I've passed this place...the garden is cleared and neatly maintained etc. Brilliant!

...a pro indigenous peoples policy/agenda? If so, why not organise a benefit/awareness happening for the great warrior, Leonard Peltier?...

 http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

..if you want you can liase directly with LPDC in America regarding this rather than the UK group, whatever its up to you. Connecting with these sorts of campaigns will keep your trip soundly grounded.

Please network this idea.

Thanks!

you could get involved locally, with your neighbours. radical or what?

you are slap bang in middle of one of the south-east asian communities of hackney, most of whom don't read indymedia that i know of. didn't this building used to be their community centre, in fact?

what are you doing to make sure they feel welcome in this space?

for starters might want to consider banning dogs from your premises, they can be a big no-no for many in the south-east asian community, obviously. do can dirt, and bad smells, something i know you have a problem with also.

oh well, never mind, lets just stick to the white dominated squatter clique hey, much easier and makes us popular with the "kool kids" hey.

'criticism is always the easiest art' - cornelius cardew

it is incredibly easy to criticise this bunch of pretentious wallies.

still, i live in hope that one amongst them might have an intelligent bone in their bodies and do something constructive for the neighbourhood. i have tried talking to them, have proposed actions which i am happy to make happen, but whilst the dogs roam around and dirt and smell fills the place, my pleas and offers are ignored.

i'll keep trying, however vain my hope is. perhaps others reading this will join in? there is a real lack of such large communal spaces available to squat in the area, just cos this group got in first doesn't mean others can't have opinions about use of the space. many of the local community don't have the knowledge or resources to have squatted the place, indeed many literally could not without risking deportation, should their voices not be heard?

community is a word well abused on Indymedia.
fuck your attitude to dogs. - in some cultures homophobia is offensive
your attitude to racism is very selective - you can only rail against stereotypes whilst furthering divisive capitalist multiculturalism to stop any popular support.
what has leonard peltier got to do with hackney.
fucking brain dead idiots.
perhaps you could support those that got kicked out of inner London - oh no they might be fasicsts....ignorant racist twats, lying hippies, untrustworthy trots,and stuck up middle class wallys - voila Indymedia
you want no borders to importing your cleaners and police eh?
you want land rights for some and not others eh?
this is truly a fascist society - you can only attack the usual puppets

please don't confuse me with whoever wrote about peltier, that was nothing to do with me.

don't understand your reference to homophobia re my comments about dogs, or your references to multiculturism, but maybe you will explain?

hi

I think the reference to homophobia in relation to dogs is, that finding dogs offensive is based on a religious taboo, so is the dislike of gays. I am not a dog owner but I recognize that it is a tradition of some to keep dogs for companionship or to enjoy some connection with nature in the midst of a big city.
While I think we are all agree we should oppose racism, sometimes what people need is a place to meet outside their communities ( whatever a community is - a marketing niche and/or method of social control through carrot/stick grace and favour - through the setting up of state-friendly community leaderships, with their religious rules, hierarchies, business leaders, property, and family constraints ) and meet other people who come from different backgrounds. Perhaps I can illustrate this I have been a volunteer working with a refugee group. One of the other volunteers was an African. He was sent to represent someone who spoke the same language, the person he was sent to said he spoke english well enough and requested that he be sent someone else, because he could not be sure that a fellow countryman might not share the same cultural and political beliefs he had been forced to run for his life from. Sometimes, though not always, a shared culture can be the source of oppression..

so lets break out of our so-called community and make a space where people who aren't just like us will want to come. not just another squat that only welcomes other squatters. my point exactly!

religion has limited responsibility for the fear and discomfort many people of colour feel around dogs. yes some muslim people will claim it is connected to their religion, but those who have studied islam to any depth will know that nowhere is it written that dogs are bad or unclean. hence the recent permission granted to a blind muslim man to bring his guide dog into the mosque.

in many countries around the world dogs roam wild or feral in packs, and are a real danger to people. in many countries around the world dogs compete with humans for limited food. in many countries dogs were and are trained to attack people of colour, used in torture, etc. for example in apartheid south africa, for another example the klu klux kan.

in britain racists have time and time again used dogs to attack people of colour. not only but including police officers.

the person who posted about dogs did so in relation to south-east asian people. of course there are south-east asian people who like, or indeed love, dogs. however a large majority of south-east asian people in britain are fearful of them, especially when the dog is owned by a white person who is a stranger to them, in a white-dominated space, where the dog is roaming free.

i am sure there are some white people who also feel this fear, in this context.

homophobia, although labelled a phobia, usually involves more danger to the lgbt person than to the homophobic person. this is not generally true of a dog-fearing person when they come across a dog. it is rare that a person who is scared of dogs will physically attack one.

homophobia is utterly irrational, fear of unknown dogs is not always. especially if you come from a place, or your family do, where dogs attacking humans is common, or where the keeping of pets is less common whilst wild animals roam free. if you live amongst lions, tigers, wild dogs, you have a different attitude to animals with sharp teeth. some might even say more respect, since you do not infantilise them.

