IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Waar: Takland, Rokin 110 , Amsterdam, Netherlands
Wanneer: 14/12/2023 - 20:00

For context see the radar event: https://radar.squat.net/en/event/amsterdam/tkland-vrijstraat/2023-12-14/...

Rats (Rats Against Terfs)

The RAT-party released a statement on indymedia saying “they are anarcho-nihilist”. Can you explain what that means?

We’re not a party actually. The election system is designed to make every rich person richer and every poor person a fascist. Voting makes people passive, makes them forget the root of every problem in the world: the patriarchal-capitalist-colonial-weapon industrial complex. RAT is a collective and everyone who ‘votes’ for us can join our non-hierarchical assemblies.

Sorry, ‘collective’ it is. The rats have always stayed active in the city, pledging to destroy every bit and make it dirtier and more chaotic. But you can say that the rat population has been effectively diminished in size and has significantly lost momentum. In the meantime the city has been cleaned up and smoothed over a lot, making it more expensive. How will the RAT collective change to make sure they will actually reach their goals?

We won’t change. Our goal is not to be effective, our goal is to smash. We don’t care about the end result, because we live by our truths everyday and can’t trust the future to turn out in our favor. Changing would only mean that we settle for less, and we can’t accept less when it’s peoples lives being at stake. True radical action asks for commitment to the cause, even if it doesn’t help you, or others, or the community, or the cause itself. God is dead, and the landlords are next!

What can the RAT collective mean for the squatters community?

A better question would be: what can the squatters community do for us? We have always stood by the same principles the squatters movement is preaching right now, safe homes for everyone, no matter your income, nationality, gender or race. But you know how humans are, they squat a house, skip a lot of furniture and are happy to live amongst the trash. After a while, the squat becomes more stable. The furniture is replaced with nicer ones, a settlement is reached, they start to pay for water. When we come to visit their palace, they start to scream, want to get rid of the rats you know? Even though we’re exactly the same and fight the same system they do! We steal food, because we have the right to eat. We squat homes because we deserve shelter. If there’s anything we can do for the squatters, it’s this: remind them who they are and to force them to stick with the struggle.

Dogs (Knuffel Krakers Partij)

Dogs, everyone seems to love you. The media, your neighbors, I’ve even heard right wing people speak positively about you …

And we love everyone!

… but lately the squatters have kind of turned against you.

Woof!

Yes, devestating. Your supposed loyalty to the scene doesn’t always shine through and even though you’re a lot in the media, we seldom see you at the direct squatting actions. People have said you’re all bark, no bite. Care to defend yourselves?

People in the scene have a limited view of what squatting is and what it can be. They say things like, “a true squatter is a crust”, or “never talk to the media, unless you have a balaclava on”, or “to call yourself a squatter you actually need to squat a house”. We find these statements dogmatic and most people won’t find them appealing. If we want people to squat, we need to meet them where they’re at and most people are not at a point yet where they want to ‘kill landlords’ or join a revolution. In those cases biting is not the answer, it’s barking. By being cute and making TikToks we introduce people to squatting who can stick around for a long time and who would’ve otherwise never heard of it. That’s how we’re loyal to the scene.

How are squatters to trust dogs if the cops also have dogs? Your political standpoints are already less radical than those of other parties.

As we said, we love everyone. We can even understand why some dogs turn into cops.

Ew.

Woof! As puppies we’ve been trained over and over to instinctively like capitalist things, a lot of us heard growing up that becoming a police dog is the most noble job you could have. Everyone grows up in a capitalist society, everyone has pavlov reactions to the ideology. So what do you do in this situation? Do you blame everyone who’s not yet a radical, pat yourself on your back that you are, and distance yourself from society? We believe that such a tactic makes people uncritical of the ways capitalism has influenced them and it alienates people who have interest in the movement. If people have pavlov reactions to capitalist systems, we should use it to our advantage, manipulate media in our favor and let people see for themselves that the current system is a dead end. Even an old dog can learn new tricks.

Mice (Mouses for Houses)

Okay, so the fascists are winning all around the globe, the climate catastrophe is becoming more inevitable by the second, there are genocides and wars, nuclear weapons are an active threat again, animals are being mass slaughtered and the capitalist system remains unquestioned in everyday discourse. It’s time for action. What are the mice planning to do?

Glad you asked. In our party program we have five mission statements, that can be subdivided in three dimensions: legality, financial feasibility and political pragmatism. If we don’t forget these three dimensions in every action we take, we can make incremental changes in the coming fifteen years. Did I already say that we’re the only party that actually has a program? Most squatters don’t think ahead, they only think about their current squat and get a burn-out trying to get a new one. We mice are industrious, we know the most important work you can do is building lasting structures. That’s why it’s so important that people post their events on radar, write statements on indymedia, create recurring events, and that they read our party program. If you give me your rise-up I can email it to you if you want?

Don’t bother, this sounds all very tedious. Critics have called you boring.

