WEBVTT 00:00:00.260 --> 00:00:02.608 Greetings Troublemakers ... welcome to Trouble. 00:00:02.608 --> 00:00:04.538 My name is not important. 00:00:05.018 --> 00:00:08.215 From the endless turf battles found within the animal kingdom, 00:00:08.215 --> 00:00:10.721 to the mechanized carnage of modern warfare... 00:00:10.721 --> 00:00:15.755 the drive to control territory is a potent and recurring source of conflict. 00:00:16.515 --> 00:00:21.375 Yet within the artificial borders that fortify the so-called “developed world”, 00:00:21.375 --> 00:00:25.452 this type of conflict, like all others, is carefully managed. 00:00:25.452 --> 00:00:28.219 Which is not to say it doesn’t exist. 00:00:28.219 --> 00:00:32.227 People quarrel with their neighbours all the time, even in suburbia 00:00:32.227 --> 00:00:34.808 … and in places like Chicago’s South Side, 00:00:34.808 --> 00:00:38.563 young men routinely get shot fighting over street corners. 00:00:38.563 --> 00:00:40.298 As groups and individuals, 00:00:40.298 --> 00:00:44.578 we face differing types and levels of conflict in our everyday lives 00:00:44.578 --> 00:00:46.110 ... but at the end of the day, 00:00:46.110 --> 00:00:50.227 the ultimate manager and mediator of these conflicts is the state. 00:00:50.227 --> 00:00:53.657 Through their police, courts and prison systems, 00:00:53.657 --> 00:00:56.840 states enforce laws that reproduce power dynamics, 00:00:56.840 --> 00:01:00.236 restrict our choices, and regulate our behaviour. 00:01:00.236 --> 00:01:02.738 The allocation of resources is determined 00:01:02.738 --> 00:01:05.567 by the logic of the so-called “free market”, 00:01:05.567 --> 00:01:08.955 whereby ownership over land is given official sanction 00:01:08.955 --> 00:01:12.413 by the state-backed illusion of private property. 00:01:12.413 --> 00:01:14.884 The key to the state’s control over our lives 00:01:14.884 --> 00:01:19.526 lies in its ability to regulate all conflict within a given physical area. 00:01:19.526 --> 00:01:23.521 It follows, then, that those of us seeking to steal back the power 00:01:23.521 --> 00:01:28.524 to resolve conflicts on our own terms must first draw a firm line in the sand, 00:01:28.524 --> 00:01:33.583 and deny access to the state and its sophisticated apparatus of social control. 00:01:33.583 --> 00:01:36.343 In order to meaningfully assert collective autonomy, 00:01:36.343 --> 00:01:39.051 we must be capable of defending territory. 00:01:39.051 --> 00:01:42.728 Over the next thirty minutes, we will explore three autonomous zones 00:01:42.728 --> 00:01:46.504 serving as living embodiments of defiance to state rule: 00:01:46.504 --> 00:01:51.336 the ZAD, or Zone to Defend, in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, 00:01:51.336 --> 00:01:56.369 the Unist’ot’en Camp located on the Wet’suet’en territories of so-called BC, 00:01:56.369 --> 00:02:00.294 and the autonomous spaces movement in Ljubljana, Slovenia. 00:02:00.294 --> 00:02:03.203 Along the way, we will speak with a number of individuals 00:02:03.203 --> 00:02:05.057 who are flaunting state authority, 00:02:05.057 --> 00:02:07.884 asserting control over the spaces they inhabit 00:02:07.884 --> 00:02:09.985 ... and making a whole lot of trouble. 00:02:48.293 --> 00:02:50.946 The ZAD has many realities. 00:02:51.836 --> 00:02:55.635 But mostly it’s kind of a community where people try to 00:02:55.635 --> 00:03:00.277 experiment other ways to live their social and political life. 00:03:00.727 --> 00:03:06.091 In the end of the 1960s, somebody came up with an airport project 00:03:06.091 --> 00:03:10.370 for this area, Notre-Dame-des-Landes. 00:03:10.370 --> 00:03:16.263 And during all those years, the bocage itself is put under the status of ZAD 00:03:16.263 --> 00:03:19.090 – which basically means Postponed Planning Zone, 00:03:19.090 --> 00:03:22.317 which was transformed one day into Zone to be Defended. 00:03:22.317 --> 00:03:26.355 So there was a big resistance with lots of different forms of action, 00:03:26.355 --> 00:03:33.908 including sabotage, black bloc demonstrations, quite offensive defense. 00:03:47.268 --> 00:03:51.020 Occupying land is quite similar to a political squat, 00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:54.856 but with a strong dimension regarding the environment 00:03:54.856 --> 00:03:56.953 and the territory we live in. 00:03:57.543 --> 00:03:58.571 During all those years, 00:03:58.571 --> 00:04:02.362 we did not simply organize politically against the airport, 00:04:02.362 --> 00:04:04.979 but we also made connections locally. 