Upcoming Events

International | Housing

no events match your query!

New Events

International

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Army Sergeant Travis Decker Murdered His Three Children After Being Denied Mental Health Care at JBL... Sat Jun 07, 2025 04:52 | JBLM Whistleblowers
A corrupt military police force and incompetent Commander who denied emergency mental health care and crisis counseling to an American service member resulted in the murder of the sergeant's three young daughters

offsite link Gaza doctor grieves her nine children killed in Israeli strike Sun May 25, 2025 20:00 | imc
Israeli regime continues it's slaughter
'The children were completely charred'

Paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar was treating victims of Israeli attacks when her children were killed by an Israeli strike on their home

offsite link British doctors working in Gaza describe territory as a ?slaughterhouse? Sat May 24, 2025 00:23 | imc
There?s no food getting in so people are starving,? surgeon Tom Potokar says
British doctors working in Gaza have described the territory as a ?slaughterhouse,? where the patients they are treating are severely malnourished.

Plastic surgeons and orthopedic specialists from the UK are based at the Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon specializing in burn injuries, has worked in Gaza 16 times but said this mission had revealed a level of destruction far greater than his last visit in 2023,

offsite link It is time to talk about the Out of Control Immigration. Mon Mar 31, 2025 22:12 | imc
For the last few years since the CV19 scamdemic undocumented immigration into Ireland has surged. No one is allowed discuss it because they do not want any rational debate about it. If you do you are labelled an extremist. However this out of control immigration is fully facilitated by the Irish government and the EU and the shady figure behind the Neo Con movement pushing for endless war, wokeism and globalist agenda.

offsite link [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End Israeli Apartheid & Genocide Thu Mar 06, 2025 22:35 | ipsc
Sat, 22 March 2025, 13:00 Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by over 150 Irish civil society organisations, has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 22nd March.

The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the D?il on Molesworth Street/Kildare Street to bring our demands to the Irish government?s doorstep.

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Starmer to Recognise a Palestinian State Tue Jul 29, 2025 19:30 | Will Jones
Sir Keir Starmer has declared that the UK will recognise a state of Palestine in September unless Israel makes peace with Hamas, in a move critics say treats statehood as a "bargaining chip" and "rewards Hamas".
The post Starmer to Recognise a Palestinian State appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The NHS ?Non-Jobs? Bonanza Tue Jul 29, 2025 17:49 | David Craig
The NHS is in crisis. Seven million on waiting lists with junior doctors on strike and other staff eyeing industrial action. So why is it continuing to appoint "Environmental Sustainability Managers", asks David Craig.
The post The NHS ‘Non-Jobs’ Bonanza appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Farage Demands Apology After Labour Minister Says He is on the Side of Predators like Jimmy Savile f... Tue Jul 29, 2025 15:32 | Will Jones
Nigel Farage has demanded an apology from Labour Minister Peter Kyle after he accused him of taking the side of paedophiles like Jimmy Savile for wanting to scrap the Online Safety Act over free speech concerns.
The post Farage Demands Apology After Labour Minister Says He is on the Side of Predators like Jimmy Savile for Wanting to Scrap Online Safety Act Over Free Speech Concerns appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Is the Tide Turning Against Woke Comedy? Tue Jul 29, 2025 13:00 | C.J. Strachan
Is the tide turning against woke comedy? After watching Andy Parsons bomb at the Ealing Comedy Festival, of all places, with his usual anti-Trump, anti-Reform schtick, C.J. Strachan thinks its days are numbered.
The post Is the Tide Turning Against Woke Comedy? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Leaked Email Blows Apart BBC?s Impartiality Claims Over Gaza Tue Jul 29, 2025 11:38 | Will Jones
A leaked internal email from a BBC Executive Editor reveals that the corporation has issued prescriptive and biased instructions to staff on how to cover the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The post Leaked Email Blows Apart BBC’s Impartiality Claims Over Gaza appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

A Short History of the Copenhagen Squatters Movement

category international | housing | opinion/analysis author Sunday September 03, 2006 19:30author by Michael Scølardt Report this post to the editors

An original edited translation of an article on leksikon.org

The acquisition of Ungdomshuset was part of a large and radical squatting movement that challenged property rights and developed a vibrant culture based around these squatted houses.

