Stop Selling Off Our City! Demo in Birmingham, 11 April + free social space weekend of events

update 11 April 2008:

Timetable for Free Social Space Weekend, 11th-13th April

Approximate timetable of workshops and events at the temporary squatted social space which is happening this weekend (see http://april2008.squat.net and http://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2008/04/395249.html ).

Birmingham Free Space - Building occupied!

We have now occupied the building for this weekend's events - so people are needed down there tonight and tomorrow morning to prepare for the demo and weekend workshops... The building is the former Kingfield Heath stationer's offices and warehouse, between Bradford Street and Warwick Street in Digbeth (on the 50 bus route and very near the Spotted Dog pub).

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from imc-uk, 1 April 2008:

Demonstration against gentrification and for free, autonomous social space in Birmingham - meet outside the Council House, Victoria Square at 2pm, Friday 11th April. This is an event for spontaneous protest around these issues. Please bring your banners, whistles and drums!

On Friday 11th April there will be a demonstration in Birmingham City Centre, outside the Council House in Victoria Square. A diversity of voices to be heard in one place, the demonstration will call for free social space in Birmingham. Various groups will be campaigning against the gentrification of Digbeth, the corporate takeover of the city centre and the proposed closure of day centres across the city.

Birmingham, like many other cities, has a desperate shortage of genuinely free social space. Currently there are several developments going on, either carried out or supported by Birmingham City Council, that threaten social space and will increase social exclusion of the poor and minority or marginalised groups:

- Day centres for disabled people, the elderly and those with mental health problems are being closed down across Birmingham, ostensibly as part of a plan to "modernise" social services and reduce segregation and social exclusion, but BCC is set to make large amounts of money from the sale of the buildings and nothing concrete appears to be replacing these services. See previous Indymedia article: https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2008/01/388770.html

- Public space in the City Centre is under threat, with police and private security from shopping centres such as the Bullring colluding to harass those protesting or handing out information about social alternatives in High Street and New Street. See previous Indymedia article: https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2008/03/393179.html

- Buildings all over the city that could be put to use either as affordable housing (something else Birmingham desperately needs) or as non-commercial social space are being left to rot and become unuseable, with the inevitable result being demolition and the land being turned over to private developers. (see articles about previous social centres - The Cottage: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2006/07/344533.html and The Nursery: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/08/296829.html )

Even the commercial spaces we can afford to go to are under threat. These pubs and clubs offer a sense of community which the multi-chain alternatives don't.

- Pub landlords in Digbeth are being harassed by the imposition of Noise Abatement Orders to prevent live music events from happening, which will almost certainly result in them being forced out of business - making room for more "exclusive" luxury flats for the rich and intolerant. See Keep Digbeth Vibrant campaign: http://www.keepdigbethvibrant.co.uk/ and The Stirrer: http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/

Other live music venues in Birmingham which once encouraged DIY culture have also recently either lost their licences or been taken over by corporate chains, eg. the Bear Tavern and the Epic Skate Park.

We stand opposed to both the currently available "options" of patronising and stigmatising state-provided services which segregate us and of commercial spaces which exclude us because we can't afford to go there. We fight back against both capitalism and state paternalism, and demand genuinely free social space in Birmingham!

Meet: Outside the Council House, Victoria Square
2pm, Friday 11th April

This is an event for spontaneous protest around these issues. Please bring
your banners, whistles and drums!

Free Space Collective

[original article]

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Free Social Space weekend of events in Birmingham, April 11th to 13th 2008

from imc-uk, 1 April 2008:

As part of the Europe-wide call for decentralised action for squats and autonomous spaces (see http://april2008.squat.net/), there will be a temporary free space and weekend of workshops and events in Birmingham on the 11th to 13th of April.

CALL OUT: FREE SPACE BIRMINGHAM AND THE EUROPE-WIDE CALL OUT FOR SQUATTED SOCIAL SPACES

Across Europe on the weekend of April 11th-13th, people will be taking over buildings and open spaces left abandoned by state or private concerns. For one weekend we will be united in a festival of resistance across Europe. (see http://april2008.squat.net/ )

Birmingham, UK will be responding to this call and invite you to join in. We're a group of people who have formed an autonomous voluntary collective. We have no bosses to obey, no shareholders to feed and make decisions by consensus, all pulling our weight.

We have chosen to occupy an empty building in the city (close to Birmingham's main rail stations and the city centre) for the weekend, hopefully to improve its neglected condition and open it up for the benefit of the city of which we are a part.

We hope you can join us for this event, and invite you to join our collective or form your own with similar aims.

Come and learn stuff, play games and enjoy the food and company - or come and facilitate a discussion, play a song, sing and dance.

EVENTS:

Workshops including: bike repair and maintenance, consensus decision making, action against climate change, disability rights and politics, 12volt electricity, LETS, permaculture, guerilla gardening, introduction to social centres, housing rights, DIY arts (jewellery making, paper mache, sculpture and making banners)and many more...

Demonstration against gentrification and for free space outside Birmingham City Council headquarters on Friday 11th (see next article)

Entertainment including an open mic night, film showings and live bands (TBC)

Free shop

Food by Birmingham Food Not Bombs

WHY SQUATTING?

There is a long tradition and history of squatting in the British Isles, dating from at least the 14th century, as people occupied land previously worked and occupied in common. The mania for enclosing land as private has always been resisted. The Diggers, levellers and others in the turbulent period of the 17th century occupied land for common use.

The practice of occupying buildings became popular amongst de-mobilised soldiers in the 20th century. Returning home from the Great and Second World wars, finding none of the promised 'homes fit for heroes', squatting empty buildings was a common method of growing viable homes in the cracks and empty matrices of post-war Britain.

More recently, squatting enjoyed a revival in the 1960s and 70s against the disastrous housing and architectural policies of the time. And in the last ten years there has been a revival of squatting to answer the need for social space as well as housing need. Today squatting acts as a bulwark against and alternative to gentrification - the growth of exclusive housing for the rich, pushing out the poor. This is what's happening in Digbeth.

Squats are portals into other societies. Places where real alternatives can be grown and autonomous collective ways of organising and living found free of red tape, in places otherwise left empty and wasted.

There's nothing 'dirty' about squatting. On the contrary, the practice cleans up after the waste and dis-ease produced by capitalistic authoritarianism, transforming wasted space into liberated space. Thus many people prefer the term 'free space' as an alternative to 'squat'.

WHY SOCIAL CENTRES?

A viable social centre can be squatted (occupied), or facilitated through bureaucratic means such as renting or purchase. In recent years there has been a growth in social centres across Britain, from Manchester to Bristol, London to Leeds, Glasgow to Nottingham and in Birmingham too.

In creating a short term occupied social centre we hope to create a free space for the benefit of the city. The only real limit on what can happen in a social centre is the imagination. Since we respect the integrity of the building and don't trash it (unlike its 'owners') we can as a collective open it for positive community projects. Social Centres can and have been used for: film screenings, healthy food and drink, libraries of books and information exchange (including free internet access), freeshops (the free exchange of goods) and all manner of creative/artistic projects,
and political organising around local and global issues.

In these times, when councils are closing and privatising public facilities hard won by our forebears, social centres are an invaluable part of society today, fulfilling an increasingly ignored need.

Email: freespacebrum@riseup.net
See: http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/birmingham_social_centre

[original article]

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