00:04:05.699 --> 00:04:07.235 We took care of the land. 00:04:07.235 --> 00:04:09.133 Some of us settled for good. 00:04:09.133 --> 00:04:13.010 And we thought out the future of the ZAD together. 00:04:13.010 --> 00:04:18.363 So it’s been ten years now that structures have been created on the ZAD 00:04:18.363 --> 00:04:21.842 to figure out how to live as autonomously as possible. 00:04:21.842 --> 00:04:27.000 It necessarily means that we have to be able to answer our basic needs. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.753 Like be fed, sleep under a roof, have access to medicine. 00:04:30.753 --> 00:04:35.005 It’s a place that has become a place where you can live for free. 00:04:35.005 --> 00:04:37.072 You can build your house, your cabin... 00:04:37.072 --> 00:04:41.613 The occupation movement was created at a time when some of the peasants 00:04:41.613 --> 00:04:45.203 had called for illegal occupation themselves. 00:04:45.203 --> 00:04:50.450 When squatters came in 2007 they were close to anarchist 00:04:50.450 --> 00:04:53.354 and/or antiauthoritarian ideas. 00:04:53.354 --> 00:04:57.838 Trying to work together and allowing for a diversity of tactics, 00:04:57.838 --> 00:04:59.817 and knowing that that is our strength. 00:04:59.817 --> 00:05:03.405 We’re fighting against this state and this project. 00:05:03.405 --> 00:05:04.526 Also we come here.... 00:05:04.526 --> 00:05:07.690 we fight against things, but we also try to create things together. 00:05:07.690 --> 00:05:11.980 And making things available and trying to share. 00:05:11.980 --> 00:05:16.370 That everybody has possibilities and access to a place to live 00:05:16.370 --> 00:05:19.443 ... to water and food. 00:05:25.413 --> 00:05:29.940 So there’s a kind of hegemonic ideology. 00:05:29.940 --> 00:05:34.825 Diversity of tactics has been much more of a theory for the past few months. 00:05:34.825 --> 00:05:39.224 Certain ideas that become ways of judging people, 00:05:39.224 --> 00:05:41.734 of excluding people from discussions. 00:05:41.734 --> 00:05:45.432 So yeah there’s some kind of really well-organized, 00:05:45.432 --> 00:05:50.852 sort of communist ideas that have taken a lot of place in the past few years 00:05:50.852 --> 00:05:54.476 that will have a kind of discourse about 00:05:54.476 --> 00:05:59.045 “you have to go to our meetings, and if you don’t agree you might have to leave, 00:05:59.045 --> 00:06:04.923 or shut up... or maybe later on we’ll come beat you up with baseball bats.” 00:06:04.923 --> 00:06:08.362 Some people who used sabotage as a tactic have been pressured 00:06:08.362 --> 00:06:13.726 and even attacked for having dug holes in the concrete 00:06:13.726 --> 00:06:16.591 of one of the roads which crosses the ZAD. 00:06:16.591 --> 00:06:21.048 And someone especially was put in the trunk and taken out of there, 00:06:21.048 --> 00:06:25.389 molested and left almost naked in front of a psychiatric hospital. 00:06:25.389 --> 00:06:29.139 And it’s been some years that contesting this hegemonic power 00:06:29.139 --> 00:06:32.293 of the dominant group has been much more difficult. 00:06:32.293 --> 00:06:34.301 They tend to concentrate wealth. 00:06:34.301 --> 00:06:38.139 To concentrate strategic discussions regarding the movement. 00:06:38.139 --> 00:06:39.882 Bonds with local farmers 00:06:39.882 --> 00:06:44.450 and people governing other institutions of the movement. 00:06:44.450 --> 00:06:48.231 And they of course, deny it when it comes to critique. 00:06:48.231 --> 00:06:51.870 We provoked a number of discussions on the place that their reading group, 00:06:51.870 --> 00:06:54.741 called the CMDO, has been held among us. 00:07:05.261 --> 00:07:09.753 But they never recognized, publicly, their group as a group of power. 00:07:09.753 --> 00:07:14.639 And thus, never wanted to share that power with other groups or individuals. 00:07:14.639 --> 00:07:19.976 It was mainly this group of persons which pushed towards 00:07:19.976 --> 00:07:22.800 the negotiations during the evictions. 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:24.963 Well as you can see all around us it’s pitch black. 00:07:24.963 --> 00:07:29.381 People were not expecting the expulsions to happen until 6am this morning, 00:07:29.381 --> 00:07:30.695 local time here in France. 00:07:30.695 --> 00:07:34.292 Tiny groups of people chose their means of actions. 00:07:34.292 --> 00:07:37.356 When the police attack, making barricades, 00:07:37.356 --> 00:07:41.156 going to harass the police in any form, or any way 00:07:41.156 --> 00:07:46.318 ... to throwing back their own grenades or other forms of explosives, 00:07:46.318 --> 00:07:48.280 or molotov cocktails. 00:07:48.280 --> 00:07:51.653 From sabotage attempts ... especially on the tanks. 