i do not know anyone who comes from a place where lgbt people physically attacking heterosexuals is comparably common to dogs attacking humans.

i actually find it deeply disturbing and insulting to read a comparison or analogy between the two.

i am a black gay man and i have two dogs who i love. however i try to respect other people's experiences of and potential fear of dogs they do not know. if possible i will introduce someone to my dogs and allow them the chance to discover that my dogs are safe and kind. however i will not expect them to know or feel that as long as my dogs are unknown to them. i keep my dogs on leads where there will be lots of people, for the sake of my dogs as well as any fearful people who may be there. i myself do not always feel comfortable in a crowded social space where a dog i do not know is roaming free. dogs can get stressed in these situations and react defensively even when it isn't thought to be part of their charactar.

i do not respect anyone that suggests that the couple that live with a dog in their squat should either move out or get rid of their dog to encourage vietnamese people to use the building. put simply, needing no reference to history, homosexuality, racism, or anything else, I am sure this dog is a family member and to ask for it to be 'banned' from its home is fucking rediculous.

some space is offered for free for anyone, massive complaints, anger and accusations fly around. use a resource dont sit in your armchair and criticize it. If you want to change the world, or indeed a squat don't write a message from your fucking imac, knock on the door and call around for a cup of tea.

woof!

when i used the word ban what i actually meant was keep out of the communal space during public events/gigs etc. did not mean get rid of the dog. apologies for not being clearer.

i only mentioned the dog as one example (amongst three) of barriers to including some members of the local community, who used to use this building as a community centre and might like to be part of it now in its current usage. none of the three things i listed (dogs, dirt, smell) are really at the root of why many local people will keep away and i think we all know that.

we live in a divisive society, race is but one of a myriad of ways in which we are kept (and keep) ourselves segregated. if people who do have the confidence to squat or to be involved in a squat project don't make real efforts to reach out to the curious but shy, or fearful, then we will never break down those barriers and will always be just another alternative minority. it is in our interests to work hard at making "outsiders" feel welcome. and the onus is on us, yes it is, because in this context we have more power and perhaps more consciousness of what needs doing.

locals might have valuable things to contribute which might benefit the squat, could be of mutual benefit in all directions.

instead of focussing on one tiny part of my original comment let's talk about how we can open up this project out of the squatting clique and beyond the white-dominated alternative scene?

lets get practical, and sensible, here and lets start breaking down barriers instead of erecting even more.

might take some soulsearching and some hard work, but the potentials rewards would be immeasurable.

You are welcome to come an tell me your ideas, instead of using this impersonal way of communication. You can ask for EM and we can talk peacefully.

i don't understand EM who are you and why should i (i presume you adress me?) come and speak to you? come where? talk about what?

If you want to come to the house at Mare street, ask for Em (its my name) and I can listen to your ideas, it seem you have interesting ideas so it could be nice to talk with you. If you don't like the house we can talk outside. Don't worry.

Peace

em

of course em don't need introducing, if you were anybody who mattered you would know her already.

classic.

why should this local bloke have to come around again, he said he already been round trying to talk to people and got nowhere. its up to you people now, em and friends, you got the space you control it and its your interests like he said to make this stuff happen.

be nice if he came cos yeah he talking sense but he spent nuff time writing here given you plenty food for thought now its time YOU take action sted of pasing the buck.

me, i cant even get in the door (or knock on it) cos i in wheelchair and there aint no ramp or accessible door knocker is there.

good luck. i expect you mean well i hope you start putting those sentiments into action soon.

woof woof!

meow meow meow

Yeah, the building used to be a community centre, that moved further up Mare St, the building was abandoned and some people squatted it, it's not like the squatters kicked out the local community.

Yeah, This patch of Mare St is predominantly South East Asian. Within a kilometre you also have large English, Afro-Caribbean, Irish, Turkish, etc communities. The appeal of this space does not need to be exclusively for the immediate neighbours.

Dogs may or may not be an issue but I'd say the far bigger impediment to community engagement is people's hostility/ambiguity towards squatters as well as an over-sensitivity on the part of squatters which leads them to become insular rather than engage and possibly offend 'ordinary people'.

There seems little the people who have opened up this building can do to escape this hostility. Would you prefer they just left the building to rot? Or maybe you'd rather they just took your instructions via indymeida?

At least they're trying...

tweet

yes it seems these squatters are trying. what they are trying to do, its hard to tell. apparently not to break down barriers and make a local resource accessibly to all. perhaps what they are trying to do here is assuage their guilt at taking such a valuable resource and using it only to house and entertain themselves and their friends? if so no wonder they are upset by local bloke - he is pointing out that the empororer is naked, it seems, and so frustrating their attempts to seem generous and to assuage said guilt.

the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. if simply "trying" was enough, i wouldn't have ever bothered taking direct action i would have just joined friends of the earth and sat back smugly saying "well at least we tried" as the earth burns.