Why social centres are pants...

Hi Cynic

Yes, I think there are some legitimate criticisms of social centres in your article. But looking at this history of various anti-capitalist, left and radical movements over the last two centuries, forming self-managed or co-operative spaces and projects have been an integral part of political action. In themselves, of course, they are only a 'platform' (for want of a better word). But what matters is the scope they can provide for engagement with society, and the development of ideas and action amongst the radical milieu. Workers educational co-ops and libraries in the later nineteenth century, the radical press and printing shops, early Labour associations, indpendent and radical bookstores, Women's Aid centres from the later 1960's onwards, the 70's Gay Liberation Front squatted houses, the development of anarcho-punk social spaces...... I think all these have had a profound effect on the various progressive movements that created them.

You are right that perhaps 'activists' don't necessarily use the autonomous spaces and social centres to the extent that they should, and that they can become a radical ghetto with inward looking politics. But I personally reckon they can still form an essential part of political action when we get the mix right.

Thank you.

Caz

As someone who gives time to our local social centre in nottingham I believe it is a worthwhile resource. It provides a place where people can hang out and thus are able to network with each other better, and know each other better which helps greatly when doing direct action. We have a very active group in Nottingham and I believe that our social centre plays a central role in that.
also as an activist who has a child its a good space for people with kids to go where they know they will be safe and not subjected to pissed up louts,sexist or racist behaviour.

from Leeds Indymedia...

You can’t rent your way out of a social relationship…
a work in progress
by rogue element

“Legalisation is one of the most effective remedies against the inconveniences of subversion. It was used by the Social Democratic regimes in particular in order to suppress the most radical and openly subversive elements.” Against the Legalisation of Occupied Spaces by El Paso Occupato and Barocchio Occupato

Introduction

This article has been written by a group of people who have been involved with squatted social centres and other forms of direct action over a number of years. We write in response to the recent plans to create a host of new social centres that are neither squatted nor co-operatively owned, but rented. It is our opinion that social centres should come from ‘need’, initiated by a critical mass of individuals and groups that have a common desire and/or need for autonomous space. This network of social centres has, on the other hand, been initiated by a wealthy, albeit well-intentioned, individual within the activist milieu who wanted to collectivise their wealth. The collective that was put in place to manage this money decided to share £70,000 among local activist groups through the Dissent! Network to help set up a network of ‘anti-capitalist’ social centres in the run up to the G8 summit, being held in Gleneagles in 2005.

This discussion document has not been written to ‘slag’ people off, but rather to start a dialogue on the issues raised so we can move closer towards realising our desires and challenging our political and personal comfort zones. We did not feel as though we could just ‘put up and shut up’ as we are very passionate about the issues we are discussing here. We hope that these rented spaces are indeed a springboard to more confrontational action, a place in which to ask why and what and how, and that the people involved in them will support other initiatives that occur in their localities – even if that means closing the rented spaces for a few days.

“We think it is important to have a confrontation of these topics, even at the risk of disturbing the sleep of the civilised.” Barbarians: the disordered insurgence by Crisso and Odotheus

The Dissent! Network, the PGA and Conflict

“How can we engender radicalism in our society if people’s first point of contact with non-mainstream politics is a space built on compromise, which exists only because the state says it can?” Social Dis-Centres, p185 Do or Die Issue 10
The new Dissent! Network, mobilising against the G8 in Britain, has adopted the hallmarks of People’s Global Action (PGA). The Dissent! Network website reads as follows: “As a group we decided that we wished to work non hierarchically with a view to enabling direct action protests against the G8. To enable the non-hierarchical working we agreed to adopt the PGA Hallmarks. The hallmarks promote a confrontational direct action approach, since we believe that it is impossible to negotiate with the encumbent governmental institutions.”
The PGA says it is absolutely committed to confrontational approaches to the dissolution of the global capitalist system and social relations built on patriarchy, sexism, inequalities of wealth and status etc. Grassroots groups from all over the world are part of the PGA network.
Groups or networks cannot really describe themselves as confrontational and anti-capitalist when they submit themselves unnecessarily to legal infrastructure. Squatting in the UK is possible (as well as preferable). Renting a social centre in the run up to the G8 is not only in direct conflict with the idea of promoting radical self-organisation, do-it-yourself alternatives (ie that which can be replicated by any group of people - £10,000 anyone?) and resistance to the state, it is also in direct conflict with those struggles abroad, such as the Piqueter@ movement in Argentina, with whom many involved in networks like the Dissent! Network would claim to be in solidarity with. When a woman from the MTD Solano (part of the militant Piqueter@ movement) in Argentina toured Britain to talk about their experiences, she talked as well of her own life choices: a trained clinical psychologist, she gave up her well-paid job and the house that she owned, long before the ‘revolution’ in December 2001, in order to set up a grassroots community health initiative in a poor barrio of Buenos Aires and to live in occupied spaces with a collective of unemployed workers and others like herself. Here in Britain, our experience is that there are an increasing number of people taking the easy route, trying to maintain one foot in the system (reaping the benefits of personal security, status and financial reward) whilst posing as radicals plotting it’s destruction.
As we understand it, the key reason for renting rather than squatting a space that can be used as a social centre (or a series of social centres) seems to be people’s desire for a space defined by its continuity. If something is not continuous because it is constantly repressed – such as a squatted space – then surely the alternative is not co-option or the creation of continuity by buying into the system, but resistance. Throughout history, many politically confrontational and challenging times have been accompanied by a strong, and confrontational, squatting movement. It was true with the ecological direct action movement in 1990s Britain. Not only were there many urban squats, but squatted land in the form of protest camps. If you are doing something the state doesn’t want you to do, if you are challenging the way things are, then you will be repressed. Renting a social centre is, in our opinion, an admission of failure and cannot promote anything other than the idea that the anti-capitalist movement has been absorbed into the system. It demonstrates a lack of commitment to realising the ideas that you expound, and by calling such a space ‘radical’ is to rewrite the dictionary.
Worse still, state-approved social centres can have a damaging impact on other projects. For example, in Italy, social centres that have negotiated with the state – often run by people associated with the White Overalls Movement/Tute Blanche, now ‘Disobbedienti, - have not only become recuperated but, through their negotiations with the state, have further marginalized the squatters movement. In the preface to ‘Barbarians: the disordered insurgence’ (a critique of the ideas of Negri and Hardt) the authors talk of the activities of leaders of the ‘Disobedient’ causing the state to issue an ultimatum, either you dialogue with the system or you are labelled ‘terrorist’ and repressed.