00:07:51.653 --> 00:07:54.350 We really wanted to see one burn. 00:07:54.350 --> 00:07:57.992 Digging holes to prevent the tanks from going further. 00:07:59.142 --> 00:08:02.361 And of course, erecting barricades and defending them. 00:08:28.819 --> 00:08:32.607 Deep in the central interior forests of so-called British Columbia 00:08:32.607 --> 00:08:35.971 lies the unceded territory of the Wet’suwet’en nation. 00:08:35.971 --> 00:08:39.566 Never surrendered to the settler-colonial Canadian state, 00:08:39.566 --> 00:08:44.652 the gateway to these remote territories is the headwaters of the Wedzinkwah River, 00:08:44.652 --> 00:08:49.095 which lies under the stewardship and protection of the Unist’ot’en clan, 00:08:49.095 --> 00:08:53.013 one of the five house groups that make up the Wet’suwet’en nation. 00:08:53.013 --> 00:08:56.042 For the past decade, the Unist’ot’en have been physically blocking 00:08:56.042 --> 00:08:59.636 the construction of three major oil and fracked gas pipelines 00:08:59.636 --> 00:09:03.270 slated to pass through their territories en route to refineries 00:09:03.270 --> 00:09:05.395 and tankers on the Pacific coast. 00:09:05.395 --> 00:09:08.442 Ground zero in this stand has been the Unis’to’ten Camp, 00:09:08.442 --> 00:09:12.242 constructed in 2010 as a permanent resistance community, 00:09:12.242 --> 00:09:16.075 located smack dab in the path of the originally proposed route 00:09:16.075 --> 00:09:20.638 of the Northern Gateway, Pacific Trails, and Coastal Gaslink pipelines. 00:09:20.638 --> 00:09:24.350 The Unist’ot’en have also established a checkpoint system, 00:09:24.350 --> 00:09:27.706 with access to the territories conditional on completing 00:09:27.706 --> 00:09:30.905 a Free Prior and Informed Consent Protocol. 00:09:30.905 --> 00:09:33.189 This system grants the Unis’tot’en authority 00:09:33.189 --> 00:09:35.499 over who gains access to their territory, 00:09:35.499 --> 00:09:39.327 which has allowed them to keep representatives of the extractive industry 00:09:39.327 --> 00:09:41.704 and Canadian state at bay. 00:09:58.532 --> 00:10:02.503 This territory is unceded Unist’ot’en territory, 00:10:02.503 --> 00:10:05.169 which is part of the Wet’suwet’en territory. 00:10:05.169 --> 00:10:09.467 Knedebease is the hereditary chief that manages this territory, 00:10:09.467 --> 00:10:15.158 and I am a member of that house group, so we manage these territories. 00:10:15.158 --> 00:10:20.281 And in my view, it is not Canada. It’s not BC. 00:10:20.281 --> 00:10:22.534 This has always been Wet’suwet’en territory 00:10:22.534 --> 00:10:25.771 because we’ve never ceded or surrendered it to anybody. 00:10:25.771 --> 00:10:27.341 Doesn’t belong to the crown. 00:10:27.341 --> 00:10:29.553 Doesn’t belong to the federal government. 00:10:29.553 --> 00:10:31.333 Doesn’t belong to the provincial government. 00:10:31.333 --> 00:10:34.617 It belongs to Unist’ot’en. To my people. 00:10:36.566 --> 00:10:38.238 We started travelling through the territories 00:10:38.238 --> 00:10:40.020 back here a lot more frequently. 00:10:40.020 --> 00:10:42.723 And the reason why we started spending a lot of time back here 00:10:42.723 --> 00:10:44.741 is because there were some proposed pipelines that were 00:10:44.741 --> 00:10:47.974 being proposed by industry and by government, 00:10:47.974 --> 00:10:51.503 to begin doing some preliminary work back here to stop them. 00:10:51.503 --> 00:10:55.406 You guys can’t be doing any work in here, because we’ve already told them no. 00:10:55.406 --> 00:10:57.381 That they can’t access our territory. 00:10:58.151 --> 00:11:02.103 Once we found out that industry was trying to force their way in, 00:11:02.103 --> 00:11:08.225 we put our cabin directly in the path of the initial proposal for Enbridge, 00:11:08.225 --> 00:11:11.390 for the bitumen pipeline that was proposed to come through here. 00:11:11.390 --> 00:11:15.379 So the log cabin sits right en route of their GPS points 00:11:15.379 --> 00:11:19.209 of where Enbridge initially had planned to put their pipelines through here. 00:11:19.209 --> 00:11:23.894 At the same time, there was Coastal Gaslink and Pacific Trails Pipeline 00:11:23.894 --> 00:11:27.618 that wanted also to put pipelines through our territory. 00:11:27.618 --> 00:11:29.293 To me that’s not self-sustaining. 00:11:29.293 --> 00:11:31.689 When it’s really quick, it’s boom and bust. 00:11:31.689 --> 00:11:35.841 And they’ll come, and then they’ll be gone and they’ll leave their mess behind. 00:11:38.990 --> 00:11:41.935 As you see on the sign behind it says checkpoint. 00:11:41.935 --> 00:11:46.293 So whenever industry, or just anybody comes through here 00:11:46.293 --> 00:11:49.973 you go through protocol, which you ask a series of six questions: 00:11:49.973 --> 00:11:51.668 Who are you? Where are you from? 00:11:51.668 --> 00:11:53.886 How long do you plan to stay if we let you in? 00:11:53.886 --> 00:11:57.513 And do you work for industry or government that’s destroying our lands? 00:11:57.513 --> 00:11:59.853 And how will your visit benefit Unist’ot’en? 00:12:01.183 --> 00:12:03.685 And one of the key questions that they could not answer, 00:12:03.685 --> 00:12:07.159 truthfully and honestly, was the question where we ask 00:12:07.159 --> 00:12:10.041 “how will your visit benefit the people of this land?”. 00:12:10.953 --> 00:12:14.375 Uhh.. I really don’t think there is any benefit. 00:12:14.375 --> 00:12:17.304 And the reason why we turn them back 00:12:17.304 --> 00:12:20.719 is because they could not pass simple protocol questions. 00:12:21.309 --> 00:12:25.893 The RCMP was created by the government to keep our people off our land. 00:12:25.893 --> 00:12:30.052 So, they are part of the government, so they too don’t pass protocol. 00:12:30.252 --> 00:12:33.602 We don’t trust police, because we’re suspicious that your forces 00:12:33.602 --> 00:12:37.365 would in to scope out our layout so that if there is an injunction, 00:12:37.365 --> 00:12:40.192 you guys would be better prepared about how you’re gonna deal with us. 00:12:43.382 --> 00:12:48.506 The camp serves as a beacon for other people who are struggling with these ideas. 00:12:48.506 --> 00:12:51.040 That they might not be able to stop a project 00:12:51.040 --> 00:12:52.605 from coming through their territories. 00:12:52.605 --> 00:12:53.763 And you know, 00:12:53.763 --> 00:12:57.294 for anybody to stand up to something like that is quite a daunting task. 00:12:57.294 --> 00:13:00.641 But a lot of people who have studied us over the years, 00:13:00.641 --> 00:13:02.909 and learned from the resistance that we’ve taken 00:13:02.909 --> 00:13:06.750 ... they’ve taken those lessons and have started their own actions. 00:13:06.750 --> 00:13:10.742 And there’s an incredible amount of economic and logistical disruption 00:13:10.742 --> 00:13:13.580 that arise from that type of activity. 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:16.515 We are here today in solidarity with the Unist’ot’en camp. 00:13:16.515 --> 00:13:20.026 We wish to share the Unist’ot’en hereditary chief’s clear statement 00:13:20.026 --> 00:13:22.702 that they do not consent to having pipelines built 00:13:22.702 --> 00:13:24.994 on their unceded traditional territory. 00:13:30.534 --> 00:13:35.511 This colonization has always been about the taking of Indigenous lands. 00:13:44.249 --> 00:13:47.394 We always said if we heal our people, then we’ll heal our land. 00:13:47.394 --> 00:13:52.407 The healing center idea came when we realized that 00:13:52.407 --> 00:13:55.597 “why aren’t our own people coming out here to visit us?” 00:13:55.597 --> 00:13:58.862 And even though some do come, there’s not a high number of our own people. 00:13:58.862 --> 00:14:02.388 And we realized that a lot of our people are still struggling 00:14:02.388 --> 00:14:04.246 because of colonization. 00:14:04.246 --> 00:14:06.264 From the Residential School era. 00:14:06.264 --> 00:14:09.202 From the public school system ... lotta racism. 00:14:09.502 --> 00:14:13.277 We realized that a lot of our people are struggling because of trauma. 00:14:13.277 --> 00:14:16.193 And we realized that we needed a healing facility 00:14:16.193 --> 00:14:21.034 that incorporated all the whole wellness thing that we were talking about. 00:14:21.034 --> 00:14:23.517 And we wanna put our culture back into our people. 00:14:23.517 --> 00:14:25.998 So that they will be strong and they will stand up. 00:14:26.708 --> 00:14:28.583 When people come out to a space like this, 00:14:28.583 --> 00:14:32.092 what they experience is land that's actually beginning to go 00:14:32.092 --> 00:14:33.354 through the healing process. 00:14:33.589 --> 00:14:37.190 This land back here that we’re walking through and passing through, 00:14:37.190 --> 00:14:40.139 is land that was devastated from logging already. 00:14:40.139 --> 00:14:42.390 And it’s in a process of healing. 00:14:42.390 --> 00:14:45.985 It actually has berry bushes, so we’re surrounded by berry bushes here. 00:14:45.985 --> 00:14:49.010 There are grizzly bear tracks a half a kilometer from here. 00:14:49.010 --> 00:14:50.922 So when people come up to spend time here, 00:14:50.922 --> 00:14:55.469 they begin to learn about the importance of connecting themselves 00:14:55.469 --> 00:14:59.217 to the planet that is in need of healing. 