Responsibility claim for property destruction at the UvA campus
Hier kun je discussieren over Responsibility claim for property destruction at the UvA campus.
Since some weird conspiracies are going around, even in our own circles, about the protestors wearing black being Zionists, we decided it is time to clear up a thing or two and give our perspective. We were there, and we might have even smashed a screen or two.
The threat comes from inside the house (too)
Different news outlets, the CvB, the mayor and the head of Police would like to have you believe that these acts of “vandalism” are done by non-students and that this is a bad thing. A classic example of divide and conquer. So-called experts have come together and decided that a bunch of furniture and construction material thrown on top of each other somehow showed the barricades were made with such ingenuity and professionalism that it couldn’t have possibly be done by students. We are both flattered by this compliment and insulted by the underestimation of our skills. First, we reject the premise that you have to be a student at the UvA in order to participate in these protests. Universities are public institutions and anyone is not only justified to protest the UvA’s complicity in genocide, anyone with a grain of morality should. We encourage everyone to join, but rest assured the threat comes from inside the house too. We are also students inside of the black bloc.
“I am an outside agitator, if not now, I’ll be one later”
There is nothing that radicalises faster than bulldozers and batons. No outside agitator could have done a better job at escalating and growing the resistance than the UvA board and the mayor did. As we watch the situation in Gaza unfold how can we not get angry? As the university refuses to end the complicity in genocide and instead chose violence and repression our hearts ache and our blood boils. Peaceful sit-ins, petitions and respectfully asking didn’t do shit. Disruption and financial damage allows us to speak in a language the CvB understands.
Our anger is justified, our actions don’t come out of nowhere.
When property was damaged at the UvA this wasn’t just a random act of vandalism. When protestors smash tv screens they express their rage against the dehumanisation of the Palestinian people and the lies media has been spreading. When we smash up the offices of the CvB we reject their authority and expel the board from our university. With these actions we say: when there is complicity in genocide, there will be no social peace.
In solidarity with our comrades in prison. For the freedom of Palestine!
Revolution! Intifada!
Some people in black hoodies.
Why we should believe you?
Why we should believe you?
Not sure how to think about
Not sure how to think about this. I feel it is late. And it feels weird. I am not against violent demonstrations but the vids I saw of black dressed buff guys smashing stuff made me sad and angry. The studenst were startled too. I think if this is done by you its dumb.
This person was allegedly
This person was allegedly later arrested on a demo by police and 35 years old, that cant be a student or maybe a really lazy masters one.
serious a student can be any
serious a student can be any age from 18 years old and even younger!
So What fucking yuppie!
So What fucking yuppie!
it looked like random bs
it looked like random bs stuff and imho it hurts the movement. And again: DONT DESTROY STUDENTPROPERTY. Its not their uni. Cut it out and destroy your own place of work/ school, for all I care, if you have that urge.
Let's be clear this author
Let's be clear this author does not speak on behalf of the students, because author is not aware of the action consensus concerning "Our behaviour inside the encampment and during the action"
Oh you mean the action
Oh you mean the action consensus that was NOT MADE DURING AN ASSEMBLY? Because I, a student, do not agree in any way with the politics of this consensus or these so-called leaders of this movement. Reformism has not gotten anyobe anywhere. I think the other piece, reflecting on the Maagdenhuis occupation, was enlightening and should be taken seriously.
be so fucking for real
I don't care if you're not a student and I think some destruction of property is okay (for the barricades etc). But what is even the purpose of destroying the screens? It doesn't serve a purpose in the protest. At least not one I can discern. When you use desks and bricks to build a barricade, you do it to protect the demonstration. But randomly smashing screens? There just isn't a purpose. If you're pissed off, then find a better way to deal with that. I think it's incredibly childish tbh.
You aren't there for yourself, but for the Palestinian people, you aren't there by yourself, but with other protestors. Keep to shared discipline at demonstration and do things with an actual purpose. Grow the fuck up.
If you are there for the
If you are there for the palestinians, you are not there for the israelites.
feeding dualism. feeding the machine of divide and conquer.
Re: Responsibility claim for property destruction at the UvA cam
Met de uitspraak "we are peaceful, what are you" pretenderen jullie dat het een geweldloos protest zou zijn,
Zou me niet verbazen als jullie dezelfde leugen aan de meeprotesterende studenten verteld hebben.
Black Bloc? Really?
If you are really Anarchists and call yourself Black Bloc, you have basically hijacked the Student Protest. You are not even actual students.
How low have you fallen since your glory days as protection and activist detail during the Eurotop protests since the 90's.
You have understood nothing about the struggle. You are, what many of us in the Old Guard call, severely misguided.