The Social Centre as Direct Action

“…the act of occupying a building is a form of direct action: illegal – collective – carried out openly that leads a group of individuals to reconquer a living space previously taken away from the collectivity by those in power.” Against the Legalisation of Occupied Spaces by El Paso Occupato and Barocchio Occupato

“Increasingly, in the face of the juggernaut that is civilization, our present social reality, I hear many radicals say, "It's necessary to be realistic; I'll just do what I can in my own life." This is not the declaration of a strong individuality making itself the center of a revolt against the world of domination and alienation, but rather an admission of resignation, a retreat into merely tending one's own garden as the monster lumbers on. The "positive" projects developed in the name of this sort of realism are nothing more than alternative ways of surviving within the present society. They not only fail to threaten the world of capital and the state; they actually ease the pressure on those in power by providing voluntary social services under the guise of creating "counter-institutions".” - ‘Realism’ in Against the Logic of Submission, by Wolfi Landstreicher

In our opinion, an anti-capitalist social centre, paying rent to a landlord, paying rates, and bills, obeying licensing laws, legal structures, and insurance, cannot in essence be in any way in conflict with the capitalist system. It is not direct action and it is not confrontational. At its heart is defeat, sometimes called realism.

To occupy, to squat a building is an act of direct action. It is taking what you want when you want it. Although squatting is not illegal in Britain, much of what goes on in a squat is illegal – providing food, beer, and entertainment for people without a license and without insurance. By squatting, we introduce ourselves to the new social relationships that develop when we take what we want from the state and property-owning class rather than asking and paying for it – and to the very idea that it is possible for us to exist outside those parameters. The experience of opening a squatted social centre is fundamentally more liberating than setting up a legal structure, a bureaucracy, in order to rent a building from a capitalist landlord. The experience of entering an occupied space is also fundamentally different to that of entering a legitimised one. There is often an atmosphere of anything can happen. In some senses this is the very essence of wildness, of revolt, and therefore in direct opposition to domesticity and obedience. The feeling that one is outside the petty rules and regulations of the system, even in some small way, is a magnificent one. Entering a centre that follows rules, pays it’s rates and licences, and has financial and cultural ownership of the space is radical suicide.

Private property is a product of theft, repression and exploitation. It is an agent of oppression and exploitation. The land used to be ours, now it is theirs. It is a principle of radical political activity to refute this ownership by simply taking back what we used to hold in common. Squatting is taking ‘private’ space and opening it back up to the collectivity. To rent space and call it a ‘radical’ or ‘anti-capitalist’ social centre is an oxymoron. As it was said during the May ’68 insurrection in Paris “ Don’t demand. Occupy!”

The history of revolt is one that occurs largely outside the workplace, the rented house, the ballot box. The rented social centre is no more radical than an alternative café. It is not what you say (or how many leaflets you put out), it is what you do, that matters. Revolt is about bringing the war home in a society where it is often too easily hidden beneath the veneer of isolation and alienation, where we are told (and believe) the war is always somewhere else, where we continue to labour under the illusion that we are privileged and where in fact some of us do actually have a ‘nice life’, where abundant opportunities arise for recuperation and the insidious selling out of ideals. To bring the war home is to make war on this society, on the way we live our lives, on the power structures that exist both outside ourselves and within us. Our project is one to destroy a system that impoverishes us and leads us to live increasingly mediated existences devoid of any meaning.
We wonder if the rented social centre offers a perfect displacement activity for those who are essentially part of the system, but wish to appear to be involved in radical politics. A rented social centre is never going to be a substitute for the spontaneous, transformative human interaction that comes about when people live together, struggle together, and spend time together on their own terms on a daily basis. When people have to come together against a system that doesn’t want them there.

