Amsterdam: Store squatted on Kalverstraat on kingsday. Takland founded

Yesterday on the birthday of the king, there was a suspicious puppetshow in Taksteeg, a side street from the busy shopping street of Kalverstraat. In this puppet show, the mayor, the king and a member of parliament were talking about how to make the city more wealthy. Their conclusion, in six months, all of the people in the city should be evicted and all of their homes should be converted to hotels. They were so happy with this plan that they started partying to an André Hazes junior techno remix. At this party, the MP sneaked out and went to the people, the MP told the people about their plans, and pleaded for a revolution and the beheading of the king. After a lot of screaming and rioting of the people, the guillotine was brought out, where the king met his faith, and the people reclaimed their city.
After this revolution, another city was also being reclaimed. Right above the puppet show, a banner which read “geen woning geen koning” (no home no king) was dropped. An old store had been squatted, right in the rich tourist and yuppy center of Amsterdam. The building has been empty for more than three years. The cops came, asked a neighbour how long it had been empty and told the squatters that they were not going to speed evict, and the regular procedure will happen.

Right after the banner drop, a speech was held, this is the English version of the speech.

From today onwards we will not celebrate kingsday anymore, but housingday. The king and his nephew are getting rich at the expense of our housing, prince Bernhard even owns more than 300 places and the monarchy has a surplus of villas, palaces and estates, which they all leave empty. In our opinion this makes them just as condemnable as every other speculator and slumlord. The monarchy is nothing more than a puppet show. We don’t see any reason to have a day in their celebration. Our right to housing is being threatened by these kind of institutions, the Netherlands is not capable anymore than to guarantee our basis human rights.

Thats why were founding Takland, at the former Taksteeg, where we will ask for asylum. In Takland the rules of the Dutch state don’t apply anymore. Squatting is not only legal here, but also encouraged. In Takland houses are for living, not for making a profit. Takland doesn’t know any hierarchies, everyone is a mayor, and only the pigeons are kings. In Takland we don’t need a vrijmarkt (free market), because everything is free. At the founding of our new country, we will only steal the best Dutch traditions, the rest we will leave behind us triumphantly. We will celebrate the tradition of young children giving their unused toys to the next generation. We hope the slumlords of today will learn a lesson from this. To give them a push in the right direction, we squatted these empty buildings. We hope that the owners can pass their playthings on, so we can have a house again. But Takland is not limited to these places. Every empty building is a potential new street of Takland. Everyone can ask asylum by squatting a house. The takkers are stronger than the state. Takland 4 ever! Kraken gaat door!

Long live Takland.

Takland Vrijstraat
Taksteeg 8, Amsterdam
Netherlands
taklandvrijstaat [at] proton [dot] me
https://squ.at/r/9e0a


Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
Groups (social center, collective, squat) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL


Indymedia: https://indymedia.nl/node/53334