00:15:04.340 --> 00:15:07.687 While defending territory from state incursions is hard enough 00:15:07.687 --> 00:15:10.147 in rural, or remote natural terrains, 00:15:10.147 --> 00:15:13.925 those seeking to establish autonomous spaces in urban environments 00:15:13.925 --> 00:15:16.070 face an additional set of challenges. 00:15:17.270 --> 00:15:20.144 Cities are sites of concentrated state power. 00:15:20.144 --> 00:15:23.257 Not only are they strongholds of surveillance and repression, 00:15:23.257 --> 00:15:26.275 but they are also areas where the logic of state control 00:15:26.275 --> 00:15:30.716 is thoroughly integrated into everyday social relations. 00:15:30.716 --> 00:15:35.153 This opens the door to recuperation, a process whereby state power 00:15:35.153 --> 00:15:39.346 constantly shifts and adapts itself in order to preemptively cut off 00:15:39.346 --> 00:15:43.539 and assimilate potential threats to its authority and legitimacy. 00:15:43.539 --> 00:15:46.843 This is the balancing act faced by urban squatter movements 00:15:46.843 --> 00:15:50.971 in cities around the world, whose participants must constantly navigate 00:15:50.971 --> 00:15:54.206 the twin minefields of eviction and legalization. 00:15:54.996 --> 00:15:58.279 This means simultaneously avoiding the social isolation 00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:02.513 that would make full-scale repression possible, while also combating 00:16:02.513 --> 00:16:06.185 state and real estate developers’ attempts to transform these spaces 00:16:06.185 --> 00:16:09.617 into nothing more than edgy tourist destinations. 00:16:14.321 --> 00:16:18.111 One of the really important functions of the urban occupation 00:16:18.111 --> 00:16:20.502 is that it becomes a source of inspiration. 00:16:23.802 --> 00:16:29.811 Despite being surrounded by hostile forces - in the form of state, police, capital - 00:16:29.811 --> 00:16:33.338 that it is possible to have a space in which you can experiment 00:16:33.338 --> 00:16:35.112 with different forms of existing. 00:16:35.112 --> 00:16:36.557 With different forms of living. 00:16:36.557 --> 00:16:39.124 With different forms of relating to one another. 00:16:40.461 --> 00:16:45.679 We could speak about three distinct phases of squatting experiments in Ljubljana. 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:48.020 First one is early 90s. 00:16:48.020 --> 00:16:51.090 This is the time of the destruction of Yugoslavia. 00:16:51.090 --> 00:16:54.876 It’s a time of massive changes in Slovenian society. 00:16:54.876 --> 00:16:57.994 This movement had a clear continuity with 00:16:57.994 --> 00:17:03.325 alternative cultural movements of the 80s that was heavily influenced 00:17:03.325 --> 00:17:06.669 by progressive currents such as feminism, LGBT movement, 00:17:06.669 --> 00:17:10.525 anti-militarist tendencies, ecological movements. 00:17:10.525 --> 00:17:14.855 This movement found its highest expression in the squatting 00:17:14.855 --> 00:17:18.042 of Metelkova military barracks in 1993. 00:17:21.682 --> 00:17:26.411 The second wave of squatting can be traced to the late 90s. 00:17:26.411 --> 00:17:31.826 In around 98 and 99, several different initiatives and individuals 00:17:31.826 --> 00:17:35.056 were squatting different spaces in the city of Ljubljana 00:17:35.056 --> 00:17:38.005 and were all evicted from those squats. 00:17:38.005 --> 00:17:41.114 And in the middle of this wave of repression over the movement, 00:17:41.114 --> 00:17:44.947 the community of Metelkova decided to give one empty space 00:17:44.947 --> 00:17:48.544 in the Autonomous Cultural Center to the anarchist infoshop. 00:17:49.714 --> 00:17:53.700 The third wave of squatting in Ljubljana is symbolized 00:17:53.700 --> 00:17:59.105 by the squatting of ROG Factory, which is maybe the biggest squat in Ljubljana. 00:17:59.105 --> 00:18:04.405 It was squatted in 2006 by a new precarious generation 00:18:04.405 --> 00:18:08.849 of younger people that later came to be identified 00:18:08.849 --> 00:18:11.060 as the generation without future. 00:18:12.667 --> 00:18:15.507 It has always been understood by us that the front 00:18:15.507 --> 00:18:18.858 between the two different squats is the same front. 00:18:18.858 --> 00:18:22.444 Because if one of us is attacked, or evicted for instance, 00:18:22.444 --> 00:18:26.154 that will mean a huge attack on the ability of the other 00:18:26.154 --> 00:18:30.260 to actually be part of any kind of political process in the city. 00:18:31.250 --> 00:18:35.823 The relationship of the state has been slightly different in its expression. 