Monday June 3rd 2013: Volkseten Vegazulu, Autonomous Centre Köln on the Barricades, Benefit and Infonight about the situation at the AZ Köln, 7pm.
Tonight we are going to talk about the struggle of the Autonomous Centre (AZ) in Cologne (Germany), that is facing an eviction thread from the 1th of July 2013 on. We will talk about our 3 years history of shaping the space, struggling for it, defending it. We will also present our ideas for defeating the coming eviction, we will present our eviction consensus and we also want to sincerely invite everybody to come to Cologne at the begin of July. We are fed up with the destruction of autonomous and emancipatory spaces and are not willing to let this happen any longer.
Come to Joe’s tonight, there will be nice food, we will show plenty of video and photos of our space and let us start to organise.
Love and Rage from AZ Köln Kalk.
In April 2010, the Autonomous Centre Köln (AZ Köln) has been ignited by a squatting action of the former canteen of an industrial complex in Köln-Kalk . Since then it is being continuously shaped into a self-organized and self-determined space for emancipatory politics, for non-commercial art and culture, by a myriad sparks of ideas and actions of beautiful people.
In April 2011 a use contract has been eked out in confrontations with the cities authorities, during their second but unsuccessful eviction attempt.
This use contract has recently been cancelled and is going to end on the 30th of June 2013. According to the plans of the local political parties, here mainly on pressure of the social democrats (SPD) but tolerated by the greens and in favour of the local fascist party (Pro Köln), the building shall be evicted by police, be demolished afterwards and a park ( or more accurate a so called “green stripe”) shall be established on top of its debris. This we won’t let happen, this will be resisted and averted.
We won’t simply leave the space and hand it over to so called cities “authorities” that have not the faintest clue and imagination, that cannot offer any perspective for a free society as they would become obsolete immediately. Therefore we want to turn any eviction attempt into a complete and expensive disaster for the social democrats, the police and the cities administration.
The last eviction attempt failed due to a variety of forms of resistance, actions and support that has been initiated by many people, from and in many different places and cities, that maintained the pressure high over the course of four days, finally forcing the then-owner, the Sparkasse Köln/Bonn, to offer an acceptable agreement that led to the legalisation of our space.
We lost our fear that time and we experienced something unsung: that all the solidarity and support we received filled our hearts with massive joy and that we became aware that we are part of a movement that already started to construct glimpses of the utopia we imagine. We know since then that we are strong enough to resist any eviction attempt again as our imagination of a future starts to become real in those spaces that we can shape and that shape us, according to free and solidary agreements.
Last infos: https://twitter.com/unsersquat
Autonomous Centre Köln: http://az-koeln.org/
Volkseten Vegazulu is a people’s kitchen, every monday and thursday, 19:00 PM, vegan food for 4€ or donation. All benefits go for social & political struggles. No reservation.
We’re always looking for cooks. Any help is welcome in the kitchen. Experience not required. Enjoying it is a must. If you want to know which days are still available in the schedule, send an email to joe[at]squat.net and book yourself the night. You can, of course, also participate by rolling up your sleeves and doing the dishes.
