are the clearest way to demonstrate our solidarity.
It is in following the lead of those struggling for freedom in Bayview that we decided to trash the MUNI station in the Castro. This is only one contribution in what is mounting up to be a wave of chaos against a system that values a 2$ fare over our lives.
SYSTEMIC DISRUPTION AND SABOTAGE:
Last week, over 100 of us disrupted the BART system by blockading trains and vandalizing stations. This activity resulted in 3 hours of solid obstruction and delays through the BART system caused by several station closures. This was called for in response to the killing of Charles Hill on the Civic Center platform by BART police. Once again, we disrupted the transit system in an act of vengeance against the slaughter at the hands of the armed enforcers of fares. Last night, in addition to putting the Castro MUNI station out of commission, we blocked tracks, buses, and trains. Police went on to close at least three BART stations for fear of the destruction at the Castro station being brought on other stations throughout the system. Through our actions and the response of the police, we brought the transit system in the heart of the financial capitol of the West Coast to a grinding halt for the second time in as many weeks.
It should be noted that obstructing these systems and destroying their apparatuses takes very little effort. System disruption is a valuable tool, and should be considered for use as a response every time the pigs murder someone in our towns. The economic damage and the disruption to networks of control caused by these actions is deeper and wider than a brick through a window (however lovely the act may be).
WE DON’T CARE ABOUT THE PIG LIES:
Fearing full on rebellion, SFPD and their servants in the media have gone into full spin mode. Each day they make new justifications for their killings. They say Charles Hill had a knife. They say Kenneth Harding shot at them. They talk about Harding’s previous convictions and allude to his connection to the murder of a pregnant woman in Washington State. In each of these cases, it is important for the enemies of the police to not be tricked by these diversions.
The issue has never been the character of Kenneth Harding or what type of weapons the victims of police violence may or may not have been carrying. The issue is that the armed enforcers of Capital and the State have enforced a death sentence on the poor in this city; made themselves the judge, jury and executioner of anyone who cannot afford a fare, is homeless, or breaks their meaningless laws in order to survive. We don’t care if Kenneth Harding had a gun. In fact, we wish he had shot the men who went on to shoot him ten times in the back and throat. Any justification for his murder misses the point that the situation should never have happened in the first place. We shouldn’t have to pay for their trains and the cops shouldn’t exist to enforce fares (or anything at all). To blame Kenneth Harding or Charles Hill or any victim of police violence for the atrocities enacted upon them by the police is to side with the State, always. Kenneth Harding is dead for one reason: because officers shot him ten times in the back and throat and watched as he bled to death on the street.
It is also worth noting that the mythology of black male violence against women is consistently used by the police and other armed white people as a pretense for racist murder, whether at the hands of a lynch mob or by the bullets of a cop’s gun. To counter this narrative, and the entirely false idea that police exist to protect women, a feminist contingent within the march prepared a statement and distributed it, denouncing the police.
IN CONCLUSION:
When the police kill in our cities, we need to respond immediately and to continue and escalate that resistance. This has been the case so far in the response to the recent murders in San Francisco. People throughout the city – victims, family members, angry kids, anarchists, communists, hooligans – didn’t wait for the Left or any Non-Profit groups to begin. We acted without hesitation and constraint, in doing so setting the narrative of the struggle against the police. It is important that we not fall into the traps set out by the State. The struggle cannot be limited to one neighborhood or one “Legitimate” series of concerns or any one part of the population. We need to fight against SFPD throughout the city, against BART Police throughout the Bay, and against policing on a global scale. This weeks events have already demonstrated that angry people are willing to act against the police and the system they enforce in their neighborhoods, and to join the struggles of others and act in solidarity through attack. The struggle that began with the Oscar Grant rebellion is just beginning to emerge from hibernation. People here are just beginning – collectively and diffusely – to resist police terror in our streets. This is just a taste.
Taken from « LIEBIG 14 EVICTED – Some notes on the eviction of a former squatted house from Berlin », also in 325, issue #9
his article comes from the Italian anarchist monthly “Invece” (“Instead of”) of March 2011. Some months after the eviction of the Liebig 14, the house is still empty and the attempts done by the landlord to restructure it have been combated by several acts of sabotage, keeping the house still a wreck.
“When everyday monotony gets shaken…” – that was the title of one of the leaflets which was distributed in Berlin right after the eviction of a former squatted house in the German capital, the Liebig 14, sited in the eastern district of Friedrichshain. And honestly speaking, one cannot really contradict the anonymous authors, since the first week of February offered some images and situations to Berlin’s inhabitants to reflect about. Thanks to their radicalism, they succeeded in breaking for some moments in time, the daily grind of a life based on the pursuit of profit and the respect for the rules dictated by a Capitalism system which renders us more and more indifferent to what happens around us. After all, we are constantly told that what remains important is to not get involved and to defend the pettiness of our miserable daily life. But let’s proceed with order.
