Berlin: Attack the city of the rich. Defend the projects

The gentrification in Berlin continues incessantly, and with it displacement. Not only people but also spaces are affected: Spaces of the radical movement, open spaces, safer spaces for people affected by discrimination, non-commercial spaces, spaces of subculture, of political networking and spaces where people try to live concrete utopias.

One struggle – one fight
In recent years, spaces such as the Liebig14 house project, the youth centre Drugstore , the community space Friedel54, the wagon places DieselA & Sabot Garden, the O-Platz occupation and the occupied school in Ohlauer Straße have already disappeared.
But it does not stop there. Many other spaces are currently under threat. The youth centre Potse, the house project Liebig34 and the bar collective Syndikat & Meuterei expect an eviction before the end of the year. Other spaces such as the house project Rigaer94, the house project Köpi137, the community house Lause10/11 or the community garden Prachttomate face a similar threat in the near future.

No spaces – no movement
All of these are spaces that live and fight for a different Berlin: a Berlin in which we know our neighbours, in which we create our houses and our neighbourhood together and jointly determine how public space is used. A Berlin where there is room for self-chosen living concepts. A Berlin in which we can try out alternatives to the exploitative and oppressive relations of wage labour, care work, educational system and on the basis of rent and ownership. [Read More]

Berlin: 2019 A decisive year ?

Within the next days the contracts of Liebig34, Potse, Drugstore, Großbeerenstraße 17a and Syndikat are ending. The future of many other projects like Meuterei, Rigaer94, Brauni is not much clearer. Whether they just have more time or the so called owners are playing with concealed cards, we have to develop and adopt a defense for these projects.

A good moment to go into a counteroffensive

The restructuring of the city is thundering on and even a bourgeois middle class can not ignore the consequences anymore. The City is becoming more and more dense and those that still fit in it richer with every wave of gentrification. Houses are getting forcefully vacated, renovated and turned into condos. Renters get forcefully evicted when the so called owners are coming up with more modern schemes of maximizing their profit, renters cannot keep pace with rent raises or are just plain “too annoying”. The last vacant lots are getting covered with new luxury lofts even when they very well were used since their beginning by the people around. Commercial premises are being rented out at such a steep price that businesses inevitably have to become more high priced and exclusive even when the operators might not want that. [Read More]

Berlin: Attacks on Google and gentrification

On Thursday 1/11/2018 we did some work using angry hammers on the door of a Google office under construction in Tucholskystraße, Berlin.
Even if a Google campus is not to be set up in Kreuzberg for the time being, Google remains an engine of our alienated daily life and an instrument of authority. To attack Google, control and dominion, be it with graffiti, solidarity, hacking or hammers, is necessary in order to breath with self-determination.
The essence is in the liberating decision to act in person.
On Saturday night of 03/11, an evil spirit took the initiative to damage an ex neighbourhood shop in Friedelstraße 54. The poltergeist destroyed the walls, the windows, the pipes and the floors. Of course with every regard for those who live in the house.
As Halloween is over, one can foresee that the building will remain doomed for the whole year. Little is known about spirits, except that they seek company, usually remain alone and let themselves be cast out most unwillingly. This should be clear to businesses and possible tenants as they decide to rent the haunted place in Friedelstraße 54. [Read More]