United We Stay!

Berlin, early 2009: Gentrification is in full-swing. At the beginning of the 90s, the neighborhoods of Krezburg and Frederichshain—known widely as centres of left culture around the world—were home to more than 100 squats. Now, only of handful of hard-fought free spaces remain.

These spaces have continued to be squatted, with a lot of hard work, love, and creativity, and still continue to function as living spaces. They lie in between totally renovated buildings, which are no longer affordable for a large part of the population who at one point part of the neighbourhood. This is true everywhere inside the main borders of city, where only a few colorful pockmarks stain the landscape of the otherwise highly-polished “big city life”. This eviction process threatens not only the left, noncommercial subculture of the city, but also targets specifically immigrants, socially isolated people, and all other parts of the population who in a way lie on the margins of society. Through climbing rent costs, these people are allocated places representative of the societal position they have long occupied: away from the shimmering luxury and all the things that make life comfortable! Away from the places, where “big city life” takes place, so that this ever-so open world metropolis can be open to people from around the world-- who can afford it.

Also, the individual investors and politicians, who push for this process and want us to leave our buildings and places, can not be forgotten. Behind all of this lies one system that carries the name of Neoliberal Capitalism.

Why are these free spaces worth preserving?

Leftist projects are the attempt to put forward a positive alternative against this trend. They are places in which the critique of these conditions are formulated, and where alternatives can be put into praxis. They are places for creativity, colorful living, dreams, and utopias. Despite their individuality, all house projects and camper sites unite and form a common front, offering an emancipatory, anti-fascist, anti-hierarchical, anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-capitalist alternative, providing protection and places to fallback to. The collective life together offers the possible way out the ruling anonymity and separation in urban life. Solidarity wins out over dog-eat-dog competition and offers the chance to self-organize around shared concerns. For example, how to formulate and enact the fight against gentrification. Through organization inside the projects and the coordination with other projects, they form networks, which provide the residents and the users with a base of operations to operate politically. For the actually political battles, these spaces are an important part of the infrastructure, where they functions as points of interaction, house administrative activity, provide locations for the preparation of events, where like-minded people can meet and share new ideas and knowledge.
Leftist house and cultural projects are, in addition, the bearers of Berlins non-commercial subculture, which makes this city so attractive and livable fur so many. Self-organized free spaces enable people to determine the conditions under which they live, to live equally and free of hierarchy, and with they that can actually redeem the unredeemed promises of democracy. House projects are like islands, in which something that many think impossible, namely: A little better life in falsehood.
And it is known, that the reality in our projects lag behind all of these nice promises, and it also known that the attempt, to bring them to reality is a taxing daily struggle. It is a battle against the things we have internalized, the temptation to give up our ideals and to take the easy, conformist way. A battle we lose often enough, that is worth fighting for, however, time and time again.

For a long time, leftist free spaces face more or less acute threats to existence. It is standard fare, and we all recognize it and have become accustomed to it. How much energy this constant fending off consumes, know only a few. Despite the fact that we always pledge our solidarity and indeed through concrete mutual support put it into action, each house fights its battle relatively alone. And in the fear and the stress of staying alive, it is often difficult to think beyond the acute threat against a single free space, although we, theoretically, have understood that the battle for a single house is a battle for all houses, and that our struggle is also against the neoliberal reorganization of the metropolis.

At the moment, more than ten of these projects are acutely threatened. Thus more than ever is now the time to connect the individual struggles and with organized strength, demand a political solution for all left projects. Together we have the power, to initiate a political movement, which opposes the societal status quo.

Therefore we want to powerfully take our demands to the streets, with a large demo organized together by the all the threatened projects and the many other projects.

A political solution for all house projects and camper sites!

Concrete solutions now for all the acutely threatened projects!

Self-conceived city planning. Berlin stays colorful, dirty, political, in solidarity, creative, uncontrollable, livable, diverse, rebellious, and, above all, affordable!