WHILE upscale universities open bio-technological parks sponsored by big
pharmaceutical companies
WHILE software companies and corporate record labels entertain themselves
with the futile exercise of hunting down so-called copyright delinquents
WHILE all forms of knowledge get privatized and the access to them becomes
even more elitist...
Universitat Pirata opens its doors

We see education and research as a fundamental condition for us to break
out thinking and behavioural patterns which keep us in a perpetual state
of repetition.

We want to give ourselves the skills that allow us to analyse and respond
to the reality that surrounds us.

We want to open a space in which to apply rigorous "academic" treatment,
to issues which the institutions ignore because of their lack of market
value.

We are in London to explain this project on the 26th of April at Rampart 8
p.m... However, while we are here Barcelona Council wants to evict
the Universitat Pirata.
La Universitat Pirata is a project almost entirely run from the squatted
social center Milles de Viviendas, situ at the Barceloneta neighborhood.
The Barceloneta area is historically a neighborhood of fisherman, a
working class area at Barcelona's sea side.
This area is threatened by the ongoing gentrification undertaken by the
local council's policy of evicting long term residents from the area so to
bust turism and build more hotels, thus making a (fun fair) shopping
window of Barcelona.

The situation at the Barceloneta is not an exception, the whole city is
undergoing a model designed to compete at the global market.
The intention is to attract businesses, (which are generating casual and
underpaid workplaces) to bring up turism (which leaves money without
conflict) and to transform all forms of popular culture in products
saleble at the museum's shops, to do so they are therefore repressing any
expression of dissent.
Miles de Viviendas is a project which acts in direct confrontation with
this policies as a whole. Their networking with existent local struggles
has showed discontent aloud.
The direct consequence of this ongoing confrontation to the
administration's undergoings is this threat of eviction. They want to get
rid of us so to avoid the problem altogether.

This ocupation is and has been a way of directly confronting
especulation. In Barcelona ,Milan, Berlin or London... gentrification
processes are pushing away local residents together with those who take
action. Therefore squatting takes us to the heart of this confrontational
process.

We will explain this situation further on the 26th together with the
London presentation of La Universidad Pirata.
When they attack one of us, they are attacking us all, let's plan the
counter attack together!

We would like to talk about the experiences we are living in our neighborhood and listen to people who are or has been involved in social centre in london, and anyone else who is resisting gentrification in London