As a clarification, this was Marcell's email from a couple of days ago, sent to the internal list of the Digital Cultures Research Lab at the Leuphana University, where Marcell is doing his PhD. Felix was CC-ed on it, so he forwarded it to the nettime list. Thanks Felix!
Now in our fourth day of being cut off from the power grid and told that we better get out peacefully in a matter of twelve hours or face serious shit, thanks to our neighbor we have a modest access to electricity, heating and internet. That means that we're able to hold the space, though not do any public programming. However, we can't afford to lose possession of the space. It's only the city of Zagreb that can formally evict us. But this guy who claims that he has our space under lease being a guy with a shady history, there are risks involved. So, we're at the moment not looking for public support, but are trying to negotiate a de-escalation among various parties involved. We're also keeping 24/7 shifts. The convivial spirit of occupation has been a defining moment of these last couple of days. We're also pursuing a couple of avenues of action that might lead to a positive interim solution before the space is returned to the Serbian minority organisations, but we haven't gotten very far with that. Should a major turn of events make international support meaningful, we'll let you know. In the meanwhile, thanks to everyone who has written back and offered their support. Tom On Sat, Nov 4, 2017 at 9:26 AM, Marcell Mars aka Nenad Romic < [email protected]> wrote: > > dear colleagues, > > some of you might heard from me or tomi about a decade long struggle > with our cultural centre in zagreb. it is hard to make it short but > the story involves promises from the state (and city of zagreb) to > give back real estate to serbian minority (taken back in the days > after world war 2 by the communists). > > the decision by new croatian goverment at the beginning of ninties to > give back the real estate to its original owners was primarily based > on anti-communism and the huge desire to reward catholic church for > its support for the new croatian independence. as you could imagine > the real estate which was supposed to be given to serbians was the > last one on the list (with a tendency to wipe it out completely). the > promises were usually given under the flag "that's what europe wants > from us". > > a serbian minority organization being promised to get it back soon > (that's back in 1999) gave it to us to form a new cultural center > mama. we had a contract with them for years. and we are still in a > partnership with them about the whole damn thing... > > early on, after we renovated and few days before official opening, a > guy known to be a part of mafia circles in croatia, at the time > involved with gambling and casinos (and through that into real > estate), came to us and said that was his property and we better go > out. that's how we realized it is not owned by the ones we signed the > contract with (making our contract much much weaker than we thought), > but they truly believed it would happen soon because of the promises > by the croatian state, that the space is not owned by that guy > (whatever he claims) but his claims are not fully without any ground. > also that the space would through years to come switch the legal > status from the city to the state back and forth because of the given > promises which no one wants to fulfill. > > occasionally, for years that mafia guy would threaten us asking us to > get the fuck out of the space. during the same time we started to pay > the bills for electricity and water for which the main switches are in > his part of the building. we became the part of negotiations in > between that guy who claims more than just our 200 square meters and > serbian minority waiting to get back substantial amounts of now super > expensive real estate in the center of zagreb. > > the whole story involves our public struggle against the corrupted > major (still in power after 18 years) who, needless to say, is a best > buddy with our mafia guy. and that struggle in some weird way > protected us because the story in media would likely unfold against > the corruption and real estate mafia in the city and into our favor. > but i'll skip this part of already too long email. > > just today the situation escalated by that guy switching us of the > grid (electricity + water) and we have to organize quickly to > physically protect the space because our only rights come from running > a cultural center for almost 20 years there. i bought a ticket and > flying to zagreb early morning tomorrow. i hope you understand the > emergency of situation and also hope you understand in which way our > cultural center is our life project. you know tomi and myself but > there are many more and all of us will be there. > > i'll let you know how the situation progress and i hope you will > understand my absence from dcrl this week. hopefully next week i am > back... there is some possibility i will have to stay for the next > week too.. i don't know.. i'll let you know as i get to know more... > > best > marcell > > > > --jlHEGa28ho7vA1jIWeRrNcRFNBvOJ8kvv-- > > --42VOa81r8ANIwkFS1ui3k4ImIpoce5BWv > Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" > Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature > Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJZ/b47AAoJEAu7W5UMn/KsSyAIALo7iNda4AWJ1KCiC05X2ykv > PSWtGoxu2jfMiiJZltayNCokXTyXRf7oWwk+OR+DBbjxxNuTUlmpW9aYQ0m4f2UA > p7qKs7s+9l0O7+wzhbp5WbbR7WcuFfdo2uzVXbK7JFibuWOqGffoi7H42NM4SJAb > g2mB91HAAjgXXVIaPrx6a7r8UNsAJz6cOt7aqAiWuOwPl1dfNSdkaSPyfZcdR3j0 > 952fR0fO61ZWhZAe88lr1fp4r/hAgoXsXddO71O9aEZV0mnaELZ3QJ8/fCc0rZ25 > uAmWMUx6fSIBClB5Dcbfw4UbMeudQcjggHKx8Ak/++rtZNWzs0SaWUjlfkMcsLU= > =zbqD > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > --42VOa81r8ANIwkFS1ui3k4ImIpoce5BWv-- > > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: >
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