“Politics is the art of recuperation. The most effective way to discourage all rebellion, all desire for real change [is] to transform a subversive into a man or woman of state. Not all people of state are paid by the government. There are functionaries who are not found in parliament or even in the neighbouring rooms. Rather, they frequent the social centre and sufficiently know the principle revolutionary theories, they debate over the libratory potential of technology; they theorise about non-state public sphere and the surpassing of the subject. Reality-they know it well is always more complex than any action. So if they hope for a total theory, it is only in order to totally neglect it in daily life. Power needs them because-as they themselves explain to us-when no one criticises it power is criticised by itself”– From Ten blows against Politics, by Il Pugnale May 1996

Samba, Summits and Counter Summits

“We who cultivate the taste for adventure and the free flow of passions see that only through the ongoing practice of direct action, springing beyond the four walls, going beyond the limits of lawfulness imposed by the state, can we succeed in opening new spaces for the self-organisation of our lives outside the squat and instilling new dignity into the existing occupations. In short, in spreading the practice of generalised self-organisation.” Against the Legalisation of Occupied Spaces by El Paso Occupato and Barocchio Occupato

The rented social centres that will be springing up in cities in England, Scotland and Wales in the next year have been initiated through the anti-G8 process that began in Britain a year ago. They are to be part of the build-up to a mobilisation against the G8 when it comes to Gleneagles in June 2005.
It is outside of the scope of this article to go into much detail on the role of summits, the mobilisations for them and ‘summit hopping’ as a phenomenon, but we would like to say just a few words about them. Since the kick start of what has variously been called the ‘anti-globalisation’ and ‘anti-capitalist’ movement, arguably June 18th 1999 or the anti WTO protests in Seattle in the same year, the level of autonomous direct action has gone down. Much of what passes for action now is a crowd of people kettled by cops, occasionally breaking free, only to follow a samba band around whilst dressed in pink and silver. For example, at the BP AGM action in London in April 2003, most of the crowd were content to protest the meeting by partying with a samba band outside – despite the fact that 100 shareholder tickets were available to enable people to get past security and disrupt the meeting. The majority of protestors, however, were happy to engage in spectacular pseudo-resistance rather than confrontation with those they claim as their enemies.
There is no doubt that in Seattle, and in Genoa, a critique free of mediation by ‘organisers’ and against domination was demonstrated, despite the dates being set by the leaders, and the presence of reformists in the street. Seattle took cops of all types by surprise, and at Genoa we hear of people physically challenging the authority of ‘White Overall’ stewards who were attempting to orchestrate resistance according to their ‘acceptable’ confines. But if domination and oppression are in every part of society and in daily life, attack has no need for dates set by the enemy. We can develop forms of action that can act as concrete examples of why people are resisting the G8, rather than a one-off carnival, a temporary rented social centre and a symbolic street fight against a meeting where the decisions have already been made.
You’ve got to be Kraakers!*
“In Berlin and Hamburg, during the occupation movement of the early eighties, the number of illegal squats was gradually reduced until they nearly vanished. At the same time, the most radical struggles also diminished.” Against the Legalisation of Occupied Spaces by El Paso Occupato and Barocchio Occupato
So the rented social centres are going to act as some sort of focal point for those that want to resist the G8. But with all this energy going into officialdom and cake selling, what will come of direct action and resistance? Will all the form filling, maintenance and café shifts not sap the energy from those who might otherwise be taking part in acts of resistance against what the G8 represents, and direct action?
“If we think we need ‘access points’ to be inspired by our political perspective[s], then surely this is best achieved through practising direct action – not through acquiring crippling mortgages [or rents], obeying a myriad of regulations set by the state and spending years doing DIY of the conventional sort. The energy that has gone into social centres during what has been an action-quiet couple of years may well have found other avenues for action had a lot of very energetic people not been engaged in property development.” Social Dis-Centres, Do or Die Issue 10
In terms of action, there is also the potential for conflict to emerge between ‘users’ of the space, those whose priority is the centre, and those who take action, which may place the centre at risk. This is often a fraught relationship. This was even the case with a squatted social centre in Manchester when those running the social centre tore down another collectives flyposters because they were publicising an action in the city which they thought might bring down repression on the squat.
The squatted social centre A-Spire in Leeds has been about for a number of years now. It has opened and run buildings for parties, film nights, queer events, political workshops and action planning, a free café, an illegal bar, healing spaces, art projects, hanging out space and much more. The last A-Spire happened in December 2003. It had clearly run its course. Attendance was low, the crew was small, the space was formulaic (though probably no less formulaic than the proposed rented spaces). But a network of squatted social centres, in bolder and more daring locations, carried out in increasingly creative ways, is a far less compromised and more combative way of doing things than the sordid compromise of the tenant. As someone once said ‘How can you think freely in the shadow of a church?’. Surely the rented, fully licensed social centre is that church?