What? Well that’s a bit harsh, I’m not sure how to respond to a criticism that has nothing to do with the political effectiveness of our organizational structure …

Well, the rats are obviously the cooler rodents. While they are looting, you’re happy to settle for crumbs.

Yeah, and who’s doing arrestee support when the rats are looting? Who’s helping the raccoons do research for their houses when they get evicted? Who’s organizing the soup kitchens for legal costs, who makes sure that the movement is fed and looked after? That’s right, the mice. Look, the rats are cool and all, but they are also impulsive. When we get into a house we both have the same goal: squatting and using what’s been left over. Rats are unapologetic, sure, but that also gets them in trouble. They run around the house, being unbothered by the presence of humans and people immediately take action: it’s the stuff that gets us rodents killed. Mice are tactical. We work from the shadows. Only when it’s nighttime do we come out and steal and if we run into humans we immediately hide. But we’re building up structures in the meantime, expanding the family. When the humans find out they have a mice problem, it’s already too late: we’re with hundreds, thousands now and we have won the war. This isn’t a game and we can’t afford to be impulsive. The time for calculated planning and effective organizing is now.

Pigeons (Pigeons from the Future: for a better Yesterday)

Uhm.. you’ve been all around town, mostly at Spui, telling people you’re from the future and here to um.. happen? Can you please try to be more concrete for our readers?

Look, we don’t have any time to waste - time being the most precious anti-commodity we have - so here goes: you’re making a huge mistake by holding these elections and we’re here to warn you. An election ensures that there are now multiple timelines being created in a singular timeline and we’ve tried very hard to make sure the activists of the current present will lead to the right future. A vote for the Pigeon party is the only way to make sure we will stay on that path and to stay out of the hands of the time police. Do you understand?

No, not at all. What's the time police? Look, there’s serious stuff happening, with the climate crisis, fascists, ‘regular time’ police being eco-fascists etc. I feel like I can’t take you seriously right now and there’s no way this mumbling about time traveling is doing anything good for the movement.

This is exactly what we are warning people about!! We’re definitely in the wrong timeline and most people don’t seem to care about where this is heading. Wake up sheeple! You talk about being serious, but that’s not what’s going to radicalize people and stop them from scrolling. The facts have been serious and telling the truth for decades, and that hasn’t changed anything. For most people it’s too big to grasp. Radical change can only be achieved by changing the mundane, the stuff most people don’t even notice anymore. That’s where ideology is hiding, and that’s where we’re hiding from the time police. A provocation, thus a revolution, can only happen in a regular situation, or as we like to call it: situ-ation.

Okay, I think I’m starting to understand what you’re saying. To challenge capitalism we need to think about the daily lives of people and how to improve their circumstances in a way that’s easy for them to understand. Right?

No.

What? I’m giving you a charitable reading over here. What, you just like being weird because being normal is not working?

Roekoe!

What’s happening?

Everything is happening.

Raccoons (The Party Party)

Raccoons, you missed the deadline to submit for the elections, but luckily we could still fit you in at the last minute. What happened?

It was the day of the deadline and all the raccoons were sleeping in. We wanted to be well rested before starting to work on our program, but then we got woken up by a call from our lawyer. Turns out we had missed our court case and were being evicted from our home. We gathered all our friends to barricade, but we also wanted to throw a party to say goodbye to the squat. Before we knew it the cops were in front of our house: apparently we were partying for three days. So now we were faced with two problems. One, we didn’t have a home anymore. And two, we didn’t have a place for our after. Luckily a new squat was just opened, so we could go after there. Then we got busy with scavenging for nice stuff to put in the squat and to decorate our new home. Now we’re two weeks in and we are finally settled down.

Good to hear raccoons. To be honest, sometimes I worry a bit about you. You party a lot, sleep till late and never pay for your food. In short: you guys aren’t very self reliant. You are also now living at a house that was squatted for you. What will happen when the raccoons win?

When the raccoons win, we’re going to throw a tekno party. It’s nice to hear that you worry about us, but it’s also condescending. We are the best scavengers of the scene. You don’t need to pay for your food if you can skip well. Last night we collected five couches, all for our living room of fourteen square meters. We have a guest room with fifteen mattresses, we also have an exhibition there of old electronic devices and we even have a room dedicated to our pallet collection. What other party can say they have a pallet room? That’s right, no one.

On first glance the raccoons seem less political than the other squatters. Is this true?

No: when the riots come, we will be in the front line. But in the meantime we want to celebrate. It’s going great with the squatting movement, we’re growing a lot, we have a lot of new squats and most are staying for quite some time. This was unimaginable a few years ago. Someone needs to drink the bottles we make the molotov cocktails with. Let’s have fun!

COME HELP THE RACCOONS DRINK BEER FOR THE CAUSE
14th of DECEMBER ELECTION NIGHT TAKLAND
ROKIN 110, 20:00
Donations will go to antifascist actions