[syndicate] Call for International help against eviction of COX18 and all the other squatts and free social centers in Milan/Italy

Thu Jan 29 17:17:05 CET 2009

Dear Seamas, really thanks!!!

Marco Mancuso

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Séamas Cain" <seamascain at gmail.com>
To: <syndicate at anart.no>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: [syndicate] Call for International help against eviction of 
COX18 and all the other squatts and free social centers in Milan/Italy

Dear Marco Mancuso / Digicult,

I signed the petition!  Please keep us informed of what is happening.

Solidarity,

Séamas Cain
http://alazanto.org/seamascain
http://seamascain.writernetwork.com
http://www.mnartists.org/Seamas_Cain

_______________________

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 4:57 AM, Redazione Digicult
<redazione at digicult.it> wrote:
> Hello people at Syndicate
>
> The past one, was a sad and angy week for people living in Milan/Italy.
> Milan's social and cultural life was stricken hard once again. At 7am on
> january the 22nd around 100 policemen entered the squatt COX18
> (http://www.cox18.noblogs.org), which include in its premises the social
> center created more than 33 years ago, the Calusca City Light bookstore,
> founded in 1971, and the Primo Moroni Archive. Looking at the Expo2015 
> that
> will take place in Milan, the Municipality ask for legal possession of 
> some
> buildings in town in order to sell them and earn money. The words of the
> Vice Mayor De Corato were clear: we want to close all the free social
> centers and squatts in Milan, after COX18 and Pergola Tribe, will be the
> turn of Cantiere and Torchiera (other 2 important places of free culture 
> in
> town).
>
> We at Digicult, supporting COX18 and all the squatts and social cultural
> centers in town, ask to all the people that belive in cultural freedom, in
> the importance of the existance of places of free voice and ideas, that 
> are
> against repressive policies against free spaces, to follow and help us as
> much as you can internationally. Spread this call and the future ones and
> sign the Online Petition here:
> http://www.petitiononline.com/cox18/petition.html
>
> ----------
>
> At 7am on january the 22nd around 100 policemen entered the squatt COX18,
> which include in its premises the social center created more than 33 years
> ago, the Calusca City Light bookstore, founded in 1971, and the Primo 
> Moroni
> Archive. The importance of this archive is stunning: it is, without any
> doubt, the most important treasure of memory, books, videos, registrations
> and a considerable portion of counterculture in Milan and in Italy. At the
> present moment the squatt is sealed and under seizure with all the 
> materials
> inside, the books and the magazines of the bookstore and the archive
> included. The damage is unbelieveble!!!.
>
> COX18 was a place where one could encounter people and ideas, where prices
> were accessible for all and where discrimination never took place. A place
> for concerts, workshops, screenings, presentations, meetings, art
> installations, crossing from different art-forms, many of those related to
> electronic and digital culture.
> The Milan town municipality is trying to turn the city into a huge
> commercial centre, destroying all forms of cultural alternatives and 
> closing
> down all those spaces where cultural elaboration is not subject to a 
> purely
> market-oriented vision. It's a processes that is still ging on from the 
> last
> 15 years. We are not in for this.
> We won't abandon this city. We are going to stay here and fight for the
> right to have free social and cultural spaces destined to free forms of
> expression.
>
> The morning of 22nd, a lot of people arrived in via Conchetta (the street 
> in
> which COX18 lives) to defend the social center against the eviction, then
> from  4.00 pm in a spontaneous demonstration and call to everybody and to
> everything to converge at Palazzo Marino, Milano town hall, for a
> participated and determined demotration for Cox18 and against the 
> evictions.
> After this demonstration, many other initiatives were organized in the 
> days
> after, both on the Internet and on the Streets. There was a big response
> from intellectuals, people of culture, normal people from all ages. A big
> concert was organized in a big square in Ticinese disctrict (the same of
> COX18) and a big mobilitation was a great success on Saturday, January the
> 24th, against the eviction of the Cox18
>
> At the moment there is a civil case to define the right of ownership of
> bulding and of the Archive: of course, many other cultural initiatives 
> will
> be organized in the next days, many words will be written, many concerts
> will be organized in public spaces of the town, a big national 
> mobilitation
> will be organized and the Internet will be our friend to spread the word 
> of
> what is happening against Free Culture in Milan/Italy in this historical
> moment
>
> best and thanks to all
> Marco Mancuso / Digicult
>
> ----------
