11 june 2005
It’s four a.m. and I just got home. I have no interest in going to bed. This is what happens when the sunlight fades at ten and reappears at five: one feels that the daytime is winning, that being awake is the only possibility.
Today it was gray and there was both too little and too much to do; nothing was required of me but time is running out. So I wasted the day. I hate it and I hated it when it was happening, but this is how I am. When the todo list is long it all gets done, and when there’s no todo list I sit on the sofa by the window and read.
At eight I finally went out to get some groceries. At nine I had dinner while instant messaging Joshua, who is graduating today with several of my UO friends. I wish I could be there.
At midnight Miriam and Marie Carmen and Han picked me up and we went to Frankrijk, a nearby squat. In order to preserve the housing density that makes the Netherlands possible, it is required that property in the city be inhabited. Property owners who leave their buildings empty – derelict warehouses awaiting condominiumisation, for example – risk being squatted, and the squatters have rights. Not robust rights, but rights. In some cases they eventually win court battles to take over their squats, but more often they exist in a sort of limbo, occupying space that for whatever reason is being ignored. Many of the squatters are foreign, and they are often students, artists, musicians, activists, and so on. Squats are independent communities that often open their doors to the larger community for events and performance. Some of the squats run popular dinner nights, movie screenings, bars and clubs. Frankrijk is one.
There is a word in Dutch gedoogde (said sort of like hehdoktah) that does not have a perfect English translation because it is such a Dutch concept, but a close stab would be tolerated. Lots of things in the Netherlands are gedoogde: they are not technically legal, but they are not illegal either. Squat bars are gedoogde. The police know that they exist, and that they don’t have licenses and don’t close when other bars have to close. But there is an implicit agreement that the squats will not be called on this unless there is some sort of change in circumstances – neighbors start complaining, damage is done – because they are not doing harm to anyone. The Dutch are big on letting each other be. And the idea of gedoogde allows them to let each other be without seeming hypocritical and arbitrary in law enforcement, the way, for example, marijuana is treated in the States.
Frankrijk is a typical squat: prime real estate in the center of the city on the busy Spuistraat. It is easy to pick out because in the row of historic facades, it is the one completely covered in graffiti. Really fabulous graffiti, actually. At the door are three guys in black with about a dozen visible piercings between them. They move aside to let us in.
Inside the space is cavernous, unfinished, basement-like. The walls are covered in graffiti, political posters (anti-Bush, anti-fascism, anti-G8), and announcements for concerts and rallies. A crowd that includes a fair number of teenagers clusters around the makeshift bar and the dancefloor. A girl with overdyed hair and black-and-white striped tights sits alone in a corner with her notebook. There are a lot of mohawks.
The jaded part of me laughs a little at the squat scene: the predictable scripted angst, the disconnect from actual mechanisms of change, the obvious hook-up potential that is clearly boosting attendance. But I also recognize the squats as productive and alternative spaces for a group of people that is usually marginalized. Society doesn’t generally consider the young, the restless, or the tattooed when allocating public resources, and they are often made unwelcome in allegedly public spaces. But everyone is welcome at the squats, and they show up, and they are smiling. And I’m not sure I agree that everyone is entitled to rent-free living in the heart of the city, but I’m not sure I disagree either. And I admire anyone with the guts to raise the question.
Today it was gray and there was both too little and too much to do; nothing was required of me but time is running out. So I wasted the day. I hate it and I hated it when it was happening, but this is how I am. When the todo list is long it all gets done, and when there’s no todo list I sit on the sofa by the window and read.
At eight I finally went out to get some groceries. At nine I had dinner while instant messaging Joshua, who is graduating today with several of my UO friends. I wish I could be there.
At midnight Miriam and Marie Carmen and Han picked me up and we went to Frankrijk, a nearby squat. In order to preserve the housing density that makes the Netherlands possible, it is required that property in the city be inhabited. Property owners who leave their buildings empty – derelict warehouses awaiting condominiumisation, for example – risk being squatted, and the squatters have rights. Not robust rights, but rights. In some cases they eventually win court battles to take over their squats, but more often they exist in a sort of limbo, occupying space that for whatever reason is being ignored. Many of the squatters are foreign, and they are often students, artists, musicians, activists, and so on. Squats are independent communities that often open their doors to the larger community for events and performance. Some of the squats run popular dinner nights, movie screenings, bars and clubs. Frankrijk is one.
There is a word in Dutch gedoogde (said sort of like hehdoktah) that does not have a perfect English translation because it is such a Dutch concept, but a close stab would be tolerated. Lots of things in the Netherlands are gedoogde: they are not technically legal, but they are not illegal either. Squat bars are gedoogde. The police know that they exist, and that they don’t have licenses and don’t close when other bars have to close. But there is an implicit agreement that the squats will not be called on this unless there is some sort of change in circumstances – neighbors start complaining, damage is done – because they are not doing harm to anyone. The Dutch are big on letting each other be. And the idea of gedoogde allows them to let each other be without seeming hypocritical and arbitrary in law enforcement, the way, for example, marijuana is treated in the States.
Frankrijk is a typical squat: prime real estate in the center of the city on the busy Spuistraat. It is easy to pick out because in the row of historic facades, it is the one completely covered in graffiti. Really fabulous graffiti, actually. At the door are three guys in black with about a dozen visible piercings between them. They move aside to let us in.
Inside the space is cavernous, unfinished, basement-like. The walls are covered in graffiti, political posters (anti-Bush, anti-fascism, anti-G8), and announcements for concerts and rallies. A crowd that includes a fair number of teenagers clusters around the makeshift bar and the dancefloor. A girl with overdyed hair and black-and-white striped tights sits alone in a corner with her notebook. There are a lot of mohawks.
The jaded part of me laughs a little at the squat scene: the predictable scripted angst, the disconnect from actual mechanisms of change, the obvious hook-up potential that is clearly boosting attendance. But I also recognize the squats as productive and alternative spaces for a group of people that is usually marginalized. Society doesn’t generally consider the young, the restless, or the tattooed when allocating public resources, and they are often made unwelcome in allegedly public spaces. But everyone is welcome at the squats, and they show up, and they are smiling. And I’m not sure I agree that everyone is entitled to rent-free living in the heart of the city, but I’m not sure I disagree either. And I admire anyone with the guts to raise the question.
posted by tortaluga at 4:37 AM
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