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Title: Reclaim the Streets in Brussels Author: CrimethInc. Date: October 17, 2006 Language: en Topics: Belgium, reportback, demonstrations Source: Retrieved on 7th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2006/10/17/reclaim-the-streets-in-brussels
One month and a half of full time meetings and action. The real activist
way of life. One goal, and working on it. People who knew each other
from before, or not. Different communities meeting up for a special
event. Just because the word passed on. And mails and posters. And
nightlife. And never-ending meetings. Discussions. Why. How. Where to,
from there. Drawing and studying plans. Writings. Paintings. Four hours
of sleep in a week. Yet not much exhaustion. Bad or no food. Changing
clothes from time to time, to disguise. And some burning cars and
buildings in the city to keep up the courage, for some guy who died in
jail. Meetings. Not only plenary, but also just meetings: Beautiful
people. A whole life in the game. Because we’re taking it, this city.
Faith, sometimes. And doubts. And not much time to think anyway. Coffee.
Insomnia visions. The sight of death because of too much life. A
different space/time. No house. Home everywhere. Everywhere where is our
people. “Home is where the heart is.” Tension, stress, fights also.
And then D day. Didn’t even see it come. Suddenly we’ve got to go to the
place, it’s time. From the squat we opened the week before (where now
two hundred and fifty people live) we’ve got to walk four hundred meters
down the boulevard. That’s four hundred meters full of bullet-proof
vans. Down to the place, it seems we’re late. People are gathering
there. Hundreds of them. Those we know and those we don’t know. And the
blue jeeps keep a bit aside. “Permanent street party—let’s be
uncontrollable,” says a banner. The sound system gets on the park and
starts out. “Brussels bastards,” they sing to start off. Hip-hop beats
and hardcore lyrics. And shoutings. Tension is there, liberating. Balkan
instruments and samba bands on other sides. Then we start moving. With
us, hundreds of anti-riot cops. And that’s a party. So there we walk a
hundred meters and we’re encircled. Walls and walls of them. The same
number of people on each side of the war. Three water canons and the
helicopter, just above. Our beats are still stronger. But we can’t walk
anymore. They’re just not listening. As someone is trying to talk,
people dance, juggle, write chalk, screen-print, paint the walls, sing…
But we’ve got to go back. They’re sending us to the park we got out
from. They’re armed and we’re not. It seems like they’re more numerous
than us. But, hey, we go to the right! So eventually they allow us to go
up the boulevard, for five hundred meters. Back to the squat up there.
Some people there have a speech and some strong hip-hop times. And we
have to go down. The same way. Just a stupid come and go on the
boulevard. That’s what they give us. So let’s go down. When we get
there, more lines waiting for us… leading us back to the park. But, no,
we’re staying to the street.
“Rhythms of resistance” playing “Reclaim!”… And hell yeah, the door
opens on the right, we’re making it! A banner drops: “we’re not
counter-current swimmers; we’re going out of the river: EVERYTHING IS
POSSIBLE.” Teargas and sticks beating. Dozens of people fighting back.
Five floors. An old restaurant downstairs. A sudden concert inside, and
infoshop, and paintings. Still hundreds of people outside. Reclaim the
streets, reclaim the city, reclaim your life. Two squats on the same
main boulevard. And we’re inside. “Zero tolerance,” they announced.
We’re inside and the helicopter’s at the window. And everything: the
water canons, at least eight hundred cops. And the captain crying. He
disposed of his men so well, but didn’t expect this. Always have an idea
in advance. They’re filming, that’s all they can do.
Living together. Working on the house. See films about old struggles in
Brussels and have great talks, together with people from the
neighborhood, about resistance and its limits, about communities and
conquests. About Autonomous movements from the 70s in Italy. About last
year’s experience in France. About how to be together and be more
effective. Writing together on urbanism and how to take back our lives
in the metropolis, which has only been built against us. And go walk
around together. And talk. Love affairs. And still no sleep because we
don’t want, because life is too intense, too beautiful for it. And being
together, for the good and for the bad. And plotting together. General
assemblies. Many discussions. Other occupations ahead. Universities and
houses. Because there’s not enough space. And, yes, we’re making it,
this revolution. Only, Revolution is not good enough for us. We’re
building the world. We’re building worlds. We’re making History and
destroying it. Tomorrow we’ll probably be thrown away (this is written
after half past five in the morning, the time they usually come, and
still nothing moving in the streets), and we’ll then be somewhere else:
they cannot get rid of us. There’s something going on. Rebirths.