Solidarity With Ungdomshuset (2 Viewers)

[Shorty]

2pm Friday November 25th outside the Danish Embassy (Royal College of Surgeons) on St. Stephens Green.

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72860

This should hopefully fit in with Seomra Spraoi's open(ing) weekend and though seomra spraoi is not putting it's name to the protest, it is supporting it, as this highlights the "issue" of social centres and will be sending over a letter of support and solidarity. For those of you who don't know or haven't been to k-town festival,etc. Ungdomshuset is a squatted social centre in Copenhagen that is currently under threat of eviction. Many links and strong friendships between Copenhagen and Dublin have been built up over the last few years and at present, as well as people from Ireland living in Copenhagen and vice versa. People should also be going over for the eviction if and when it happens. !ninjaaaa

 

[W.]

bump

 

[ian bastardcore]

amazing . .. fair play to everyone involved.

 

[W.]

hi all,

as dublin begins developing its own social centre i thought it might
be relevant to discuss some problems i´ve experienced with
ungomshuset, the social centre here in copenhagen. i´m bringing up
these problems only because i think they may be relevant to dublin,
the positive aspects of ungdomshuset(ungeren) far out weigh the
negative, and it still remains for me the best place in copenhagen.
it cant be denied that ungeren is extremely busy, it has
approximately 7 gigs or other events a month, several practice
studios, an infoshop, a weekly soup kitchen, weekly film screenings.
for every gig, activists cook food for the bands, work the door, work
the bar, do lighting and sound. unfortunately, this work is done by a
relatively small ´core group´of activists, numbering between 30 and
40. the commitment of many of these people is amazing, people still
in their teens cooking food for 100 people every week, people
constantly contributing several days a week.
in return for being an activist on a night you get three free
drinks, free entry and food. although this might seem fair enough a
comrade pointed out that people could do the work just fot the reward
without any desire to actually do it. while i dont really think that
this is the case i think the reward scheme (if you´re an activist
four times in a month you get free entry the rest of the month,
almost like a tescos saving scheme)contributes to an activist
mentality, where activists are different to ordinary people. i myself
cant help but feel a little thrill of elitism as i give my friends
free beers, talk to the people behind the bar and otherwise feel
cool. apparently in a local school where many 'alternative' kids go,
ungeren activists are a kind of elite, those who have the keys to the
house in particular. but i doubt that the activist mentality is
created soley by this policy, more likely it is a result of the size
of the group.
this relatively small group of activists is contrasted with the
very large number of people who go to gigs etc, but never become
involved in the house. on some nights the house will be packed with
hundreds of people, availing of the services of perhaps 30 people.
whatever their haircuts or their outfits they're still parasites. the
worst thing is that most (if not all) activists know this and are
frustrated by it. but as my comrade observed, they keep on doing it
anyway. if ungeren is evicted by the government (as is looking quite
likely) these people will just go to another club, they'll probably
give out about the music and the door price but they'll go anyway.
for these people, ungeren is just a club, albeit a cool one.
in my view, ungeren cannot be seen as revolutionary or a threat to
the status quo. one might even say that it helps preserve it by
giving disaffected kids something relatively harmless to channel
their energy into. in fact the argument could be made (and has)
against the eviction that ungeren provides valuable service to danish
society. as an anarchist my goal is the destruction of society, not
contributing towards its orderly functioning. providing a 'working
example of autonomy' is all well and good, but unless autonomy is
inspired we might as well stay home and bake bread.
my question is how can dublin anarchists prevent our creativity
and hard work turning into a service for others to consume? how can
we avoid an us-them mentality? obviously a social centre is composed
of the people who contribute to it, and for that reason i'm confident
that dublin's social centre will reflect the strength of its
movement. i only post these remarks because i'm well aware of the
potential for self reflection and criticism among my comrades in
dublin, i hope that they may be of some use.

solidarity

Worth reading.

 

[Rachel666]

I'm going on the hop for this.

 

[Janer]

I already had the day off school as I had a dental appointment.
Btw nice avatar of Poly Styrene

 

[Corm]

Fuckin nice one.

 

[StreetSeen]

bumpity bump..

 

[faganfest!]

how did it go?

 

[W.]

my time machine is broken, I'll tell you next month.

 

[bohs punks]

good luck with the protests and stoppign the eviction.

as to the above article, forgive me for not being surprised by a punk scene which is out of touch with the real world and has an unofficial leadership, same old, same old.

often this shit happens without people realising it, for example the same few people generally organise the over 18 gigs in dublin, theres a couple of names who seem to do most of the basta stuff and on the last reclaim the city i was at a lot of the kids were defo looking to a couple of well known individuals for "guidance" as to what to do when he squat didnt work out - not much differnet than other scenes or society in general, some produce, some consume, soem recieve reward for producing in the form of acclaimation and "fame" more than finacially but the model of workign is much the same.

perhaps the model of rotating positions, people resigning after 12 months etc used by some grassroots groups to try to prevent elite groups gaining influence would be some kind of model for "gig" collectives or "alternative" groups

maybe these people currently organising stuff should stop and see if the "collective" side of punk actually exists if they really believe in the collective being able to function in our fucked up culture. so what if theres less things on for a while- new people doing things = new ideas etc. surely the process of how things are organised is as important as what is organsied to "anarchists" so take a back seat if you really believe this stuff and let someone else have a shot.

anyway thats my tuppence worth. off to have tea and await the usual faces (including myself) organising the usual things for the forseeable.

