Skip to content or view screen version

Danish kids to hold mass squatting action on October 6th in Copenhagen

black frog | 05.10.2007 10:58 | Culture | Free Spaces | Social Struggles | World

We are going to move into our new house on Grøndalsvænge allé 13, the 6th of October. We´re not hiding that, for this action, we are, amongst others, inspired by this summers succesful protests at the G8 summit in Rostock, Gremany.

Here Tens of thousands of demonstrators succeded in blocking the roads to the summit area. Already two years before, activists declared how, where and when they wanted to block the summit. This way, tens of thousands of demonstrators managed to get through the police lines. ”We have learned that preparation pays off” states Astrid from g13`s press group.

Our outspokenness surprices a lot of people. The police declares to Politiken (major newspaper) on the 13th of Aug. that they hold that we are bluffing. ”usually they are not that nice”, states Flemming Steen Munk, spokesman for the police. Unfortunately we are going to disappoint him.

When we are open about our plans of action, its not to be nice, but a strategic choice. ”It will make it harder for the police and politicians to criminalise our struggle for a new ungdomshus(youthhouse)” states Astrid from G13`s press group.

G13 has been proclaimed as the culmination of the movements autumn offensive, and already now 500 activists are involved in the preparations.

G13`s press group can be contacted on tel: +45 50282250 or email:  presseG13@gmail.com On www.aktionG13.dk you can read the basis for G13 and a lot more.

Manifesto
Action Grøndalsvænge Allé 13 (AktionG13) is an initiative based in and around the movement for a new youth house. We started with a single objective; to get a new youth house. We’ve been looking at empty buildings in Copenhagen for a long time now, and we’ve ended up picking the house at Grøndalsvænge Allé 13 for the purpose.

New youth house – Grøndalsvænge Allé 13
The location is situated in the Northwest District of Copenhagen (Nordvestkvarteret), just by Fuglebakken S-train station, and it has a great potential as a new free space. The house is about the same size as the former youth house at Jagtvej 69 and has got a big yard. As Copenhagen’s city council hasn’t, as promised, given us a replacement for Jagtvej 69, we have taken matters in our own hands and found a new house.
We have visited the house on numerous occasions and agree that it’s a unique place that we, with your help, are looking forward to move into. The area is owned by the Copenhagen municipality, so the politicians don’t even have to find extra funds, to buy the house for us.

Who is G13?
We are an initiative started by different people; groups and organisations in and around the movement for a new youth house in Copenhagen. We’ve grown out of the strong and diverse energy that arose after and during the eviction of the former youth house, Ungdomshuset at Jagtvej 69. This diversity is the strength, and core, of our initiative.
What unites us, is the struggle for free space and the belief, that the specific things we are doing have to be practised in coordination with our ideals. That is why we are actively trying to fight oppressive mechanisms and structures built up around class, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation inside our free spaces, along with the struggle for these spaces. We do not have a leadership; all substantial decisions are being taken on meetings where all parts of the initiative will be participating.

This is how we get a house
Since the Police and politicians in loving harmony evicted our beloved house on Jagtvej 69 on March 1st, this year, Copenhagen has been the centre rebellion in Northern Europe and the fight for free spaces for everyone. Tens of thousands of young and old have turned Copenhagen upside down. Even though, we have grown a lot bigger during the past year, our demands have not been heard by the politicians, at all.
We strongly feel that the people in the city hall don’t want us in the city. We know that all their nonsense about listening to the people, about a living culture and about the creative and diverse Copenhagen is nothing but empty phrases in a hollow democracy.

The time has come to try something new. We feel that there is a need for an action to retake the political terrain. An action that incorporates and unifies all the thousands of people that have been on the streets for the past half year. An action that will give us a new Youth house. AktionG13 is a concept and an initiative created on the basis of the discussions and political considerations that have been going on since the eviction of Jagtvej 69. We will keep on inventing new tools, and do things different from what we have done so far. We will roam through television, city council and the streets. We will take on the struggle on all levels. We want the politicians to take action.

We decide how we’re going to fight
Everyone outside the norm is experiencing that the political system, the courts and the police are intensifying their control and use of power. Whether we are talking about the immigrant youth, drug addicts, graffiti painters, hash smokers, ravers or streetpunks, we are all facing the same police repression, violence, illegal arrests, surveillance and harassment in our everyday life. We are experiencing an extreme criminalisation by the media and from the politicians, who in general are not questioning the police repression and the attack on our legal rights. The past six months, our movement has faced persecution on a much higher level than before. Mass-arrests, state of emergency, illegal house searches and attacks on our right to gather and demonstrate have become the norm.
From now on, our demonstrations are not going to be surrounded by blue lights and angry cops. From now on, we will no longer feel criminalised just because we differ from the norm. From now on, we will no longer be guilty till the opposite has been proven. The struggle for a youth house is a political struggle and can’t be reduced to an issue of law and order.

We are a diverse movement with many different expressions and ways to take action. But even though we are different, we act together. Today, we do things one way. Tomorrow, another way, and the day after tomorrow, we will act differently again.

With AktionG13, we will take to the streets together and create a mass action that will be a disobedient and non-violent confrontation. We want to confront, challenge, cheat and be creative, not let conventional ideas put up limits for our achievements. We are completely incalculable and unpredictable. We will always have a Plan B ready. The Copenhagen city council owes us a youth house. If they don’t give it to us, we will have to take it ourselves.

The Action
When we take to the streets, we will be everything from baby carriages with moms and dads, grandmothers and grandfathers, kissing homos, grey-haired squatters, university punx, homeworking cyber pirates, hip hoppers, unemployed university dropouts, gender bending graffiti painters. We are going to get a new youth house, with or without help from the politicians.

black frog
- e-mail: blackfrog@alphabetthreat.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.56a.org.uk/warham.html