Hackney Social Centre - Morning report

Dissident Werewolf | 21.04.2008 13:58 | 2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces | Free Spaces | London

Responding to the threatened eviction of the Hackney Social Centre people turned up prepared to resist. Those inside the centre climbed on the roof and raised the black flag as well as dropping a number of banners.

Banner 1

Roof Occupiers

Peek-a-boo

Outside

Spirits were high, tea was drunk, and someone made beans on toast. Reactions from passsers by were mixed, one person blamed the tube not working on weekends on 'people like you', others shook hands, and many read the leaflets that were being handed out. After sitting around for probably 3 hours news filtered through that some bailiffs had been and said they would be back at some point before Friday. Soon after this there was word that the police were outside the Wominspace so we all bailed down there to check it out. The cops had left when we got there so there was more tea and some bike fixing.

The Hackney Social Centre is still under threat, it now looks like the bailiffs could turn up at any time so be ready I guess

Dissident Werewolf

Additions

clarification

21.04.2008 17:19

the bailiffs who came today were NOT high court bailiffs, they were from the county court.
it is not clear if this was a misunderstanding or even a bad joke from the police (who didnt show up at all today)

someone who was in hackney today

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

how to engage local people with autonomous spaces

22.04.2008 09:00

Firstly i think its great that the whole draining and often sadly inevitable eviction process is being made public. We need londoners to engage with the fact that most people have little choice or say over housing issues and are forced to pay high rents. We need autonomous social spaces badly, spaces which are controlled by real people and respond to real needs. I do wonder about the wisdom though of making a banner that says "fuck the law" no matter how noble the sentiment is behind such a statement. For you avereage hacknite walking past, I doubt as if this statement will engage them with the issues at hand, rather it will produce the response "who do these bloody anarchists think they are!". We need to make our radical visions and ideas assessible to ordinary people if we ever want to be effective with our struggle. Please could you have a banner that says "This space is for you" or something a bit more constructive...
Yours in solidarity

barrier breaker

@@@

23.04.2008 10:54

I think 'fuck the law' is a fair comment. I think the Hackney people can understand very well that the law is for the rich against the poor, they see so many examples of that. Up with the resistance!

anarchist Hackney resident

Finish the story

16.06.2008 16:33

I know the space was evicted a week our two after this article was posted. It would be great if somebody could finish the story and explain what happened. Last I heard there was meant to be a 'last party' but that it was quietly repossessed while nobody was in occupation.

curious

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