IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Wanneer: 08/12/2013 - 18:09

We 'critical' volunteers, ex volunteers, activists and other people involved with the ACU call out for a public meeting on the 6th of January. Starting at 19.30. Although the 'ACU' does not comply with this call out, we stress out the need for a public meeting.

The future of ACU

The discussion started after the publication of the article discussed on https://www.indymedia.nl/node/20220 This article shows apart from a lot of frustration some of the real problems. The individual cases are not suitable to be discussed online, but this text will attempt to clarify a bit without going into individual cases.

ACU background
ACU started as a squat and has been legalised later. The ideology is clearly stated in the statutes: self-organised by the people who work there as volunteers, non-hierarchical, consensus based decision making, DIY (do it yourself) attitude, support direct action, environmentally and animal friendly, non-profit, no tolerance towards racism, sexism, homophobia etc, support local artists, initiatives and so on. The goal is to provide space for like-minded individuals and groups who want to organise events.

Power structures
Over time power structures developed. These power structures are based on several factors which include: understanding and further complicating the technical installations, living close to ACU, seniority, control of finances, not sharing skills, … Not everybody who ended up in a position of power has done so on purpose, but these power structures have made certain volunteers and their friends untouchable for criticism.

Secrecy
There is a culture of secrecy in ACU both towards customers as to volunteers. This secrecy is both a means to ignore criticism and a process which enables people to remain in their positions of power. There is secrecy about problems, finances, techniques and ordering of drinks. The reaction tot the the article discussed on https://www.indymedia.nl/node/20220 shows how secrecy and denial is a reflex of ACU.

Personal attacks
Volunteers who want to discuss problems within the collective are met with denial. If they don't back down after this denial the next step is personal attacks during meetings and by email. These attacks include verbal abuse, ridiculing, (threatening with) physical violence, blackmail, forcing people to relive trauma, etc. This has caused many volunteers to leave.

Decision making
ACU is supposed to be a consensus based collective. This is not how decision making works in ACU. When volunteers wants to force their opinion this is done by over shouting other volunteers at meetings, repeating oneself and talking so long that other people just say yes to end the discussion. When people don't like decisions which are made they just ignore the decisions, this sometimes leads to actual sabotage of other volunteers' work.

Racism
There is both subtle and blatant racism in ACU. The blatant form of racism include the use of racist derogatories to describe both customers and volunteers to other volunteers. When people are confronted the tendency is to deny the racist nature of their comments.

Other forms of discrimination
Apart from racism all other forms of discrimination (including homofobia and sexism) are perpetrated in ACU, partly by volunteers. When people are confronted the tendency again is to deny the discriminatory nature of their comments. A sign to make clear that discrimination is not tolerated in ACU has been trashed and later removed by ACU volunteers.

Harassment
There are severe cases of harassment happening in ACU on a daily basis. Usually this is amongst customers and sometimes ACU steps in and tells the harasser to leave. This does not happen in the majority of cases. An other form of harassment is perpetrated by ACU volunteers, who sometimes use their position as ACU volunteer to enable the harassment. There have been instances of harassment by ACU volunteers which would fall under the legal definition of rape, or attempted rape. These cases are met with denial and secrecy.

Lack of political awareness
Despite ACU being set up as a political centre where party-politics are not welcome, and still advertises itself that way, there is a severe lack of political awareness amongst volunteers. These volunteers argue on a regular basis in favour of nights of political parties, or discriminatory political groups, who argue ACU should be a place open for everybody so should also host nights which explain why discrimination “makes sense”.

Finances
There is a lot of secrecy about finances. The books are not presented when asked for at the meeting. The purchase prices of drinks are not provided when asked for in meetings. The costs of the huge amount of expensive lighting (there is more in ACU then in Tivoli which is way larger) are unclear except for the people buying those lights. The mortgage is said to be really high, but hardly any volunteer actually knows how high. It is unclear to most ACU volunteers how a volunteer-run (so no wages to be paid) place with prices comparable to any other bar does not make huge amounts of money which could for example be used for political activities.