This is What Democracy Looks Like! : The Fight For The Can Vies Social Centre

n May Barcelona was shook by four days of rioting and protest against the eviction of an established social centre, Can Vies.

Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza looks at the history of the building, and interviews the organisers currently fighting its eviction.

Self organised social centre (Centre social autogestionat) Can Vies has been a space for radical politics and community organising for 17 years. It’s been a place where different generations of activists can meet and learn from each other, where hundreds of people have learnt to be a part of a community, participating in the assembly with consensus decision making and collective responsibility.

In May Barcelona was shook by four days of rioting and protest against the eviction of an established social centre, Can Vies.

Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza looks at the history of the building, and interviews the organisers currently fighting its eviction.

Self organised social centre (Centre social autogestionat) Can Vies has been a space for radical politics and community organising for 17 years. It’s been a place where different generations of activists can meet and learn from each other, where hundreds of people have learnt to be a part of a community, participating in the assembly with consensus decision making and collective responsibility.

The CSA is also part of the Sants Neighbourhood Assembly (ABS) which coordinates political and social movements in the area, and several campaigns: against gentrification, migrant solidarity, worker’s struggles, and against state repression. Just having a look at their website you’ll find events from an alternative Pride to radical history, with the spirit of community organising always at its heart. Built in 1879, it was initially a storage space used during the construction of Barcelona’s underground tube system. When the Spanish Civil War broke out it was taken over by the CNT railway workers, who took it into common ownership. It continued to be a railway workers building during the Franco era and housed one of Franco’s class collaborationist ‘vertical unions’. In 1984, Metropolitan Transport for Barcelona (TMB) handed the building over to the CNT.

TMB and the council have been threatening the centre with eviction since 2006 in order to replace it with yuppie flats. The CNT, unsurprisingly, supports the squatters. On the 19th of March 2014 a local court (equivalent to Magistrates Court in the UK) ordered the eviction of Can Vies to take place between the 1st and 30th of April. An online call for solidarity was launched by the CSA against the eviction of the social centre. Several days of action were also called demanding the cancellation of the eviction order. On the 27th of March over a hundred local people from all walks of life went to the Sants-Montjuïc District Office to lodge their appeal against the eviction.

In April and May there were several actions at the nearest tube stations, and on the 20th of May twenty people in yellow t-shirts occupied the District Office. The district regent and the mayor promised to relocate the social centre (in most likelihood away from the area within which it currently resides) but the Can Vies made clear that they aren’t moving anywhere. The Catalan regional police (Mossos d’Esquadra) decided to go in by force on the 26th of May 2014 to evict the residents. The demolition itself triggered four nights of riots in Barcelona, with solidarity demos being called in almost all major cities. The destruction was only partial and in June the works began to rebuild the social centre. Crowd funded donations have so far amounted to a massive 20, 000€, but the appeal is still asking for another 50, 000€ to complete renovation work.

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