Since a few years ago Berlin’s housing situation changed quite a lot. The city began to attract speculators of a different nature because of the low building costs – causing the creation of different temples of Capital : posh houses for those who can afford them, which is not the majority of the population of a city which sees an unemployment rate of 14%. At the same time, the rents – which have been historically low – began to rise together with the growing international prestige of the city, making it almost impossible to find a flat in the inner city, since it became trendy nowadays, inviting a younger, flexible ‘yuppie’ demographic which has fanciful artistic ambitions and is dedicated to the futile inhabitance of some neighborhoods which in the past have been characterised by a mix of second and third generation immigrants, comrades and proletarians. Such a mix gave rise also to some interesting conflicts during the past years. After all, the housing struggle has here a long tradition which knew its last big flame after the fall of the Berlin wall, when hundreds of houses have been squatted in the eastern part of the town. Due to a zero-tolerance policy called the “Berlin line” (eviction within 24 hours), the squatting movement has been divided between those who chose legalization and those who refused it – the last squatted house has been evicted back in 1997 (I am not talking here about apartments squatted “silently”, a phenomena which still persists). Any attempt to occupy gets brought down after a few hours from hundreds of robocops, generating frustration in the ones who, during the years, tried to open up new spaces taking them away from the logic of legality and speculation. A militant defence of the spaces became impracticable especially after the historical eviction of the houses in the Mainzerstrasse back in 1990, where hundreds fought 3000 cops with the sound of molotov cocktails for several days. Therefore, if one excludes a successful occupation in 2005 – which took place following another eviction and which was legalised a few years later – it becomes clear how, because of the difficulty of expropriating new space, the defence of the old ones gained a central and symbolical role within the framework of the city’s struggles.
Their defence inscribed themselves within a larger contest of struggle against speculation and urban development – the so-called “gentrification” – creating interconnections among different subjects in struggle and enlarging the view of many, who, as it often happens, did not want to narrow their view, or limit their prospective to the mere conservation of a miserable status-quo – in this case, the defence of a few self-organised structures, with all the limits of which we all know very well. Within recent times there has been a blossoming of self-organised initiatives, by comrades and also by tenants, which tried to become sand inside urban development’s cogs through different forms and moments of protest, which made it unavoidable for all the others to not take a stand on such developments: indeed, all the city is forced to talk about it. And this happened mostly due to the continuous work of anonymous lovers of direct action, who attacked construction sites of luxury apartments, offices of architects and speculators, symbols of Capital, government structures and inflamed the nights with hundreds of burning cars, either expensive ones or those belonging to different companies which exploit the situation. This has been a phenomenon which put the police and the city on their knees during the last couple of years. That is why the eviction of a simple self-organised house became the fuse which massively exploded the dissatisfaction felt by many. It was simply a catalyst, since the disappearing of a house surely did not trouble the dreams of all those who took the streets during those days.
As one can read in the different claims which appeared on the internet, one never forgets to underline how the actions have been undertaken within the larger context of the struggle against State and Capital, “against the theft of our lives, the attack against everything which does not allow us to fully enjoy them”, that is what “some friends of the uncontrolled extension of the fire” will write afterward. On the 10th of January 2011, the Liebig 14 receives an eviction note for the 2nd of February 2011. After years of trials and several procrastinations, it seems as if the landlord (who owns different houses in the neighborhood, like another houseproject, the Rigaer 94, which underwent several evictions during the previous years) managed to get what he wanted. Now the interesting novelty of this eviction has been the choice of not wanting to play on the terrain where the cops are stronger and have no problems – i.e. the one of the classic gathering in front of the house on the eviction’s morning. “To say what the enemy does not expect and to be where he does not wait for us. That is the new poetry” – this has been written a few years ago, and the actuality of such a consideration has been experimented again in Berlin. After all, one cannot really joke with 2500 cops and special forces units called especially for the occasion, as one learned in the past, and the confrontation on such a level can only be lost by us (or at least within the local context here). Therefore one opted for decentralised actions on the full city terrain, following the motto “every eviction will have its price”. And the price of this eviction has been over a million of euros, only for what concerns the property damages created by the enrages, as reported by an informal note of the police chief. A twitter-ticker was set up in order to coordinate the different actions, where one was able to send action reports in real time and to see where it “burns” and help is needed. Also this instrument proved to be quite important for coordinating movements of different nature. On the 29th of January one gets a first taste. A demonstration of over 4000 comrades moves from Kreuzberg towards Friedrichshain. Some scuffles accompany the march, which ends up spontaneously in front of the Liebig 14, where for half an hour the cops are taken by surprise and attacked on two fronts with cobblestones while barricades are erected. An interesting episode is the use of laser devices in order to confuse the police. The police appeared extremely unhappy by this move. On the day of the eviction, the classic prowling helicopter won’t fly over before night comes, exactly because of a possible use of laser against the pilot, say the police on some newspapers. During the days preceding the eviction there are several attacks undertaken against symbols of Capital. Among others, the bailiff’s office was attacked with stones and paint.