“The expansion of the possibilities opened up by the insurrectionary break, the full exploration of the panorama of self-determination and of the "collective movement of individual realization", requires, above all, indomitable individuals who associate on the basis of affinity and the pleasure they find in each others' singularity, refusing every compromise.”- Against Compromise, Willful Disobedience Vol. 3, No. 2


*Dutch for squatters
rogue element

Social Centres have their problems, but the main one isn't that it provides a relatively comftable place for activists to hang out. That's called the pub, which is much more of a drain on activist time & energy in my experience.

Social centres can give a visible palce for people who may be interested in particpating in the movement to find out more. The one I was involved with (as many are) iwas located in socially deprived, high crime area. We were (and still are, thogh I've left now)asked to do favours for people - from talking to their distressed teenage children, to borrowing a ladder. During my stay their we also provided emergency accommodation for refugees, who really didn't have any place to go. We also provided a Library, a bike workshop and an affordable cafe.

As far as activism was concerned, it is a place to make banners storte stuff and a solid bail address. It also provided limited accommodation for activists, both long & short term. We also produce a radical magazine there.


The downside is that they can be a drain on energy on some people, espcially if most people like cynic can't be arsed. Maintence of the building isn't going to start the revolution, nor dealing with the crack-heads next door, but flying to the G8 every sumer ain't going to do that either.

I agree that renting places isn't great, but if we are to apply that to social centres, why shouldn't we apply that where we live as well? Most activists (outside London) live in rented accommodation - be they housing co-ops or not. Of course, the reason why many of us stop squatting and pay some bastard rent, be it a landlord or through a housing co-op, a bank or building society, is that the continuing threat of eviction stops us doing other stuff. Some would say would apply to social centres as well, especially in regard to the specific purpose of facilitating aggro at gleneagles.

However, I would question whether £70,000 would've been better spent on accomodation & other stuff near gleneagles at the time of the summit, and I'm not sure how much having social centres in the south-east is going to assist with wrecking the summit. As for the radicalness last spotted (apparently) in 1999, my experience of visiting social centres is that it is true that alot of people who use to be active use them to hang out with their still active mates, and sometimes I wish they'd piss off. But on the other hand, it is still more likely for an 'retired' activist to come out of retirement if they are still hanging with their anarchist mates.

The fact that there are more indymedia and other cinema nights and so on appearing on the newswire is a sign that more people are engaging in outreach and events that bring people together. Its not shameless self promotion, its a sign that more people around the country are engaging with indymedia and other projects at a local level - which if you ask me is a good thing.

Falling from one action to another with the only interaction of action meetings is an unsustainable way to exist. There has to be a more interwoven fabric and opportunities to be the change you want to see as well as just "facilitating change" by being an action activist.

So social centres are not just wank. Sure theres a critique to be made, but then theres always a critique to me made, about anything.

Hollywood films? oh you mean michel moore and that global warming film - hardly a glut of consumer tinted programming - and anyway seen alongside other radical diy stuff so whats the problem.

Cafe waiters and bar staff? What you mean like cooks and internet engineers? Like resistance kitchens aka teapot and veggies and community wireless internet projects? Yeah mate all useless right? Come on, this is people running their own infrastructures, isnt that all part of this taking control of your life, creating alternatives and working out how things can be done differently?

I would equally ask what is the point of a small number of the usual suspects undertaking direct action and throwing a spanner in the works. You reckon any one living in 'mainstream' world is paying any attention or gives a f*ck for small direct action protests. Occasionally , very occasionally the answer is yes, but usually no.

The point of social centres showing cinema, hosting discussions and teach-ins and other things deemed to be wanky is to share viewpoints and educate each other. That these centres appeal mostly to the usual suspects is may be a reflection of outside prejudice and ineffective marketing of events. That does not mean they are not essential.

Let me explain where I'm coming from. There are some important truths that activists and the wider world needs to wake up to. The mainstream media hide these truths from the mainstream and some of the most important even go undiscussed in 'alternative' media circles. The evidence is there (taken from mainstream media sources if that makes it more true). The awareness is not.

What issues am I talking about: the media silence surrounding the 9/11 truth movement, Peak Oil, sudden onset climate change, depleted uranium and then I could go on to other even more esoteric information. Take 9/11. The evidence is there to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that US government was complicit in 9/11 (see www.septembereleventh.org) and is using the attacks to justify its never ending war (of)on terror and clampdowns on domestic dissent and global empire/new world order fantasies.

We are all connected in this world. We collectively co-create this world and its systems. The powerful are only powerful because with give them power. If we are going to empower ourselves, wake up the mass of humanity and transform the world, we need to be aware of what is truly going on. That means sharing perspectives and information in an open, non-judgmental way. None of us should reckon we know it all. Social centres provide space for this learning and discussion. More power to them.

Our corrupt global elite will not be swept aside by small scale direct action, only by massive direct action with millions taking to the streets, with journalists waking up and demanding the truth, etc. And you will only get millions onto the streets if you can effectively wake up the majority to hidden truths. And for this social centres are an important part of the jigsaw.

Finally we should remember we are many and they (the global elite) are few. All (IMO non-violent) paths have their merits: direct action or eduaction. It is not either / or but both. Too much open criticism of different tactics opens divisions rather than forging unity. Unity, love and awareness of hidden agendas is where it's at. I regularly arrange screenings of 9/11 the Great Deception and other videos, sometimes in yuppy bars and sometimes in social centres. Details on request by email

Ian Neal

people are saturated with the lies and political monoculturalism of the corporate media and they need to be offered alternatives. they need to be introduced to ideas which not only confirm their suspicions that radical change is absolutely necessary now but also that it is practically possible. we need to produce and disseminate our own media as widely as possible. social centres can act as hubs for this kind of work. even if they help to dim the corporate media glare in only a small way, it is still progress.

Interesting comments. I'd also like to think that social centres can act as a hub for diseminating our 'own' media, spreading information and dissent. I am not sure that they are currently achieving that very well as in my experience they rarely attract people in from outside the usual alternative circles. How can social centres appeal to people beyond these existing networks without watering down the politics?

Of course is is still potential useful to have these spaces even if they are only acting as hubs amoung existing alternatives (whatever that might mean in practice). However, even if social centre merely wish to cater for this 'in' crowd, it seems that there is a long way to go.

Everyone seems to live such busy lives and I hear so often that people (who already know of the existance of some of the various social centres) simple can't find the time to attend events - let alone get involved in helping to run the place itself.

I notice that there is to be some discussion about social centres at the EarthFirst summer gathering this year and if I manage to get up there I'd like to see what comes out of it.

Eton Mission in Hackney was originally opened up as a social centre and it worked well until recently, those who had opened it have all gone leaving behind one person who believes he is the owner of the building as he is preventing certain groups from using the building who would benefit the local community in Hackney Wick.

A few months back the Hackney Community Centre Project approached the person supposedly taking care of Eton Mission with a proposal to turn the building into a space which would benefit all those living locally, the group intended to organise events for older people as well as the younger ones, yet this little prat didn't want to let it go ahead, if this person was squatting due to needing a home there are plenty of empty flats and houses around the Hackney area, why should this one person be in a building which should be there to benefit everyone in the community not just him (JOHN).

Is it any wonder why those at the London Fields Lido booted him out because he was only interested in how much cash he could amount for himself at the end of the day, the thing is why does this person need such a large space to call his home, claiming its a social centre, then hiring the place out to the highest bidder, I bet he enjoyed his little European excursion recently, paid for by those who wanted to use the place as a facility for everyone and not just for some little middle class muppet.

This sounds like(negative) macho rhetoric.

Is 'cynic' a professional revolutionary? A 'vanguardist' apart from 'normal' people? 'A 'generation of activists'. What does this mean? Born activists? Activist clique? Yeh., mate, we should be going from 'action' to 'action' like fucking 'action man'.

What does he count as an 'action?' Is it exclusive to 'fucking shit up'? Is cracking a squat or resisting bailifs an action? Does he think that ALL actions shouls and are posted on Indymedia? Are all actions acts of negation.

'Take to the streets'. Spend my life on marches or do you mean become homeless again, or riot for its own sake, sell the Big Issue, or jaywalking?

'craft workshops' - can cynic make his own clothes from cloth, or does he rely ( I can tell you're a 'he' ) on sweatshop clothes. Skill sharing anyone? Is that not 'revolutionary' or is there a revolutionary checklist I must follow?

Revolution means 'change'. Your paragraph here is full of song lyric sloganeering and fairly meaningless. I change my pants quite often? Does that mean 'revolutionary acts are pants? I know it doesn't. Autonomous centres are not cheap replicas and our lives do not consist of this either/or mentality ( and that includes some of the dubious classifcation that goes on ).

"Lets get back out on the streets and in the workplace and get on with rocking the boat."

That phrase is what I call wank. Song lyric mentality.

I could go on in more detail aand challeng other aspects of your argument but I'm sure someone else will.

Art galleries do disturb me somewhat though but that is a large debate in itself as are the problems of fashion activism.

see ya at EF.

..there are some serious points about being made.

The social centres vs occupied spaces debate is really important, we can clearly look to the dutch, italian and german experiences, as examples of radical squat scenes that are past their best because they co-operated with the state so much. Undoubtably there were some fierce battles, but IMO the squats that pushed for legalisation and regulation of what they were doing, were damaging the other squats that wanted to be AUTONOMOUS.
Personally i think all that Dissent cash could have been better spent, imagine how many crow-bars you could have bought for that money. Often people with loads of money have no sense at all. it has to be admitted tho' if squatted places ain't well organised they can end up being a bad scene.
Barcelona has over 40 squatted centres, each with weekly events, free food, its a great example of counter-culture anarchy in action. In the UK it is nowhere near that level yet in any city, not even London. So we need to keep on going, where-ever we are at, cowley, sumac, larc, grand banks, 23topia, bingotek, just keep on fuckin shit up.

Re: article "You can’t rent your way out of a social relationship…"

Agree with this fully .. as Proudhan said, property is theft

Mass squatting is the revolution will be comprised of

Until then, we have to wake up the masses. So, if renting info spaces for propaganda purposes is what people think is required, then fine. lets not be so puritanical here and get a balance. After all, how many squatters refuse the state's support mechanism (dole). (but that's another issue)

i got to meet people i didn't know and get involved with other things in a squatted social centre and i reckon this applies in legal or squatted centres but...

what worries me a bit is that by relying on handouts from a group of rich people (however well intentioned) to create social centres, the energy and resistance of squats is lost because, why create a squatted social centre in an area when you can buy one? also, I think it would be good if we could think of other more sustainable ways of funding our own things. If people with money wish to redistribute it by creating social centres, why are they not creating the social centres directly themselves rather than via proxy? its kinda like paying people to act instead of acting (with the risks etc that involves) themselves. Also wouldn't them directly using the money to set up social centres themselves be a stronger political and public statement on their own behalf about their economic power? Do legal social centres empower people in the same sense as squatted social centres do if the means by which it starts and continues is rich benefactors rather than people sorting shit out for themselves?

I understand that squats are always in danger of eviction and therefore, hard work for people to maintain and stressful in a way that legal social centres aren't, and i'm not against legal social centres. I think the one being set up in manchester has loads of potential. i'm just concerned that we think about how much we should use resources that we don't generate ourselves. relying on other people for money has a price.

true, lots of people claim dole, but theres a difference between being incredibly purist about all this (in which case, you'd be dead, because in this time, there is no way to live without engaging with the capitalist system to a greater or lesser extent, no matter how you feel about it), and not questioning the always essential necessity (imo) to look for ways of being collectively sustainable ourselves. I suppose the answer is to come up with some alternatives but the other problem is that part of the price of legal social centres could be that we stop trying to create alternatives.

The way the article "you can't rent your way out of a social relationship" was posted makes it seem as though Leeds Indymedia have written it. Indeed people above have refered to it as a Leeds Indymedia article. In fact it has nothing to do with Leeds Indymedia. No one involved in Leeds Indymedia was involved in producing the article and Leeds Indymedia doesn't endorse it.

The definition of an activist could possibly the subject of a thesis.
Some are seen, some not.

For a twenty-something schizophrenic using innappropriate medication, activism might mean throwing rocks from a motorway bridge.

Perhaps some senior civil servant might consider joining greenpeace.

Inner city squat dwellers might perhaps spend ten hours per day, just keeping watch...

 http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/angryyet.html,

seems like there was a certain little fellow,

 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/635B6007-9DD0-436C-BFF6-E6521520B1C7.htm

 http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/06-17-04/discussion.cgi.76.html

 http://www.humanunderground.com/11september/pent-feasible.html

 http://www.oilempire.us/remote.html.

One could drone on and on, but instead why not activate your google WEBsearches, with ***drone zakheim===. Then contact your nearest "activist", and ask them to do the same.

Ha, Ha, THEN contact the press.

Or just ask yourself if anyone in the government, or the press did the same thing.
Then perhaps someone can start explaining......



Who knows, one day, after the concert, we might all meet. Imagine that, all the activists, unmasking themselves.

I wonder if there are moles at the pentagon... where?

Auf Wiederlesen.

You have on the one side all those bars,pubs and venues with bouncers,entrance fees,fake robotic relations with the all the stuff that have a forced plastic smile,hierarchical way of treatment,money as the only understandable languange,etc.etc.etc. and on the other free spaces where you got NO rules(if u get told off by an individual for doing something “naughty”it’s the individuals patience u have tried),you get real feelings and reactions from real people,you are provided with a space where you can meet with others “in common crime”,discuss,build networks and organize actions and so on.I disagree with the way you portray it as inactive cause squatting is an action by itself although a lot of people involved in social centres do not do only that.Indeed social centers have negative things to them but I am not writing an article on the positive and negative things about them but a comment on an article that attacks them direct. Personaly I find this article either a form of provocation,either cynic had a bad personal experience at one of the centers and this is his/her way of avenge or cynic feels uncomfortable with her/his inactiveness.There’s a saying that goes something like,if you don’t like what there is out there go and do you own thing,or something like that.Also I have a (friendly )suggestion to make towards the indymedia crew and that would be to create a forum for discussions like this to happen,and create a calendar where all events,happenings,demonstrations,protests,etc. could be posted provided the people calling them want them posted.