00:18:35.823 --> 00:18:39.968 So for instance, when it comes to ROG they have had constant attempts 00:18:39.968 --> 00:18:44.082 of the city to either evict them or attack them in different ways. 00:18:44.082 --> 00:18:47.143 And just two years ago there was the most serious attempt 00:18:47.143 --> 00:18:50.251 to tear down several buildings in that area. 00:18:50.251 --> 00:18:54.245 That attempt was stopped by a broader political mobilization. 00:19:01.665 --> 00:19:04.416 The nature of an urban occupation is that it is faced 00:19:04.416 --> 00:19:08.337 with different kinds of factors that perhaps escape rural occupations. 00:19:08.337 --> 00:19:13.325 Our squats are part of the neoliberal capitalist society 00:19:13.325 --> 00:19:17.803 that is progressing further and further towards social devastation. 00:19:17.803 --> 00:19:22.121 Every time we are faced with the processes that are destroying our cities, 00:19:22.121 --> 00:19:24.100 we always have to question our position 00:19:24.100 --> 00:19:26.251 and our changing position within those processes. 00:19:26.941 --> 00:19:32.078 Metelkova and ROG both generate quite wide public support. 00:19:32.078 --> 00:19:36.407 So this forced the public authorities to be cautious. 00:19:37.427 --> 00:19:41.893 And even though there are several softer attempts to push Metelkova 00:19:41.893 --> 00:19:46.092 into the state of legalization, we haven’t in the last decade 00:19:46.092 --> 00:19:48.591 really been faced with an attempt of eviction. 00:19:49.404 --> 00:19:53.258 That of course brings a different set of questions for all of us 00:19:53.258 --> 00:19:54.852 who are part of Metelkova squat. 00:19:54.852 --> 00:19:58.544 And that is, in such moments, where the city is actually trying to sell you 00:19:58.544 --> 00:20:02.552 as one of its premium tourist destinations ... how do you maintain yourself 00:20:02.552 --> 00:20:05.862 as a space that can still produce radical social movements 00:20:05.862 --> 00:20:07.599 and interventions in the city? 00:20:07.599 --> 00:20:10.663 That of course comes with every question of recuperation. 00:20:10.663 --> 00:20:14.591 How do we still manage to keep our practices DIY? 00:20:14.591 --> 00:20:17.093 How do we still manage to stay ungovernable, 00:20:17.093 --> 00:20:21.331 which is basically the only way not to become a squatting museum, 00:20:21.331 --> 00:20:24.599 or a sort of caricature of what a squat should be? 00:20:26.829 --> 00:20:32.106 Many people and many activities that are cleaned from the city center 00:20:32.106 --> 00:20:37.057 because of the demands of the tourist industry... we all end up in squats 00:20:37.057 --> 00:20:41.992 with different trajectories and different positions that we occupy 00:20:41.992 --> 00:20:44.738 in the current social-economic order. 00:20:45.978 --> 00:20:51.230 This naturally leads to tensions. Some more serious than others. 00:20:51.230 --> 00:20:57.076 And the consequence also can be seen in what recently happened to club Jalla Jalla 00:20:57.076 --> 00:20:59.378 - it was destroyed in a fire. 00:21:00.538 --> 00:21:04.673 As a community this was immediately recognized as an effect 00:21:04.673 --> 00:21:10.362 of the general state in which the whole city is being pushed. 00:21:10.362 --> 00:21:15.481 And our focus is not only to rebuild Jalla Jalla the club, 00:21:15.481 --> 00:21:21.790 but also to rebuild and reclaim our collective capacity to resist 00:21:21.790 --> 00:21:27.114 the processes of devastation that are everywhere destroying 00:21:27.114 --> 00:21:30.742 the conditions of living for so many people in this town. 00:21:41.957 --> 00:21:46.233 Establishing and effectively securing an autonomous space isn’t something 00:21:46.233 --> 00:21:47.807 that happens overnight. 00:21:48.377 --> 00:21:52.689 States cannot afford to let challenges to their legitimacy go unanswered, 00:21:52.689 --> 00:21:55.923 lest they serve as examples for others to follow. 00:21:56.483 --> 00:22:01.080 For this reason, any political attempt to reject state authority over a territory 00:22:01.080 --> 00:22:04.155 is likely to provoke a serious reaction. 00:22:04.825 --> 00:22:07.589 It is therefore crucially important that those involved 00:22:07.589 --> 00:22:11.293 anticipate the state’s response, and are in a strong enough position 00:22:11.293 --> 00:22:13.369 to weather the inevitable storm. 00:22:13.369 --> 00:22:16.823 Autonomous territories allow for the building of dual power. 00:22:16.823 --> 00:22:20.244 They are alternative focal points of legitimacy that can 00:22:20.244 --> 00:22:23.642 effectively challenge the state’s monopoly on authority. 00:22:24.052 --> 00:22:28.763 Indigenous Nations draw this legitimacy from spiritual and cultural practices 00:22:28.763 --> 00:22:34.014 rooted in generations of deep connection to the lands claimed by their colonizers. 00:22:34.874 --> 00:22:38.839 For those of us more alienated from the lands and spaces we occupy, 00:22:38.839 --> 00:22:42.846 the process of asserting autonomy must begin with navigating the tensions 00:22:42.846 --> 00:22:46.395 and contradictions that exist in dominant society, 00:22:46.395 --> 00:22:48.635 cultivating strong bonds of solidarity, 00:22:48.635 --> 00:22:50.987 and fuelling antagonism towards the state. 00:22:54.948 --> 00:22:57.936 We’d rather not pass lessons to anyone. 00:22:57.936 --> 00:23:02.859 If people get inspired from what they’ve done here, it will always be a pleasure 00:23:02.859 --> 00:23:07.097 to share experiences and knowledge of those years spent here. 00:23:07.896 --> 00:23:11.537 I think it has been proven several times that building the infrastructure 00:23:11.537 --> 00:23:15.448 for the movement and of the movement really becomes crucial in moments 00:23:15.448 --> 00:23:19.764 of high and demanding political mobilization in the society. 00:23:19.764 --> 00:23:23.560 To have the kind of spaces that enable you to maintain 00:23:23.560 --> 00:23:25.417 the historical memory of movements, 00:23:25.417 --> 00:23:29.171 that enable us to find different kinds of accomplices 00:23:29.171 --> 00:23:32.509 in our struggles for a different kind of world. 00:23:35.087 --> 00:23:39.047 With the help of allies all around the world 00:23:39.047 --> 00:23:43.857 ... we’ve garnered lots of support through Indigenous, non-Indigenous, professionals, 00:23:43.857 --> 00:23:45.474 ... everyday citizens. 00:23:45.837 --> 00:23:51.077 A lot of people do support what we’re doing and have vocalized it to us. 00:23:51.400 --> 00:23:52.523 We have come here to be with you, 00:23:52.523 --> 00:23:55.325 to make sure you understand you’re doing the right thing. 00:23:55.752 --> 00:23:58.998 There’s always people who come here also who have connections, 00:23:58.998 --> 00:24:03.159 or who have been to other places where people are struggling 00:24:03.159 --> 00:24:05.823 and bring us information. 00:24:05.823 --> 00:24:09.650 And so that creates solidarity between different struggles. 00:24:09.650 --> 00:24:13.957 You need to ensure that the Indigenous people 00:24:13.957 --> 00:24:16.070 who have always lived on those lands, 00:24:16.070 --> 00:24:19.837 since millennia, are involved in that struggle. 00:24:19.837 --> 00:24:21.394 They have long stories. 00:24:21.394 --> 00:24:25.714 Ancient, ancient stories that talk about how and why they have responsibilities. 00:24:28.607 --> 00:24:31.983 The mere fact that a squat exists as a potential 00:24:31.983 --> 00:24:36.702 of development of autonomous ideas, of politically radical ideas, 00:24:36.702 --> 00:24:41.447 is of course already a threat to the state, a threat to capital’s interests. 00:24:41.447 --> 00:24:43.115 And therefore we will never be safe, 00:24:43.115 --> 00:24:45.877 no matter how many selfies tourists make here. 00:24:45.877 --> 00:24:49.818 If it is possible that in a city that is so increasingly gentrified, 00:24:49.818 --> 00:24:53.196 so penetrated with different capitalist forces 00:24:53.196 --> 00:24:57.717 – if it is able to have a space where experimentation with our freedom 00:24:57.717 --> 00:25:00.786 is possible, then it kind of gives us hope 00:25:00.786 --> 00:25:04.336 that other kinds of political projects are also possible. 00:25:04.336 --> 00:25:08.533 And what we would really love to see is more of these kinds of inspirations 00:25:08.533 --> 00:25:12.127 around the world, around different cities, around different communities. 00:25:23.908 --> 00:25:28.996 As for our inspiration, we take as much inspiration as possible 00:25:28.996 --> 00:25:31.249 from as many struggles as possible. 00:25:31.249 --> 00:25:36.339 The Zapatistas movement, even though we’re far far from what they achieved. 00:25:36.339 --> 00:25:39.815 The Landless Peasant Movement, especially in South America, 00:25:39.815 --> 00:25:43.266 or Reclaim the Field network all over Europe. 00:25:43.266 --> 00:25:47.845 Or occupied neighbourhoods, like in Exarchia in Greece. 00:25:47.845 --> 00:25:51.195 Or people protecting seeds like in India. 00:25:51.195 --> 00:25:53.775 Rojava is, of course, an insight 00:25:53.775 --> 00:25:56.489 – especially regarding feminist self-defence. 