The squatting-movement emerged in Copenhagen in the summer of 1981 through the formation of "initiv-gruppen for et ungdomshus" (the initiative group for a youth house). Later on several similar groups started in provincial towns such as Aalborg, Århus and Esbjerg. At this stage, youth groups like these had already been formed in many bigger cities in western Europe, especially in Holland.

"Initiv gruppen for et ungdomshus" was a movement for the creation of a self managed free space for the youth of Nørrebro. The group consisted of youths mainly from the punk-scene, Child Power and later on, youths from the left-wing scene. At first, "initiv-gruppen" tried to get a free space through negotiations with the municipality, but the city council, led by Mayor Weidekamp, rejected the idea. In October 1981, the derelict bread factory Rutana and later the derelict rubber factory Schiønning & Arve, were squatted. On the request of the municipality of Copenhagen both were evicted by the police using beatings and teargas. It turned out a bit different with the squatting of "Abel-Cathrine Stiftelsen" on Vesterbro, which was kept for three months. A lack of internal organisation and responsibility broke down the house from inside and made it possible for the police to evict the house without resistance from the squatters. After a couple of months of soul-searching "BZ-brigaden" (the squatting brigade) emerged with renewed power and in March 1982 Mekanisk Musik Museum (Mechanical Music Museum) and its neighbour "Sorte Hest" (Black Horse) in Vesterbro were squatted, this time with the strategy that active organisation was necessary, and that the houses would not be given up without a fight.

In the spring of 1982 more abandoned houses were squatted, occupied and named: "den Lille Fjer" (The Little Feather), "Bazooka" and "Allotria". "Allotria" made Danish history in 1983 when the police, in a military scale manoeuver tried to evict the house, only to find that all the squatters were gone. A long time before the eviction, they had dug a tunnel that led out of the house under the road. For a moment the squatters were heroes and the police were a laughing stock.

To be a squatter had now become a life form; people's whole lives were focused on squatting a house and making it work as an all embracing community. As in the silent squatting movement in the '70s it was about creating alternative, antiauthoritarian living and life forms, collectively but with respect for the individual - in contrast to the surrounding conformist and controlling society. In the beginning the squatting movement was in its own understanding a youth-movement, and only wanted to relate to subjects concerning this segment, but after a couple of years it developed and turned in to a political movement in which several of the society's oppressive mechanisms were examined and used as a basis for actions. The squatting movement participated in parts of the left wing's activities and wrote its own political agenda with feminist political action that fought radically against women's oppression, with "take- it-yourself" actions, and many anti-capitalist actions.

Bourgeois propaganda made a hateful and very critical image of the squatting movement. Parts of the left wing participated in the creation of this image and were very critical to the squatting movement and its methods. The critique was often directed to the movement's use of masks during demonstrations. Correspondingly, the squatting movement kept a critical distance to the traditional left wing, which was considered conformist, focused on gaining power and without interest in the problems of the youth. This distance gradually disappeared at the end of the 1980's, when the left wing and the squatting movement started to make common actions.

In 1983 the Social Democrats decided on giving a house for the purposes of the youth movement. They chose the empty "Folkets hus" (the peoples house) on Jagtvej which had been built by the worker's movement in 1897 as a headquarters and social centre. It played host to many historic meetings and provided a base for the demonstrations of the worker's movement as well as hosting dances and boxing matches. During the second world war it was a centre of the resistance to the German occupation. It now became Ungdomshuset (the youth house) and has since provided a centre for the counter culture in Copenhagen.

originally written in danish by Michael Scølardt, published at leksikon.org. Translated by S.S.I.N.V.

References:
Fugle større end vinden, VS-forlaget, kbh. 1986
De Autonome, Autonomt forlag, kbh. 1995

© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy