Anarchists fight the Curfew (Apr)
Reclaim the Night demonstration in Warsaw (Apr)
Anarcho-Syndicalist Success in Cracow (Apr)
Anti-militarist demo in Gdansk (Apr)
Polish Anarchists freed in Chechnya (Feb)
At the beginning, subtle preparations had to be made. Some of our comrades have arranged "peace" from the local thugs and hooligans living next to the building to be squatted, which is situated near a football stadium of the Polonia team (Turks might know it, it recently won with Trabzonspor). These loyalities were based on the common participation in old anti-government 80's riots where everyone from nazis to hooligans and punks participated.
On the 3rd October, a renovation team has stepped in, to make possible a loud opening of the squat next day, with a punk concert, on which there were two foreign crust/hardcore bands, OPERATION from Sweden, and DETESTATION from US, and two Polish, SILIKONFEST and NOWY SWIAT, who moved the 300 people crowd with a classic seventies punk-rock version of "Bandera Nera". The police was observing the squat but didn't make any aggressive moves.
Interesting cross-cultural relations have taken place, local mafia people learned the pogo dance - and seemed to enjoy it - they were friendly because of their aquaintaince with sharp skinheads at the football games. The association of friends of fortifications, with whom we cooperated turned out to be really relaxed (we feared they would be militarist right wing freaks) and marked their appreciation for our barricade work, saying they were happy that the fortress is used for defence purposes again, after 100 years of being left to fall apart.
On the 8th October, our informers gave us a hint about an army attack the next morning on our squat. Meanwhile, a cosy beer bar has been arranged.
The next day, everything turned out to be fine, the officials who came didn't tell us to get out, and didn't pay much attention to the fact of the occupation. We understood it means they will leave us alone at least 3 months, until the sale offer of the fortress, but possibly much longer if they have trouble selling it. We learned with pleasure, that we don't need to let in the police, because they have no legal right to be on military ground.
On the same day, there was a punk market, with t-shirts, tapes, zines, etc., for which a new room has been adapted.
Here is a fragment of my diary from that day, named 'the four elements of squatting':
'We chose WATER as most effective at this moment in time, that means letting the enemy go through, and bridging back together as soon as he's out. We are not yet strong enough for FIRE, and the previously used strategies of EARTH (passive resistance and playing dead), and AIR (getting out and squatting something else at the first problem) are outdated.'
The squat had it's first foreign visitors, from Kazakhstan and Israel. The Polish Kazakh soon disappeared, so i didn't have time to discuss about many things. He looked as if he didn't want to talk about how it is at home. The same was with Georgian alternativists a friend of mine met in Cracow.
On the 17th October, there was a sound system of something called "minimal detroit", with some industrial movies on top of it. Next week an info-shop was planned to be open. The usual division between "squatters" and "anarchists" has taken place, with a conflict of personalities, but we thought it only means the life inthe squat gets more stable.
The 4th week of existence of the squat has seen 4 nazi skinhead attacks, all successfully repelled. The last one was quite scary, they have thrown molotovs on the the defenders on the walls, and managed to come in, and fire on the windows from a signal pistol. They were repelled with rocks thrown on their boneheads, and had to run from a counter-attack sent outside the walls. The whole thing was preceded with a curse festival, and you would have difficulty in interpreting the meaning of some of the things said (going much beyond the boundaries of political correctness), so i drop that. When it was over, there was a nice drum'n'bass sound system, and a fire show (this time only artistic) of the Wroclaw squatters. There were guests from Poznan, Riga and from Oakland, California. The squatting infrastructure has developed, with the purchase of a generator and a of a van, and a second squat was meant to be open. An anarcho-feminist info-shop and meeting place was installed, to replace a similar one on the Rozbrat in Poznan, which ended because of the stupid - in my opinion - fight the feminists provoked there, in which anarchists from Sweden also participated.
On the 4th November, the army has entered the fortress, and we were not yet exactly prepared to fight with them. Maybe we could have resisted more, but in the opinion of most people it wouldn't have changed much.
Currently, moves are being made to legalise a social and cultural center there. I don't know if this can work, but also illegal occupation cannot last for a long time. The period of one month when we had the squat was valuable anyway, it's not a wasted effort. On the 11th November, there was an art exhibition in the fortress, and a brass-band concert, arranged legally this time.
We have received an information from common friends that Marek Piwowski, an film director who made a cult polish movie in the 60's "Rejs" ("The Cruise", i don't know if it's known outside of Poland, it's very specific, anyway everyone here has seen it dozens of times, and many sayings from that film went into colloquial language) wants to film the scene of the attack of nazi-skinheads on the squat. (I don't know who would play the nazis, maybe themselves?)
Some problems reappear again and again in our organisation, like that we at the same time exist and don't exist, bacause it may suddenly appear that no one is taking care of anything, but next day many people may be taking care with a lot of energy, but of totally different things. This might not be the most efficient way of doing things (maybe it's totally unefficient), but it's a million times better than a bureaucratic organisation where everybody's got their place. Unfortunately we were not able to find something in between. Maybe we are damned to make only temporary things.
Warsaw, 21st November 1998
Zaczek
(Some of their efforts are quite pathetic, the UL has created SODA, the Social Democratic Alternative. The UL was also present on yesterday's feminist demo, trying to tell how feminist they are.) The posters made by the socialist party wern't signed, so i thought to my naive self that it was youth self-organising, but nought. Life is hard. However, these suckers might play a role in discrediting some of the more repressive right wing policies.
At last month's city council debate on the introduction of the curfew, the Movement of Alternative Society (RSA) entered the council hall with 60 people, young and less young, and introduced some chaos in the room. There were banners "The night is for everybody," and others, we distributed our leflets to the council parlamentarians, and Klara made a short speech from the speaker stand.
The parlamentarians felt pretty ill at ease, and this is maybe why the police hour DIDN'T pass (by one vote!) The left post-stalinists (who voted against) tried to make us their supporters, but we shouted "NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT" as soon as the vote was over. Before that, we made a happening outside, where we made fun out of the council members, there was 90 young people around, some new people interested to do something with us.
Coming out of the council hall, we left some "presents" made of cardboard for the parlamentarians who voted in favour of the repressive law, these were the "things" they really care about: a bottle of vodka, a nice car, a big house, a dollar bill, and a naked woman.
The parlamentarians ran away.
Zaczek
The happenings titles were "Because she wasn't dressed like she should", "Home can be an unsafe place", and "Rape won't be washed away". At the end a longer theatre piece on gender roles was played by a young theatre group. The organising work was really good, and the emotional tone was quite hot. Maybe about 400 people participated lots of them had torches.
A lot of middle aged women, from some more official women's organisations. Leaflets with psychological advice on how to outsmart rapists have been distributed. All this was pretty impressive, much beyond my expectations. Today they make a Valpurgis Nacht concert in a club managed by an anarchist sympathiser, and tomorrow movies made by Berlin autonomists will be shown (a group of them came with a visit).
Zaczek
by Zaczek
During the last 4 weeks, the workers were picketing the factory 24 hours a day, a couple of them were on hunger strike. The FA organised a collect of food for the families of the workers who didn't have means to live, gave a lot of publicity for the protest, and made pickets of the factory's shop in Cracow.
The media were forced to write well about them. The workers said that the anarchists were the only people who helped them, and that they didn't receive anything from social security. In this situation the government of Cracow was forced to provide workers with financial aid. The salary for 2 months was finally forced out of the owner of the factory, and the money for 2 preceding months must be given until May, or more protests will follow. A court case against the illegal firing of workers for organising protests has been won, and they are all back in the factory.
On 25-26 April, there is a regional meeting of Black Galicja, an anarchist federation of FA-Rzeszow, FA-Krakow and groups from other cities of the region of Galicja.
Four "soldiers" were cleaning the pavement with toothbrushes during half an hour. (In case you don't know, using toothbrushes for cleaning is one of the very intelligent things they make you do in the army, also cleaning the toilet with a gilette razor, among other things).
Lot of media taking zoom pictures of toothbrushes, and generally good response from people around.
For more details on Petke's case, you can contact people from Gdansk FA-RSA-PKU(Pacifist Enlistment Commission):
przemek@ole.most.org.pl
roger@ole.most.org.pl
In Warsaw, we make an action on the 23rd. Also a demo with green federation against the trash incineration plants (3 to be built in Warsaw pretty soon in the same district) on the 14th.
Zaczek, FA-Warszawa
Hi!
This is Przemek from FA/RSA Gdansk, Poland.
My letter concerns polish 23 year old objector - Marcin Petke from Kartuzy near Gdansk. He tried to get civil service but they rejected his application. Other commitions that followed has kept the verdict valid. He received his ticket than & refused to take it.Brougt to court he was sentenced for 6 months inprisonment. Two other appeal courts has mantained the penalty. He will go to prison propably on 19th of March. We already have & also plan to organise various protest in his case (nearest - during poland -wide C.O.-week taking place on 9-15 march).
Poland is now accesing the rip-off nato pact & the international image and public opinion bout poland is very important for the polititians here. We believe that organising protest + solidarity demos in front of polish ambassies or consular points might help Marcin in some way. Therefore we ask for organising such an events.
Thanx for your interest & respond.
Przemek
They are menacing that Rozbraters will have to pay for the performance of the songs of their own bands. Legally, you MUST be a member of this union of performers, and you MUST pay them for the "protection" of your rights.
It's the most comical of the repressions which the squat had to face.
Zaczek
| Back to top of page | Back to the OGB page |
|
|
|