A-Infos (en) France: Argentina solidarity event and action report in Dijon - Dec. 2002

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Argentina solidarity event and action report in Dijon - Dec. 2002
por tanneries Tuesday January 07, 2003 at 08:38 AM
tanneries@squat.net 
On Friday the 20th and Saturday the 21st of
 December 2002, the autonomous space Les
 Tanneries and the avantipepol@ collective 
have organized a serie of events, thus 
responding to the call for a global action day 
in solidarity with Argentina. Here's a report of those.

On Friday the 20th and Saturday the 21st of 
December 2002, the autonomous space Les 
Tanneries and the avantipepol@ collective have 
organized a serie of events, thus responding 
to the call for a global action day in 
solidarity with Argentina. 

Everything began on Friday evening in les 
Tanneries with the performance of several 
militant movies by the "cine insurgente" 
collective, dealing with the popular riots 
that burst out in Argentina one year ago, and 
that have from then on been prolonged in the 
country by actions, demonstrations and attempts 
to built and experiment alternative solutions 
to the leading system, through popular 
assemblies, free shops and occupations of 
meeting and living spaces. 

After the projection, Olivier, from the 
Chiapas committee of Lausanne, opened the 
debate. He came back on the observations he 
drew during his trip in Argentina and on his 
knowledge of the "piqueteros" and of other 
movements of unemployed people in the country, 
whose autonomous and independant practices 
have played a leading part in the popular 
riots. The following discussion was an 
opportunity to state the "Argentina's 
exemplary situation" as a major crisis of 
capitalism, to set a reflexion about the ways 
of action in Europe and in South America, to 
analyse what lead such a large part of the Argentine 
population to join the protest and to imagine 
some more possible local actions of support. 

While the debate was running on, the PRINT 
collective (http://print.squat.net) stood as a 
relay to the Indymedia large 
radiostreaming conter-information initiative 
during those three days of solidarity. During 
the whole evening, a radio program was 
broadcast directly from Argentine streets, 
allowing people to get an idea of the sonore 
atmosphere of the demonstrations, actions and 
popular assemblies, and to hear musical 
programs and commentaries from the 
"mediactivists" present on the field in 
Argentina as well. It was also an occasion to 
present the independant Indymedia network, of 
which you can find a brief description here : 
http://print.squat.net/docs/let-indymedia_cest_quoi.txt 

This first evening ended with a 
"latino-disco-tekno" party, accompanied by 
various and numerous visual projections. 

On the next day, saturday 21st, some 60 people 
gathered on the Place du Bareuzai, to respond 
the call to support the Argentine people. Just 
after 5 pm, a demonstration left the meeting 
point, accompanied by the sound of numerous 
pots, to echo the way the Argentine people 
demonstrated during the most critical moments 
of their protest against the political and 
economical power. With a banner "politicians, 
capitalists, they must all leave" (the 
translation of the now famous "Que se vayan 
todos", the leading slogan of the Argentine 
riots) opening the demonstration, the 
participants walked up the Rue de la Liberté, 
crowed in those days of frenetic X-mas 
consumption, to enter a France Telecom agency 
and to briefly, but yet with great noise, 
occupied the latter. Why this occupation ? 
Because France Telecom is one of 
those big compagnies implanted in Argentina 
which urged the government to push further the 
dereglementation process imposed by the IMF 
and to increase the cost of services (water 
and electricity supplies, communications...), 
in order to make more profits. This was a way 
for us inhabitants of Dijon, to show that it 
is also by leading local actions that we can 
support the people 
that, far from us, criticize and try to stop 
the capitalist dictatorship. 

The demonstration then walked back to the 
Place du Bareuzai, where a free shop was 
displayed, this time to echo the original and 
yet concrete ways of action that have already 
been experimented by the Argentine people for 
a year. 

Clothes, but also books, booklets, shoes and 
other stuff were arranged all over the square, 
with several boards inviting people to 
experiment "freeness", here and now ("here, 
everything is to steal", "big promotions 
today, everything is free"...). 

The aim of this freeshop was also to denounce 
the nearby "Christmas Market", a figure of the 
abusive and outrageous consumption, in those 
days when traditions stand as a convenient 
pretext to the frenetic calls of capitalism. 

Disconcerted at first, many people then 
entered the freeshop and took some stuff, 
obviously moved by this initiative and curious 
about our motivations and ideas. It was an 
opportunity to give them informations about 
the freeshop that has been organized in les 
Tanneries over the last months. This 
initiative of freeshop should happen again, to 
reaffirm loudly the necessity to destroy 
social and economical relationships based on 
money that the society is permanently imposing 
to us.

print.squat.net


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