Claiming to be Anarchists but when asked about Anarchism you cannot even name one Anarchic theory let alone know what it all stands and stood
for since the late 19th century. Talking about severely damaging a movement. You just did.
How clever. Destroying simple and completely unimportant material things here. Which does not at all matter because the destruction in Gaza itself is a thousand times worse. Why not show some real bravery and travel to Gaza to actually fight against the IDF? Several actual Anarchists and Antifascists fought with bravery against D'aesh! But no, that is stuff you cannot handle because that is a real war situation. You are more comfortable destroying some university computers, painting some walls with environmentally unfriendly spray-paints from a can and then trying to win a battle against the Riot Police which utterly failed because you forgot the one thing, the most important one, why Black Bloc was founded in the first place.
TO PROTECT THE PROTESTERS AGAINST THE RIOT POLICE, NEONAZIS, HOOLIGANS. And what is this press shyness? The Old Guard jumped at the possibility to get their message across. But what we have seen (edited or not) were GenZ semi-masked kiddos who spouted absolute and complete erratic nonsense. Where were your spokespeople without the masks? Are you afraid the Dutch secret service/Political intelligence services might arrest you for speaking your mind? Do not make me laugh. They have better things to do.
Next time, write a real manifest, have proper spokespeople in place, protect the protesters and if you at all need to destroy stuff, do it with an actual plan.
SABOTAGE with a clear Political goal. What you did at the university does not hurt the institution as such one bit. They have millions and millions of Euros in the bank. They could not care less about a few computers or chairs or a wall that needs repainting. Sure, they make it out to be in the very biased media but they do. not. care!
So, stop being so extremely annoyingly amateurish please and quit damaging the movement we spent blood sweat and tears for on the barricades during the 80's, 90's and early to mid 2000's. And yes, you may call me ageist. We at least knew what we were actually doing and made a substantial difference.
So far, you have not.
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Poser!
Reaction to: "Poser!"
; TLDR.
Why would you repeat a
Why would you repeat a reactionary point that they are not students? They clearly state "We are also students inside of the black bloc.".
If you are old guard you also know that critique on violent actions is of all times. Remember French and Italian black bloc burning cars in Hamburg during the G20 summit in 2017? The arsons at private homes of owners of animal testing facilities? The broken windows in 1999 during WTO riots in Seattle? Even in the squatting scene in the 80ties there was always a polemic between peaceful resistance and often a younger generation with more radical ideas. In the heat of the moment and fueled by a conservative and liberal media backlash an angry response to unnecessary nihilist violent actions is understandable and maybe justified. Smashing these screens while other people are filming, doesn't seem to be smart optics or fulfill any goal. It seems to alienate a lot of the moderate protesters from the movement. Diversity of tactics is a great principle, but if you take violent action there is very thin line though between what serves your cause or what harms the movement. Violence for violence's sake is a trap, especially if fueled by toxic masculinity. That said if we look back in a few years to the smashed screens at UVA in 2024 we might laugh about it or even celebrate it? Especially if a far right Wilders government turned the Netherlands further into dystopian fascist police hellstate and the Gaza strip is colonized by Israeli settlers. You can even ask yourself, like I do, should we have fought the kraakverbod even harder? Should we have taken more violent direct actions against the pvv?
By the way fuck the right wing outrage. Where was their anger when Zionists violently attacked the Palestina march on Saturday? Where is their outrage on the police violence at the UVA protests? Where was BBB outrage during the farmer's protests? We all know their outrage is only cosmetic. Look at their social media and you know they encourage the police violence. They hail the Israeli settlers stopping aid to Gaza. They support the genocide. They support the border violence.
Whatever you think about this
Whatever you think about this action; nowhere can be read this are anarchists, black-bloc or antifa. These are just assumptions you make. Maybe they are, maybe they are not. Looking to the history of action claim by anarchists and other antifascists; they (almost) always tell who they are (but not traceable).
Correction on previous reply
Correction on previous reply about anarchists/black-bloc/antifa:
They said indeed black bloc. That still doesn't mean they are anarchists or antifa. Everyone can use the black bloc tactic btw, because yes it's a tactic, not a group. So the way they frase it is incorrect. Everyone could have wrote this.
This is all completely separate from my opinion about this action.
With all due respect
Yall are fucking idiots.
Violence as a Social Factor
"VIOLENCE, I.E., PHYSICAL FORCE used to another's hurt, which is the most brutal form the struggle between men can assume, is eminently corrupting. It tends, by its very nature, to suffocate the best sentiments of man, and to develop all the anti-social qualities: ferocity, hatred, revenge, the spirit of domination and tyranny, contempt of the weak, servility towards the strong.