00:25:56.489 --> 00:26:00.882 Some of us are also really close to the Italian struggle 00:26:00.882 --> 00:26:04.235 against the train line crossing the Val di Susa. 00:26:04.235 --> 00:26:08.793 The most important thing is that we have to ask ourselves “what are our needs?” 00:26:08.793 --> 00:26:12.311 And then find ways through which we can express them. 00:26:15.651 --> 00:26:17.926 We’re absolutely going to win this fight. 00:26:17.926 --> 00:26:22.783 Y’know, this is a fight that belongs to not only us, but all of our unborn. 00:26:22.783 --> 00:26:25.145 This is a fight that belongs to all of our ancestors 00:26:25.145 --> 00:26:29.674 who died fighting for these spaces, and protecting them. 00:26:29.674 --> 00:26:31.748 So this is a fight that doesn’t belong to us. 00:26:31.748 --> 00:26:33.536 We’re not selfish people. 00:26:33.536 --> 00:26:37.810 This fight belongs to all of our Wet’suwet’en people 00:26:37.810 --> 00:26:39.469 – past, present and future. 00:26:43.061 --> 00:26:46.580 Some of us went to fight the world of the airport. 00:26:46.580 --> 00:26:50.780 And the airport was a pretext to fight the system behind it. 00:26:50.780 --> 00:26:52.422 I’d say for me, the ZAD, 00:26:52.422 --> 00:26:57.484 it helps me burn the social and structural boundaries in my head 00:26:57.484 --> 00:27:00.652 ... and then almost everything became possible. 00:27:19.969 --> 00:27:23.890 We live in a historical moment in which the global neoliberal order, 00:27:23.890 --> 00:27:28.372 wracked by overlapping social, economic and ecological crises, 00:27:28.372 --> 00:27:31.479 is rapidly unraveling before our very eyes. 00:27:32.569 --> 00:27:35.063 Yet far from being a cause for celebration, 00:27:35.063 --> 00:27:40.284 the dark new reality rising to take its place promises to be even worse. 00:27:40.284 --> 00:27:43.830 New and resurgent forms of state power are being constructed 00:27:43.830 --> 00:27:46.817 on foundations of hyper-nationalist reaction, 00:27:46.817 --> 00:27:50.845 armed with sophisticated new tools of surveillance and repression. 00:27:51.595 --> 00:27:55.299 A proliferation of civil wars, surging levels of inequality 00:27:55.299 --> 00:27:59.429 and climate change-fuelled catastrophes are provoking historical levels 00:27:59.429 --> 00:28:01.377 of forced human migration. 00:28:01.737 --> 00:28:04.081 But while things look undoubtedly bleak, 00:28:04.081 --> 00:28:07.684 the rapid transformations currently underway have the potential 00:28:07.684 --> 00:28:11.233 to uncover new cracks in the facade of state power. 00:28:11.933 --> 00:28:16.341 Revolutionaries must be ready to take advantage of any and all opportunities 00:28:16.341 --> 00:28:19.159 that these shifting new dynamics may produce, 00:28:19.159 --> 00:28:22.527 establishing a decentralized network of autonomous zones 00:28:22.527 --> 00:28:27.212 that can sustain projects of mutual aid, respond to emergent threats, 00:28:27.212 --> 00:28:29.946 and coordinate solidarity across borders. 00:28:29.946 --> 00:28:30.833 So at this point, 00:28:30.833 --> 00:28:34.467 we’d like to remind you that Trouble is intended to be watched in groups, 00:28:34.467 --> 00:28:39.017 and to be used as a resource to promote discussion and collective organizing. 00:28:39.017 --> 00:28:42.150 Are you interested in offering sustained material support 00:28:42.150 --> 00:28:44.007 for existing autonomous spaces, 00:28:44.007 --> 00:28:47.861 or figuring out what steps would be involved in launching your own? 00:28:47.861 --> 00:28:50.185 Consider getting together with some comrades, 00:28:50.185 --> 00:28:54.627 organizing a screening of this film, and discussing where to get started. 00:28:54.627 --> 00:28:57.936 Interested in running regular screenings of Trouble at your campus, 00:28:57.936 --> 00:29:01.650 infoshop, community center, or even just at home with friends? 00:29:01.650 --> 00:29:03.132 Become a Trouble-Maker! 00:29:03.132 --> 00:29:06.562 For 10 bucks a month, we’ll hook you up with an advanced copy of the show, 00:29:06.562 --> 00:29:09.228 and a screening kit featuring additional resources 00:29:09.228 --> 00:29:12.261 and some questions you can use to get a discussion going. 00:29:12.261 --> 00:29:15.483 If you can’t afford to support us financially, no worries! 00:29:15.483 --> 00:29:20.261 You can stream and/or download all our content for free off our website: 00:29:22.622 --> 00:29:26.704 If you’ve got any suggestions for show topics, or just want to get in touch, 00:29:26.704 --> 00:29:28.281 drop us a line at: 00:29:30.633 --> 00:29:32.468 This episode would not have been possible 00:29:32.468 --> 00:29:36.955 without the generous support of Komunal, Group Groix and Michael. 00:29:36.955 --> 00:29:39.163 Now get out there …. and make some trouble!