[ARENA] Fwd: Call for International help against eviction of COX18 and all the other squatts and free social centers in Milan/Italy

Quinta-Feira, 29 de Janeiro de 2009 - 23:20:40 WET

Hello,

The past one, was a sad and angy week for people living in Milan/ 
Italy. Milan's social and cultural life was stricken hard once again.  
At 7am on january the 22nd around 100 policemen entered the squatt  
COX18 (http://www.cox18.noblogs.org), which include in its premises  
the social center created more than 33 years ago, the Calusca City  
Light bookstore, founded in 1971, and the Primo Moroni Archive.  
Looking at the Expo2015 that will take place in Milan, the  
Municipality ask for legal possession of some buildings in town in  
order to sell them and earn money. The words of the Vice Mayor De  
Corato were clear: we want to close all the free social centers and  
squatts in Milan, after COX18 and Pergola Tribe, will be the turn of  
Cantiere and Torchiera (other 2 important places of free culture in  
town).

We at Digicult, supporting COX18 and all the squatts and social  
cultural centers in town, ask all the people that belive in cultural  
freedom, in the importance of the existance of places of free voice  
and ideas, that are against repressive policies against free spaces,  
to follow and help us as much as you can internationally. Spread this  
call and the future ones and sign the Online Petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/cox18/petition.html

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At 7am on january the 22nd around 100 policemen entered the squatt  
COX18, which include in its premises the social center created more  
than 33 years ago, the Calusca City Light bookstore, founded in 1971,  
and the Primo Moroni Archive. The importance of this archive is  
stunning: it is, without any doubt, the most important treasure of  
memory, books, videos, registrations and a considerable portion of  
counterculture in Milan and in Italy. At the present moment the squatt  
is sealed and under seizure with all the materials inside, the books  
and the magazines of the bookstore and the archive included. The  
damage is unbelieveble!!!.

COX18 was a place where one could encounter people and ideas, where  
prices were accessible for all and where discrimination never took  
place. A place for concerts, workshops, screenings, presentations,  
meetings, art installations, crossing from different art-forms, many  
of those related to electronic and digital culture.
The Milan town municipality is trying to turn the city into a huge  
commercial centre, destroying all forms of cultural alternatives and  
closing down all those spaces where cultural elaboration is not  
subject to a purely market-oriented vision. It's a processes that is  
still ging on from the last 15 years. We are not in for this.
We won't abandon this city. We are going to stay here and fight for  
the right to have free social and cultural spaces destined to free  
forms of expression.

The morning of 22nd, a lot of people arrived in via Conchetta (the  
street in which COX18 lives) to defend the social center against the  
eviction, then from  4.00 pm in a spontaneous demonstration and call  
to everybody and to everything to converge at Palazzo Marino, Milano  
town hall, for a participated and determined demotration for Cox18 and  
against the evictions. After this demonstration, many other  
initiatives were organized in the days after, both on the Internet and  
on the Streets. There was a big response from intellectuals, people of  
culture, normal people from all ages. A big concert was organized in a  
big square in Ticinese disctrict (the same of COX18) and a big  
mobilitation was a great success on Saturday, January the 24th,  
against the eviction of the Cox18

At the moment there is a civil case to define the right of ownership  
of bulding and of the Archive: of course, many other cultural  
initiatives will be organized in the next days, many words will be  
written, many concerts will be organized in public spaces of the town,  
a big national mobilitation will be organized and the Internet will be  
our friend to spread the word of what is happening against Free  
Culture in Milan/Italy in this historical moment

best and thanks to all
Marco Mancuso / Digicult

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Videos:

http://www.streamit.it/index.htm?v=1f5401a85672f89663ccc9801811eed2

http://new.c6.tv/component/library/?task=view&id=2772

http://milano.repubblica.it/multimedia/home/4476258

http://www.youreporter.it/view_video.php?viewkey=99d28729e0473f7a54e16e2ea4ee0178

http://www.youreporter.it/view_video.php?viewkey=53efdba22c4fc43bad923ceb27a1614f