>
> Videos:
>
> http://www.streamit.it/index.htm?v=1f5401a85672f89663ccc9801811eed2
>
> http://new.c6.tv/component/library/?task=view&id=2772
>
> http://milano.repubblica.it/multimedia/home/4476258
>
> http://www.youreporter.it/view_video.php?viewkey=99d28729e0473f7a54e16e2ea4ee0178
>
> http://www.youreporter.it/view_video.php?viewkey=53efdba22c4fc43bad923ceb27a1614f
>
> ----------
>
> LET'S TAKE BACK COX18, CALUSCA AND THE PRIMO MORONI ARCHIVE
>
> At 7am on january the 22nd around 100 policemen entered the squatt COX18,
> which include in its premises the social center created more than 33 years
> ago, the Calusca City Light bookstore, founded in 1971, and the Primo 
> Moroni
> Archive. In a matter of a few hours, the answer of the city was explicit, 
> a
> number of comrades, friends and neighbourhoods, gathered in front of the
> squatt and the armoured police units to confront the unwelcomed guests.
>
> It's clearly an illegal eviction which doesn't consider a legal action
> already going on since july 2008 between the city administration and the
> squatt COX18 with the sole purpose of taking legal possession of the
> building. Vice Mayor De Corato, one the main heads trying to suffocate
> whatever isn't uniformed, gives the responsibility of the action to head 
> of
> the police and the regional administration. The DA affirm he wasn't 
> informed
> of anything until the eviction was on. Not a real problem, cause all the
> protagonists agree on the fact that the economic value of the building
> shouldn't loose value. They're talking about money and economic interest 
> as
> if this was a reasonable explanation for what is going on.
>
> At the present moment. the squatt is sealed and under seizure with all the
> materials inside, the books and the magazines of the bookstore and the
> archive included. The COX18 squatt, the Calusca Bookstore and the Primo
> Moroni Archive represent an important piece of radical and workers' 
> history;
> they testify the possibility to elude the principle of commercialization 
> of
> things and thoughts.We're not alone, we got the company of others squats,
> places of free expression and exchange of ideas. Our survival is the
> survival of freedom of expression, thought and action; of the chance to
> master our own destiny and future, of any chance not to be judged and
> considered for what we can/want to spend.
>
> It's pretty clear we don't consider this 'game' close, we recognize the 
> ones
> refusing the homogeneity of monolithic thought guaranteed by the market 
> and
> this pseudo democracy: they want us compatible, buyers and buyable, 
> ordered
> and uniformed, we'll remain what we know we are: original, always ready to
> spread knowledge, not homogenous and critical to whatever is imposed as
> truth.
>
> ----------
>
> FACTS AND CONSIDERATION ABOUT THE EVICTION
>
> It's not correct to read at warm the eviction of the Cox 18, historical
> social center of street Conchetta in Milan, besides center of the bookshop
> Calusca and the Primo Moroni's archives. Mobilization against the eviction
> is in progress, and the Cox eviction is not a closed fact. The eviction
> occures on January 22  after a question in Parliament against Milan social
> centers adressed, on January 21, to the Home Affair Minister Mr Maroni the
> notorious vice-mayor, and public safety alderman and parliamentary, Mr
> Riccardo De Corato.
>
> Certainly this eviction as well as a value in practice, has a great 
> symbolic
> value in order to state power of abuse over the city by certain
> administrators  sheriffs in double- breast jacket protagonists of politics
> based upon evictions of social center in order to support private interest
> of  meddlers and ndrangheta members who see Milan at the center of a vhirl
> of business for the future Expo. A moltitude of people mobilized this
> morning since dawn after the first news about Cox18 eviction . After some
> hours from the garrison of street Conchetta was born a blockage directed
> toward the mainstreet of the city, stopping traffic of one of the most
> important metropolis arteries. This morning police intervened under
> disposition that town hall has emanated  anadministrative act (act that 
> has
> not been proved) in which was signalled the unauthorized occupation of the
> bulding.
>
> The eviction occured and after a long negotiation the real estate was
> returned by the police to town hall, without clearing away the documents,
> books, furniture. At the moment there is a civil case to define the right 
> of
> ownership of bulding and we all demand reinstate of ownership to the
> occupantes, who after 33 years and a deliberation, made in 1989, that
> granted the real estate to them.
>
>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> -----Syndicate mailinglist-----------------------
> Syndicate network for media culture and media art
> information and archive: http://syndicate.anart.no
> to post to the Syndicate list: <syndicate at anart.no>
> Shake the KKnut: http://syndicate.anart.no/KKnut/
> no commercial use of the texts without permission 