We want to express our full support for the squatting movement in Germany. We are aware of the current policy of the German authorities, and we are against the repression taking place against squatters all over Germany. In the last few months there has been a rapid increase of police raids on self-organized, unofficial social centers. These acts of terror are disturbing and shocking. It's obvious that local authorities are trying to force their neoliberal politics into city management. This means less social safety net and much higher rent prices.
By using violence - such as the oppression of the squatting movement they try to 'improve' living standards. For capitalists this improvement means yuppie housing estates, less real social relationships, more obeying society and moving the poor and handicapped into the outskirts of cities. We strongly disapprove of this policy. We belive that streets should fully represent the real society and that streets & city districts are places accessible to all citizens, not only the wealthiest or the most powerful ones. In our opinion all actions that are aimed at increasing the prices of rents and mortgages, such as destroying old housing estates to build newer and more expensive ones, are aimed against the poorest part of the society. In that way, by getting rid of the poor, the authorities pretend to solve real social problems. What happens is directly the opposite: the poor get even poorer, and the rich ones once again use their economic power to increase their income. We also share the opinion that there are more things going on in city life, not only the costs of housing. We believe that such values as rich cultural life, strong civil society or a friendly neighbourhood are more important than the value of land. We believe that most important value of the city is not within the prices of houses or the standard of living.
There are much more important things, that all begin with the basic interaction between two people. Unofficial, self organized and antiauthoritarian centers are crucial in development of these interactions. Therefore we strongly disapprove of the current policy of German authorities, and we call for a radical change. We support our comrades from the squatting movement in Berlin and we would like to emphasize that without squats the cities are going to be much less interesting.
We strongly support the struggle for all autonomous spaces all over the world as we believe that they are able to create a background for local social struggles fighting against the present system of conformity, exploitation and uniformity. The struggle for squats and free spaces in different places is the same fight all over and an attack against one place is an attack against all of them and we will always show our solidarity, by all means necessary, every time the capitalists, cops and politicians act against peoples' freedom of expression. We will not be a safe margin of alternative culture within capitalism, we will try as much as we can to create a real opposition against this system.
We stand together and we fight together!
Elba squat, Warsaw, Poland
Rozbrat squat, Poznan, Poland