 

[mazzyianne]

argh i just wrote a big reply and it pretended I wasn't logged in when I clicked go.
It basically said
We can learn a lot from other social centres.
Seomra spraoi is not a punk or anarchist centre which I think is a good thing. People are intimidated by punks.
It does have a mad gender imbalance, although this week was a little better.
If there are reasons why people are put off or feel excluded please say why, maybe there's stuff going on that could be changed.

There was loads more but I cant be arsed, maybe another time.
Any thoughts?

 

[CITY BABY]

good luck with the protests and stoppign the eviction.

as to the above article, forgive me for not being surprised by a punk scene which is out of touch with the real world and has an unofficial leadership, same old, same old.

often this shit happens without people realising it, for example the same few people generally organise the over 18 gigs in dublin, theres a couple of names who seem to do most of the basta stuff and on the last reclaim the city i was at a lot of the kids were defo looking to a couple of well known individuals for "guidance" as to what to do when he squat didnt work out - not much differnet than other scenes or society in general, some produce, some consume, soem recieve reward for producing in the form of acclaimation and "fame" more than finacially but the model of workign is much the same.

perhaps the model of rotating positions, people resigning after 12 months etc used by some grassroots groups to try to prevent elite groups gaining influence would be some kind of model for "gig" collectives or "alternative" groups

maybe these people currently organising stuff should stop and see if the "collective" side of punk actually exists if they really believe in the collective being able to function in our fucked up culture. so what if theres less things on for a while- new people doing things = new ideas etc. surely the process of how things are organised is as important as what is organsied to "anarchists" so take a back seat if you really believe this stuff and let someone else have a shot.

anyway thats my tuppence worth. off to have tea and await the usual faces (including myself) organising the usual things for the forseeable.

shut up conor!
look ya get plenty of recognition for what ya do ,stop fishin for more.
and we've all heard the storey that you called the shades on a local underage hiphop gig in new ross, sayin the kids were sellin crack automously

 

[bohs punks]

look man i was only making a point!!!

and sure everyone knows it was a quality control issue with the drugs them young lads were knocking out, how are you supposed t get a crack scene goign when the kids are cuttign it down to fuck eh?

on a more city baby friendly note - check out the football hooligan thread on the main board, docu on this sunday on tg4 apparenlty

 

[CITY BABY]

on a more city baby friendly note - check out the football hooligan thread on the main board, docu on this sunday on tg4 apparenlty

that reminds me , can I have me football hooligan Dvds back (if ya found them). and as ya know I belive television is part of a masonic conspirisy ,so I wont get to see this, could ya tape it for me??????

 

[Friday]

[If there are reasons why people are put off or feel excluded please say why, maybe there's stuff going on that could be changed.



yeh i usually feel awkward going to gigs or trying to get involved in stuff cause everyones else seems so close and they only chat in their own circle of friends. Ive known some people for years and i still feel like an outsider with the majority fo them.

maybe im a social in-valid and cant make friends but im not the only person that feels this way sometimes!!

 

[Rachel666]

While I'm at this I'd like to talk to people involved with social centres past and present! basta is trying to get something up and running, any advice is nice.

 

[mazzyianne]

[If there are reasons why people are put off or feel excluded please say why, maybe there's stuff going on that could be changed.



yeh i usually feel awkward going to gigs or trying to get involved in stuff cause everyones else seems so close and they only chat in their own circle of friends. Ive known some people for years and i still feel like an outsider with the majority fo them.

maybe im a social in-valid and cant make friends but im not the only person that feels this way sometimes!!

Hey, I think loads of people feel like that. Seomra spraoi is a fairly random group though and new people are coming aloong all the time. if you want to get involved most people are really nice and if you want to do some work it's a deadly way of getting to know people without feeling awkward.
you can join our mailing list or I could meet up with you before.
I guess it would be nice to have a more open way than by knowing one person for new people to get involved.
New people introduction days?

 

[W.]

dissent used to put someone on the door as a welcomer at events like the training days we held essentially helping people feel less like they were walking into a clique, I thought it worked - but I would.

Anarchist social events go a long way to bridging that gap although they tend to be held in over-18's venues.

 

[spuded]

dissent used to put someone on the door as a welcomer at events like the training days we held essentially helping people feel less like they were walking into a clique, I thought it worked - but I would.

Anarchist social events go a long way to bridging that gap although they tend to be held in over-18's venues.

that's a pretty good idea, the dissent one that is