Action Days for Autonomous Spaces; Berlin — updated with longer report of actions during the week

31.5.2008
Reports below —

***A short report on Action Days for Autonomous Spaces in Berlin

On Tues­day last a squat that had only been open for a few hours was bru­tal­ly evict­ed by the Berlin police. The response from the anar­chist and autonome move­ment has been deves­tat­ing; well over one mil­lion in dam­ages from decen­tralised actions over 4 nights. The actions have includ­ed prop­er­ty destruc­tion, over 50 car burn­ings and sab­o­tage, spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tions, squat­ting and paint­bomb­ing. Many peo­ple have been arrest­ed. Two com­rades are fac­ing charges or arson.

As well as the decen­tralised actions there have been many work­shops, pre­sen­ta­tions, shared meals and social gath­er­ings. A pirate radio sta­tion is pro­vid­ing con­stant report­ing on events around the city.

Vis­it http://wba.blogsport.de/ for more info, for up to date news reports vis­it http://ticker.so36.net/ (both in Ger­man)

***Longer report -
A per­son­al report from last week’s action days for autonomous spaces in Berlin. This report reflects the thoughts and opin­ions of the authors, not of any cam­paign, although these opin­ions may be shared by oth­ers.

Berlin- in Chaos!
Action Days for Autonomous Space
May 27 to June 1

“If we do not wish to find our­selves in a world where no one real­ly lives, where no one real­ly knows any­one else, where every­one has become a mere cog in a machine mesh­ing with oth­er cogs but
remain­ing tru­ly alone, then we must have the strength to attack alien­ation in every way we can.”

“We believe for a space to be tru­ly autonomous it must first be lib­er­at­ed. Lib­er­at­ed in our sense does­n’t just mean tak­ing some­thing out of the hands of cap­i­tal­ists (the mere re-appro­pri­a­tion of a build­ing) but rather tak­ing space and find­ing ways to use it as a weapon against the State and Cap­i­tal.”

Last week, anar­chists set their own dates for a con­fronta­tion with the State and Cap­i­tal. Not pre­pared to be crushed by increas­ing repres­sion against the spaces in which we live, plot and fight
from, the Action Days for Autonomous Spaces put Berlin in chaos.

Fol­low­ing the three-day ‘Inter­space’ meet­ing in Kessel­berg (a pre­vi­ous­ly squat­ted land project out­side Berlin) from May 24–27, many peo­ple head­ed into Berlin to put the­o­ry into prac­tise and to
join forces on the streets with those already prepar­ing for the Action Days. An info-point was set up at the Kopi, rad­i­cal left projects pro­vid­ed voku (peo­ple’s kitchen) for the week as well as
host­ing the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal work­shops.

But, most impor­tant­ly, hun­dreds of peo­ple from Berlin and from else­where went on the offen­sive and insti­gat­ed 6 charged days of diverse and often mil­i­tant action. In a city which has one of the
harsh­est anti-squat­ting poli­cies in Europe — the Berlin Line — where squats can be evict­ed imme­di­ate­ly and bru­tal­ly, peo­ple showed they were undaunt­ed and defi­ant.

The focus of these action days in many ways remains the defence of cer­tain threat­ened phys­i­cal struc­tures. How­ev­er, as the diver­si­ty of actions that took place demon­strates, what was being fought for is not con­fined to or by the walls of such build­ings. By expand­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of what we under­stand by ‘free space’ we are able to broad­en our attack beyond these phys­i­cal spaces to an attack against social con­trol as a cor­ner­stone of cap­i­tal­ist log­ic – from autonomous space to lib­er­at­ed space.

High­lights of the week tak­en from the info-tick­er:

4 cars burnt and cal­trops (bent-nail devices used to punc­ture tyres) left on the sur­round­ing streets to deter cops and the fire brigade from get­ting there in order to put the fires out.

Con­struc­tion crane burnt.

A truck and four more cars burn.

Squat­ting of build­ing on Michael-Kirch Platz.

8 cars burnt as a response to evic­tion of Michael-Kirch Platz and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those arrest­ed.

Anti-Gen­tri­fi­ca­tion Ral­ly at Bethanien.

Parts of Rigaer 84 squat­ted and opened to pub­lic.

Lux­u­ry apart­ment attacked with paint bombs and stones.

Bike Tour of Media Spree build­ings, the com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for much rede­vel­op­ment in Berlin.

A Mer­cedes, a rental car and 2 cars from a telecommunications/security com­pa­ny burnt out.

Win­dows of bank Sparkasse smashed.

8 lux­u­ry cars, 2 bins and bill­boards burnt or destroyed.

Offices of estate agent Oliv­er Rohr who works for Rigaer94/Liebig14 land­lord Beulk­er attacked with graf­fi­ti, paint bombs and glue in the locks.

O2 adver­tis­ing screen at Warschauer Strasse attacked with paint bombs.

McDon­alds in Kreutzberg- trashed.

2 unfin­ished loft­hous­es have their win­dows smashed- one attack takes place in broad day­light.

Cop car win­dows smashed by Mauer Park.

18 win­dows of SAP, a soft­ware com­pa­ny con­nect­ed to arms trade, smashed.

Win­dows of Ver­di Hotel by Kopi smashed.

Cops attacked with stones and bot­tles out­side Kopi.

Ban­ner drop in sup­port of Rigaer94 from the roof of the cathe­dral Berlin­er Dom.

Bar­ri­cades built in Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Wed­ding.

There was also a pirate radio (orig­i­nal­ly set up for the April Days of Action in Defence of Free Spaces) and a web-based real time info-tick­er which pro­vid­ed up-to-the-minute infor­ma­tion on every­thing from demos, actions, arrests, police loca­tions and detailed descrip­tions of under­cov­er cops and their vehi­cles.

The con­stant prowl­ing of under­cov­er cop cars and a rumoured 250 civ­il police (as well the polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed crime unit) deployed in Kreuzberg did not deter peo­ple from tak­ing action, and
nor did bru­tal attacks on crowds of demon­stra­tors or the impo­si­tion of “Platzver­weise” or “ban­ning orders” from par­tic­u­lar areas on any­one who looked ‘autonomous’ – the use of these was ruled
ille­gal by a judge lat­er in the week. Despite beat­ings and arrests, the cops were final­ly unable to con­tain, con­trol and crush the spir­it, ener­gy and dar­ing of the week-long revolt.

After years of sim­ply respond­ing to dates set by insti­tu­tions, gov­ern­ments and trade fairs etc, those act­ing to resist the repres­sion of free space – which extends to the total­i­ty of what we con­ceive as free­dom – are left with a revived feel­ing of strength and ener­gy. Dis­cus­sions and analy­ses have been sparked; cre­ative, autonomous par­tic­i­pa­tion has been inspired and face to face affini­ties built on. Above all, what has emerged from and what under­pins these ele­ments is the offen­sive action that peo­ple have tak­en which has let loose the reins of our imag­i­na­tions and our resis­tance.

We hope it does not stop here, and that the qual­i­ty and diver­si­ty of attacks, as well as a deep­en­ing under­stand­ing of what it means to lib­er­ate space in lives held hard in the vel­vet claw of
cap­i­tal­ism, con­tin­ues every­where.

Put Berlin in Chaos! Put Every­where in Chaos! …

One note of sad­ness and anger from last week is the state-mur­der of an 18 year old boy in cus­tody on May 29. Not known to be con­nect­ed to the autonomous scene, he was arrest­ed with two friends after attack­ing traf­fic lights and a car and was found hanged in his cell at 1.20am, only 3 hours after the time of his arrest. It is unlike­ly that it was sui­cide – as the cops have stat­ed — because of the
design of the cells in Tem­ple­hof nick and the short amount of time that would have been avail­able to him while being dri­ven to the police sta­tion and processed.