Anarchists have been occupying space
for well over a hundred years now.
The same old problems keep arising
whenever we do so: the police attack and
murder us, the middle class condemns
us, and the capitalists starve us out. But
we keep trying even though it doesn’t get
any easier. If you are a regular reader of
Tides of Flame, you may have gathered
that anarchist history is blacked-out and
nearly forgotten. In the spirit of keeping
the flame alive, we’ll fill you in on some
examples and methods of anarchist occupations. The picture on the front cover of this
issue is of the Ungdomshuset (Youth House) in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Since the turn of the 20th century, the building had housed various leftist col-
lectives. Government repression made it difficult for radical groups to find places
for meetings and so these groups built the house with their own hands. Con-
struction on what was then called the Folkets Hus (People’s House) was fin-
ished in 1897, and for the next decades it served as a hub for subversive activity.
International Women’s Day was created at a meeting in this house in 1910. In
1918, the storming of the Danish Stock Exchange was planned there. The house
was located at 69 Jagtvej, and the symbol of Gemini eventually became its em-
blem. In 1982, a group of anarchists took over the house and named it Ungdomshuset..

The Occupy Seattle protest has begun. As of this writing, people are camping out on Westlake Plaza. There is some promise in this new movement of people. Starting in Greece in 2008, this wave of rebellion has spread from Tunisia, to Egypt, Syria, Spain, England, and now the USA.

But we are worried about this movementof the “excluded” 99%. For instance, we have seen people who are part of the upper 25% of this country entering into the organizing of this movement and trying to hide their middle/upper class, bourgeois-bohemian (or Bo-Bo, as the French say) backgrounds. The upper 25% of the USA owns 87% of the wealth. This includes many individuals who make roughly $100K per year. While this is only a fraction of the income of the wealthiest 1%, it nevertheless separates us poor folk from the yuppies, some of whom are taking lead organizing roles in occupations across the country.