And this harmful tendency arises also when violence is used for a good end. The love of justice which impelled one to the struggle, amid all the good original intentions, is not sufficient guarantee against the depraving influence exerted by violence on the mind and actions of him who uses it. In the whirl of battle one too often loses sight of the goal for which one fights, and one only thinks of returning, a hundred-fold if possible, the blows received; and when at last victory crowns the efforts of the party who fought for justice and humanity it is already corrupt and incapable of realizing the program by which it was inspired.
How many men who enter on a political struggle inspired with the love of humanity, of liberty, and of toleration, end by becoming cruel and inexorable proscribers."
"How many sects have started with the idea of doing a work of justice in punishing some oppressor whom official "justice" could not or would not strike, have ended by becoming the instruments of private vengeance and base cupidity.
And the Anarchists who rebel against every sort of oppression and struggle for the integral liberty of each and who ought thus to shrink instinctively from all acts of violence which cease to be mere resistance to oppression and become oppressive in their turn . .. also are liable to fall into the abyss of brutal force.
Facts have proved that the Anarchists are not free from the errors and faults of authoritarian parties, and that, in their case as in that of the rest of humanity, atavistic instincts and the influence of the environment are often stronger than the best theories and noblest intentions.
The excitement caused by some recent explosions and the admiration for the courage with which the bomb-throwers faced death, sufficed to cause many Anarchists to forget their program, and to enter on a path which is the most absolute negation of all anarchist ideas and sentiments.
Hatred and revenge seemed to have become the moral basis of Anarchism. "The bourgeoisie does as bad and worse." Such is the argument with which they tried to justify and exalt every brutal deed."
....
"For, what is Anarchy? We do not wish to impose on others any hard and fast system, nor do we pretend, at least I do not, to possess the secret of a perfect social system. We wish that each social group be able, within the limits imposed by the liberty of others, to experiment on the mode of life which it believes to be the best, and we believe in the efficacy of persuasion and example. If society did not deny us this right we should have no right to complain, and we would simply have to strive to make our system the most successful, so as to prove that it was the better. It is only because today one class has the monopoly of power and riches, and is therefore able to force the people, at the end of a bayonet, to work for it, that we have the right, and that it is our duty, to fight for attaining, with the aid of force, those conditions which render it possible to experiment on better forms of society.
In short it is our duty to call attention to the dangers attendant on the use of violence, to insist on the principle of the inviolability of human life, to combat the spirit of hatred and revenge, and to preach love and toleration. But to blind ourselves to the true conditions of the struggle, to renounce the use of force for the purpose of repelling and attacking force, relying on the fanciful efficacy of "passive resistance," and in the name of a mystical morality to deny the right of self-defence, or to restrain it to the point of rendering it illusionary, can only end in nothing, or in leaving a free field of action to the oppressors.
If we really wish to strive for the emancipation of the people, do not let us reject in principle the means without which the struggle can never be ended; and, remember, the most energetic measures are also the most efficient and the least wasteful. Only do not let us lose sight of the fa ct that ours is a struggle inspired by love and not by hatred, and that it is our duty to do all in our power to see that the necessary violence does not degenerate into mere ferocity, and that it be used only as a weapon in the struggle of right against wrong."
Source: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-violence-as-a-s...
Mijn grootste droom was
Mijn grootste droom was altijd al om met een bivakmuts op net zulke coole dingen te doen als in de filmpjes over radicale acties op youtube. Ik had het heel druk met gamen en naar feestjes gaan dus het lukte me niet echt om een radicale beweging te mobiliseren. Bij de wooncrisis demonstraties wilde ik wel, maar was de politie de hele tijd dichtbij. Gelukkig hadden we onze gezichtsbedekking mee dus konden we zonder consequenties leuzen roepen over dat groen links eigenlijk een neoliberale partij is. Ze zullen nooit weten wie er achter die leus zit. Toen er een struk grasveld bezet werd om druk uit te oefenen op de morele keuzes van de universiteit, wist ik: dit is mijn kans. Jammer genoeg is de strijd voor Palestina nog verre van voorbij maar deze bucketlist kan ik afstrepen.
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Re: Responsibility claim for property destruction at the UvA cam
Dear “Some people in black hoodies”,
As you know, as a direct consequence of your actions, an innocent Palestinian refugee is now in jail. Their live is, also without conviction, thoroughly destroyed. Furthermore, your (possible) presence makes it (more) unsafe for Palestinian people to protest the killing of Palestinian people.
What are we gone do to fix this?
Re: Responsibility claim for property destruction at the UvA cam
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