Where are you going to have your meetings if you shut down all the social centres?

sean

hi cycnic and everyone else

this is my second attempt at writting a comment on this thread, the last one got lost in the ether after typing for about half and hour, so this one will be briefer.

i am wringing this from the rampart, a relatively new social centre in east london. i've been here since it began about two months ago and before that I was involved in the ex-grand banks and the previous fortess road squat. i've also been a guest at a huge squat social centre in Italy and a non squatted project in germany.

i am perfectly aware of the short comings of the social centre scene at the moment but i certainly don't write them off. i am also aware of the short comings of much of what is laughtingly refered to as direct action (which is mostly little more than conflict, protests, demonstrations and publicity stunts - but that's another debate).

i too am sometimes saddened and disillusioned by social centres (and just about every other element of our so-called movement of movements, but i keep at it. i think so that social centre type projects have lots of potential - thats why i've been putting a great deal of my time, effort, blood and sweat into them (not to mention lossing a great deal of my personal and expensive tat in the process).

perhaps, with the efforts of more people, including the cynics, social centres will be able to live upto their potential. a strong network of well utilised social centres could create a real community of people that are not only aware of the various problems that effect our lives but also empowered to take effective action, both individually and with others, to address the issues. a real alternative to the competitive materialist society that we live in could be built as people communicate and co-operate freely in creating the world we want to live in.

but this potential is a long long way away and yes cycnic, current social centres can be somewhat elitist and sap the energy of people that might have been doing other useful things. there is one way to sort this out and that isn't to criticise but to engage. the more people that get actively involved in social centres, the more the load and pressure of making the places work well will be spread out. the more people are involved the less likely it is that the same few people will end up doing all the work and burning out. the more people are involved the more social centres will start to operate as a true community and alternative to the crap world we live in.

anyway, while i am writing, a few words on the money from rich people issue raised earlier in the thread. my understanding is that somebody died and left some money to a 'group/project' that no longer exists so the money was used to set up a social centres fund. much of that money was split between the existing social centres and some put aside for rented projects and/or start up funds for new social centres related to the G8 summit happening in 2005.

there were concerns raised by one of the earlier posters that this 'rich mans' money would make social centres dependent on hand outs. i don't see this as a realistic concern. for a start the money we are talking about isn't vast sums, just enough to buy a video projector or maybe buy a coffee machine, cooking facilities and get some leaflets and posters printed. it is nothing that couldn't be raised with a few benefit evenings, nothing that anyone will become dependent on.

more of concern to me personally is the idea that some of this money is to go to projects that rent (although I don't know for sure that that is the case). i (like those who posted the article from leeds) think that renting space for a social centre is a bad idea.

i find the criticism of the person who donated the money quite ammusing, even assuming i am wrong and the person is not dead. why critise somebody for giving money to support something they believe in and would like to encourage? why complain that they didn't set up a social centre themselves (you don't know that they haven't). have you never donated money (at a benefit night perhaps) to support something you don't have time to put energy into yourself because you are commited to other things? are your criticisms based on your assumption that the money came from a rich person? the money is only a few tens of thousands, the kind of sum that might be inherited when a parent dies and the house is sold.

anyway, social centres are not suddenly awash with buckets of money from rich people and money isn't really whats needed at social centres anyway. what is needed is people - people with energy.

I would just like to clarify that the comments in the article 'eton mission....sucks' has not been submitted on behalf of, or with knowledge of, the Hackney Community centre project. While this individual is entitle to his/her opinions it is not a group held opinion.

Sounds like I might have hit a raw nerve for some people as my questions seem to have stired up a bit of a hornets nest of responces.

Somebody asked, where would we have meetings if it wasn't for social centres. Well thats easy, we managed before social centres came along tohow did we used to do it, in our homes, back rooms of pubs, in parks, and in the back of vans on the way to an action.

Meetings in social centres might be all right for general endless chit chat but to get things agreed and done require more disiplin than these open public meetings provide and spaces which are not full of spys.

Besides, half the people who come to meetings at social centres are not really commited, they never volunteer energy or time, they just hold up the meetings making proposals (if you are lucky) which they have no intention of actually making happen themselves. Most of them seem to be only there to socialise.

So cut the wank, lets look at what has worked in the past and keep doing it.

I agree with the comment above and the one concerning Eton Mission sucks, the place in Hackney Wick, I know that a person I know did try to get Simone and others involved at Eton Mission doing stuff for the locals in that area, they were prevented from doing so and I wonder why the young chap residing there (John) doesn't want any group doing stuff there when it includes everyone in the community?

There are alot of people who want things done but they don't want to work at it as they'd rather everyone else did the hard work and then they come along and make up all the rules and I would say to the person who made the comment about Eton Mission that if you are a member of the group you mentioned and certain others won't back you up you should fuck them all off now as there only using you.

I have been at the Eton Mission several times and overheard conversations concerning individuals being christians and so on and if this is the reason why John won't allow this group use the Eton Mission due to them being a bit christian then what the hell is he doing in the building when its actually owned by the church?

