Let's Squat The World.

     Today is the era of peddled illusions, misinformation and double speak, it is also the era of sanitised words, where ugly and cruel events are given a nice sounding name, like "austerity", translates into a vicious and ideological cull of the poor by plundering the public purse for the benefit of the rich and powerful. Another nice sounding word, "gentrification", has much the same meaning when applied as "austerity", a removal of locals from their neighbourhoods and covering the local area in luxury flats away above what the local residents can afford. Not an accident nor an unavoidable action, but a deliberate ideological strategy to maximise profits at the expense of the local community. Of course to the money moguls and the financial Mafia, profit from tourism is much more valuable than the quality of life of the local community.

      It is always encouraging to see the local community fight back, and a powerful weapon in this struggle is the squat. A beacon of resistance to the advances of the profit driven system that dominates our lives. When ever and where ever they occur they demand our unstinting support and solidarity, they are a necessary step in the demolishing of this exploitative greed driven system of capitalism.

This from Enough is Enough:

         We have returned to Ca La Trava, now an empty plot, and we are not planning to leave. This space, until now closed, will again be open to the neighborhood, and we will defend it as we have defended our houses. We want it to be again a trench from which to resist the onslaught of the speculators and give war to all those who are destroying our neighborhood. If in Ca La Trava they make luxury flats we all lose, and we can’t allow that.

       Originally published by Squat Net. Image above by @elmaurz.

These are times of empty phrases, of euphemisms, of symbolisms without content and of politicians contradicting each new declaration. For this reason, we want to make it clear that when we say “Ca La Trava will never be luxury flats” we say it as seriously as possible. The struggle of Ca La Trava is not a lost struggle, and resquatting is not an improvised decision or the fruit of sentimentalism. Our goal is to win and we are convinced that we will.

We live in a Barcelona devastated by speculation and which expels us from our homes to build luxury flats. We need to fight against every rent increase, for every flat, every block and every plot of land. That’s why we have squatted and reoccupied Ca La Trava, we resist and will resist eviction, and that’s why we encourage you all to come closer, participate in this space and make your own this struggle that affects us all.

Let them meet the rising up Barcelona, the rebellious Barcelona, the Rose of Foc. Let’s make our cry a reality.

CA LA TRAVA WILL NEVER BE LUXURY FLATS!
CA LA TRAVA RESISTS!

Ca La Trava
Travessera de Gràcia 154
Barcelona
calatrava [at] riseup [dot] net https://squ.at/r/484z

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk