To Get to the Other Side : A Journey through Europe and its Anarchist Movements

Notes
The Rote Flora is Hamburg’s main squatted social center and autonomous space. It is located in the Schanzen district of Hamburg, at 71 Schulterblatt St. The “Culture House” next door is four stories tall. The two largest newspapers in Hamburg, liberal and conservative, respectively, and the latter owned by Springer, the major German media baron. Later in the article the former is referred to ironically as the Mopo. A commercial project for the development of the plaza — or piazza — just next to Schulterblatt street. Hamburg’s urban development bureau, like HUD in the US. An institution for junkies to shoot up in a safe environment. An abandoned water tower in a park that was converted into a 4 star hotel. Asta is the official student union. A student-oriented movie theater. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 51 : Homage to Barcelona
Homage to Barcelona Sometimes it seems like all Europe is heating up this summer. After Sarkozy won the elections in France, another tide of protests and riots swept across that country, at times uniting the youth in the banlieues who had rioted in 2005 with the anarchists, students, and workers who had rioted against the CPE, the labor deregulation, in 2006. There were more major riots in Denmark, with blockades erected once more in the streets of København, after authorities made moves to demolish an old building on the outskirts of Christiania, clearly a practice move in preparation for the real thing, their plan to evict the “free state” of Christiania itself. The Love Kills group from Craiova put on a feminist festival, and they and other anarchists from Romania organized a black bloc to attack the fascists who were protesting the Gay Pride parade in Bucureşti. A number of groups in Ukraina and Russia, including my friends in Kyiv,... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 50 : A Walk in the Graveyard
A Walk in the Graveyard Diumenge, 26 Agost L was back in Barcelona, this time to stay. Love, like all things in life, is harder with a prison sentence hanging over your head, but my days were so much richer when I could share them with her. Finally, we had more than just a week at a time to get to know each other. One Sunday we decided to further our tradition of geeky anarchist history tourism, and try to find Durruti’s grave up on Montjuic. It’s a long, hot walk up the mountain. There’s hundreds of tourists, most of them packed two high in busses, or riding the cable car. Seems we’re the only ones walking. Past the fortress of Montjuic, the traffic dies down and the tourists disappear. There’s only a few old men, along one bend of the road, who have parked their lawn chairs in the shade, to lounge the day away. The hideous Olympic stadium sprawls out below us. I wonder what used to be there, what got torn down so h... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 49 : Surviving
Surviving Lutxo lived in the room next to the computer where I did my writing. Out on the balcony, over which I always looked when thinking of what to say, thoughts trailing off into the deep blue sky... on this balcony he kept a modest plant in a pot. “De El Forat,” he told me. Lutxo used to live near that occupied community garden, and the plant had lived in it. This was a squatter plant; it had enjoyed a brief life in the free soil of El Forat, and Lutxo had rescued it just before the bulldozers came. Shallow roots but deep relationships I think we survive repression with the relationships we make — with the friends who help us endure our many evictions, our many transplantings, and the neighbors who shelter us. As I got to know the people of RuinAmalia better and found new friends, I realized I wouldn’t want to go back to the 23rd of April to change a few trivial choices that would have kept me out of the wa... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 48 : The Neighborhood Tour
The Neighborhood Tour Every neighborhood in Barcelona seemed to have at least one resident historian, an old militant who collected newspaper articles and stories, fliers and posters from protests, to add to old archival materials and the memoirs of earlier generations. The veterans of the revolution and the long resistance against Franco were dying off, the gentrification of the city left no reminders of past struggles even as the new urban architecture facilitated greater social control. The surveillance cameras, the wider streets, the buildings without balconies, the enclosed parks, the dumpsters without wheels — these were all direct responses to us anarchists and rebels and our history of riots and sabotage, yet each change erased both the memory and the possibility of fighting. In Spain the isolation of the present was even more marked than in other democracies, because for the government to have legitimacy everyone had to accept the alibi of a disconne... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Alex, Rodrigo, y Juan
Alex, Rodrigo, y Juan On 4 February, 2006, nine young people were arrested by the Guardia Urbana in Barcelona — the prisoners of 4F. Two of them were charged with attempted homicide, one with inciting attempted homicide, and the other six with lesser charges. Early Saturday morning, three squatters — Alex, Rodrigo, and Juan — had left a friend’s house after a party. On the way home, they had to pass El Teatro de Anarko Penya Cultural, described as “an illegal disco disguised as a squatted social center, with very little connection to the community of squatted political spaces in Barcelona.” El Teatro had an eviction order for months, but the police had protected it. The house had a reputation as a place t... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Citizens Afraid, Government Happy
Citizens Afraid, Government Happy Translation of an article in the Dutch anarchist magazine Buiten de Orde, no.19 issue 2. Present day Dutch politics is ruled by the codeword “Muslim terrorism.” Laws are changed, civil rights are trampled, and prohibitions are applied. But we’re not familiar with any Muslim terrorism in Nederland. A brief examination of the how and why of the existing Muslim policy. The Beginning of “Muslim Terrorism.” Since 11 September 2001, Muslim terrorists have been talked about in politics and in public space. From that date a discourse has developed in which citizens are deluded with the frightening prospect of Muslims taking power. “Western democracy” is said to be in danger... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Berlin
Berlin The 4th of July was a hell of a day to get out of the States. I’d originally planned my trip to last from May Day 2006 in Berlin to May Day 2007 in Barcelona, but I left late, and so it was another sort of holiday that marked my arrival. My older brother met me at the airport. Carl had been living in Berlin for two years, teaching English. At the end of the month he would leave to go to Palestine as a volunteer teacher, around the time Israel was bombing Lebanon. In the meantime I could stay with him in his little apartment in Moabit. The neighborhood shares the name with the huge prison that still holds some members of the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF: Red Army Fraction), an urban guerrilla group that attacked German capitalism th... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

To Get to the Other Side (part 1)
To Get to the Other Side (part 1) On Dinsdag, 5 September, I packed my bags once again, saddled up my trusty bicycle, and left the little home I’d found in Groningen. Saying goodbye was difficult. Joop had become a good friend, and then there was L. I had only just met her a couple weeks earlier, as we cooked together for Gratis Eten, and I was pretty sure I was falling in love. But she had her own life, and I had to leave town. My path led southeast, through Stadskanal, and to the border at Ter Apel. There wasn’t even a control point, just a sign — EU deregulation at its best. Passing over the unfenced frontier, I was flooded with a feeling of nostalgia, and an irrational and sudden fear of Germans. I slept in a bus shelt... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Emergency Call-out for Mobilization and Declaration of Solidarity
Emergency Call-out for Mobilization and Declaration of Solidarity translated from Nederlands Protest on the initiative of refugees in the deportation center at Ter Apel. 5 June, 2005, 13:30, Ter Apelervenen The refugees being held right now in the deportation center (DC) Ter Apel want to SELF-organize a demonstration on Sunday, 5 June at 13:30 at the deportation center on Ter Apelervenen, against the injustice they have been subjected to as hostages in a years-long asylum process. There is a petition in their name filed by GreenLeft and the Socialist Party (SP) Ter Apel/Vlagtwedde to seek the protection of the refugees and permission for the protest. The first contacts between the refugees and people in solidarity were made on Saturday, 14 ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)