But the real showdown will come on the 2nd of February. The tactic of decentralizing works well. From the morning there are dozens of claimed actions. One of the positive things which strikes out is the variety of the targets chosen. One begins from those who make theirs the logic of the blockade and chose to hit the transport infrastructure – through the sabotage of several traffic lights in knotpoints of the city, the classical barricades in flames on high-traffic streets to the nowadays “normal” sabotage of railway lines (a tactical method which is well spread, for example, in order to block the transport of the Neo-Nazis whenever they have their demonstrations or against the nuclear-waste trains) by the arson of cables and signals. Also savage mobs which attack in large numbers banks or luxury apartments during the day, and also attack government building or those of political parties, or to even to destroy the tickets machines of the underground, supermarket outlets and much more, all in different parts of town. This is finished by those who will concentrate in Friedrichshain blocking the traffic and attacking the police and posh cars, giving life to spontaneous demonstrations of several hundred people. Different squatting actions will also contribute to keep the police busy on different fronts. Meanwhile the police will spend several hours before managing to evict Liebig 14, since the barricades are quite strong and some surprises will make the operation quite difficult for them. In the end, they will be forced to destroy some walls to gain access to the different floors. The actions will keep up during all afternoon with a demonstration in the district of Neukölln, attended by 800 people taking the streets of a district which struggles between the conservation of its popular character and the growing urban development.
At night, several thousands people meet up in Friedrichshain to smash the plan of the police: the latter, present in huge numbers, also with water cannons, will try to stop the demonstrators shortly after the march began. But the people are enraged and they take a different path from the official one, creating a shortcircuit among the cops. The police are attacked with stones and bottles, and also with fire extinguishers, some banks are demolished and the police attempt to bring the demonstration to a halt before it takes the streets of Kreuzberg will reveal itself as an own goal: hundreds of people will keep on moving, taking again an unexpected route and attacking some targets which until that very moment were known as “untouchable”, such as the O2-arena, a gigantic commercial concert room built two years ago and a symbol of urban development in the neighborhood, and also a police station is attacked, an important shopping mall and a couple of others. In a different part of the district, groups undertake their direct actions and are not intimidated by columns of dozens of riot vans who do not know where to head to, since chaos reigns all around. So much that meanwhile another group will decide to attack another police station in the district of Treptow and another one attacks a consumer street which is a temple of shopping in the neighborhood of Steglitz, in the south part of Berlin, just to contribute a bit more to the ongoing decentralization.
The actions endure through the following days and nights : even two days after, while a few hundred people gather again in Friedrichshain for a non-authorised rally – some fifty unpredictable individuals will go to one of Berlin’s main shopping streets to destroy some thirty luxury shops within a few minutes, leaving the police with open mouth and without any arrests in their pockets. People remain in movement. At the same time, dozens of German towns respond to the call (but also on an international level): from big cities like Hamburg to small unknown villages, everywhere there will be some people in solidarity who will take to the streets releasing their discontent and attacking police and symbols of Capital, no matter if with 20 or 500 people. In Hamburg, where the historical occupied self-organised building “Rote Flora” is at risk of an eviction again, during three days two spontaneous demonstrations consisting of several hundred take back the streets, succeeding in ravaging the posh city center, which remained “untouched” in almost twenty years and showing how if you want, you can. And this seems to be one of the legacies of these days. Showing how, if one trusts his/her own creativity, refuses to be fixed on dusty traditional plans, and remains in movement, decided and determined, even a well organised army such the thousands of German robocops can be taken by surprise, so that we – and only we – can decide how and where to give life to moments of subversive force. Now all this it is not a novelty, neither on a theoretical nor on a practical level, since it has been shown more than once during the history of uprisings, revolts, insurrections and scuffles undertaken by discontent people everywhere. But sometimes one needs to learn again to remember which ones might be our possibilities. In Germany as elsewhere.
– One of the many
For a full list of actions around the eviction and more check the website directactionde.ucrony.net
"L'écocide (...) culmine tous les problèmes de l'humanité en une seule et même constatation: à force de nous rendre entre nous la vie impossible nous sommes en train de rendre TOUTE vie impossible."
- La Mauvaise Herbe, vol. 7 no.2
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