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LET'S TAKE BACK COX18, CALUSCA AND THE PRIMO MORONI ARCHIVE

At 7am on january the 22nd around 100 policemen entered the squatt  
COX18, which include in its premises the social center created more  
than 33 years ago, the Calusca City Light bookstore, founded in 1971,  
and the Primo Moroni Archive. In a matter of a few hours, the answer  
of the city was explicit, a number of comrades, friends and  
neighbourhoods, gathered in front of the squatt and the armoured  
police units to confront the unwelcomed guests.

It's clearly an illegal eviction which doesn't consider a legal action  
already going on since july 2008 between the city administration and  
the squatt COX18 with the sole purpose of taking legal possession of  
the building. Vice Mayor De Corato, one the main heads trying to  
suffocate whatever isn't uniformed, gives the responsibility of the  
action to head of the police and the regional administration. The DA  
affirm he wasn't informed of anything until the eviction was on. Not a  
real problem, cause all the protagonists agree on the fact that the  
economic value of the building shouldn't loose value. They're talking  
about money and economic interest as if this was a reasonable  
explanation for what is going on.

At the present moment. the squatt is sealed and under seizure with all  
the materials inside, the books and the magazines of the bookstore and  
the archive included. The COX18 squatt, the Calusca Bookstore and the  
Primo Moroni Archive represent an important piece of radical and  
workers' history; they testify the possibility to elude the principle  
of commercialization of things and thoughts.We're not alone, we got  
the company of others squats, places of free expression and exchange  
of ideas. Our survival is the survival of freedom of expression,  
thought and action; of the chance to master our own destiny and  
future, of any chance not to be judged and considered for what we can/ 
want to spend.

It's pretty clear we don't consider this 'game' close, we recognize  
the ones refusing the homogeneity of monolithic thought guaranteed by  
the market and this pseudo democracy: they want us compatible, buyers  
and buyable, ordered and uniformed, we'll remain what we know we are:  
original, always ready to spread knowledge, not homogenous and  
critical to whatever is imposed as truth.

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FACTS AND CONSIDERATION ABOUT THE EVICTION

It's not correct to read at warm the eviction of the Cox 18,  
historical social center of street Conchetta in Milan, besides center  
of the bookshop Calusca and the Primo Moroni's archives. Mobilization  
against the eviction is in progress, and the Cox eviction is not a  
closed fact. The eviction occures on January 22  after a question in  
Parliament against Milan social centers adressed, on January 21, to  
the Home Affair Minister Mr Maroni the notorious vice-mayor, and  
public safety alderman and parliamentary, Mr Riccardo De Corato.

Certainly this eviction as well as a value in practice, has a great  
symbolic value in order to state power of abuse over the city by  
certain administrators  sheriffs in double- breast jacket protagonists  
of politics based upon evictions of social center in order to support  
private interest of  meddlers and ndrangheta members who see Milan at  
the center of a vhirl of business for the future Expo. A moltitude of  
people mobilized this morning since dawn after the first news about  
Cox18 eviction . After some hours from the garrison of street  
Conchetta was born a blockage directed toward the mainstreet of the  
city, stopping traffic of one of the most important metropolis  
arteries. This morning police intervened under disposition that town  
hall has emanated  anadministrative act (act that has not been proved)  
in which was signalled the unauthorized occupation of the bulding.

The eviction occured and after a long negotiation the real estate was  
returned by the police to town hall, without clearing away the  
documents, books, furniture. At the moment there is a civil case to  
define the right of ownership of bulding and we all demand reinstate  
of ownership to the occupantes, who after 33 years and a deliberation,  
made in 1989, that granted the real estate to them.

______________________________________________
source:
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

susana mendes silva
www.susanamendessilva.com
susana.mendes.silva  gmail.com
skype: susana_mendes_silva

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