Honestly whoever you are that the poster Simone is on about, if they are not prepared to back you fuck them off totally and good luck.


Chris

Its the biggest load of bollocks going on right now and this is what I think....

A squatted building, a former pub or factory type place where those staying there have what they insist is a social thing yet they want to charge a fiver or more to get in, and could someone explain who benefits from all this as once you've paid your fiver you then have to fork out one pound fifty for a can of beer that you could buy in any off licence for 99p, so are these social centres taking the piss or what? YES THEY FUCKING ARE!

A fiver!!! what you talking about?
which social centre (as apposed to a squat party) is charging entry?

most of these places are non commercial..

yeah sure, someplaces ask for dontions to cover expenses for special events such as gigs.

you are talking shit, like much of this thread.

comment to ongoing sheffield debate here  http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-sheffield/2004-July/0722-is.html
ive posted it here as a comment.. i got the You can't rent your way out of a social relationship articall via a friend on the desent list.. plus ive had wicked times with some of the leeds people (cookridge oh that dub that banner) any how read on.. i agree with veggies.. ill sit and read all comments.. ill leave you with this..

i posted it to the sheffield list because of my
homelessness.. the open space of the farm going as
quick as it appeared.. on going conversations within
the smaller circles of people that make this movement
about such spaces.. me i have always had the dream of
a long term rented warehouse space to live in and be
creative and be their for the community.. while squats
have there use for the short term.. we need to take
the long view here.. that's why i for one find it a
cool idea to rent space.. it builds and creates a
wider community than squats can ever do.. this comes
from over 20 years of direct squatting and 13 of those
years not having a real stable home.. yes we have
squatted space and made it last for six months.. a
house more than three years.. but that more from luck
than skill.. true on average i can make a space work
for three months.. however the advent of the cja 1994
/ the change to the police and criminal evidence act
1996.. changes to homeless laws 2000.. it has made
squatting more of a challenge for me.. but others have
just given up the ghost due to these hassles.. if we
look under the gloss of new labour.. there is one very
big housing crisis looming.. so i welcome renting
space and squatting as a means to an end.. once i have
re-squatted another space i'll give more time into
writing a more structured article if you feel you have
a input then i'll take your comments on board and i'll
be using some of the leeds article as part of this..

mozaz

I am referring to Eton Mission and the clown living there known as Naked John, since those who originally opened it have left Naked John has on several occassions attempted to put Eton Mission out for hire and also telling those who wish to use it must pay a fiver to go towards refurbishment, some have already paid out to this little bastard who hasn't done any refurbishment whatsoever what he's actually done is pocketed other peoples money to do his own things and not what he claimed to be doing with it and anyway what the fuck would you know about it you clown?

just a quite thought on this thread,

one, who or what was responsibile for the lame 'disclaimer' on htis thread from indymedia, come on guys at least keep the pretense that this is an open forum, offical comments like this reveal how some people are so at home with the position of meeting fanatic/ radcal movement adminstrators and are about as far away from real critical political action it hurts!...., save me someone from 'our' theory peddlers, i'll listen and respect comrades at the barricades not the globalisation experts in the ivory tower.

This is linked to this discussion as i feel that we have continually to put up with cowards that revise the history of what we have been doing and who position themselves as some kinda of radical entrepenuers, determined to exploit some radical chic by reaching new markets of people with 'our' politics. This is both deeply conservative and predictable, the fact is too many people active in this network are academics, careerists ready to wear a safe, acceptable veneer of radical cool influenced on their global travels. Political pillaging of global movements by people who should know better, who do know better, who by virtue of their privalage have traveled to global resistance hotspots and come back depressingly determined to engage in bullshit, conservative projects like renting radical space, its an insult to every grassroots movement that we are prepared to witness the global situation and to come up with this as our radical solidarity, squatted social are of course not without fault and problems but that doesn't mena we opt for less radical/ safe set-up in which to work....we are acting cowardly in respect of global struggle and we are acting far below the radical edge of action that potentially we could get away with here. I'm not saying everyone engaged in the 'rent'ical project are aware of these histories..but certainly the mouthery academic types in the group know that they would be laughed at in other countes in trying to prsent this as much more than a conservative club.

*sighs*
We are fast becoming a nation of talkers. Now it is widely recognised that you lose you audience after a matter of 5-7 min. of speaking. Our short American attention spans refuse to disseminate information after that amount of time. Minds literally wander. In short them, if you truly want something to change with society you must convince people of your cause and after convincing them give them something to do. Problem/Solution. Identify your problem, and mind you just one problem at a time. Provide a solution to this one problem and then in your effective manner of speaking give your audience tasks. Give them goals, give them something to do that leads to the solution. It can be done. Effective speakers have been doing it for centuries. cynic you must be the leader. You have the drive, it simply needs focus, and do one problem at a time. It is time for action, so give your group their orders. We know the problems and many agree so give us the solution. And leeds no offense but you lost me after the 5 minute mark.