[im] Fwd: [Newsletter] urgent: A call for intergalactic solidarity actions everywhere to end the destruction of the ZAD

[Miklos Peternak]

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	[Newsletter] urgent: A call for intergalactic solidarity 
actions everywhere to end the destruction of the ZAD
Date: 	Wed, 11 Apr 2018 13:08:53 +0200
From: 	Oliver Ressler <oliver at ressler.at>
Reply-To: 	oliver at ressler.at
To: 	newsletter at ressler.at <newsletter at ressler.at>



Dear friends and colleagues,

I would like to inform you that the ZAD – Europe’s largest autonomous 
territory that emerged from the struggle against a new airport for 
Nantes in France – is in danger of being evicted by 2500 riot police 
that invaded the territory on Monday this week in an attempt to destroy 
this significant social, agricultural and economic experiment.

Please read and share their call for solidarity actions copied below.

To find out more about the ZAD feel free to watch the film I did about it.

“Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart: The ZAD 
<http://www.ressler.at/everythings_coming_together/>“, 36 min., 2017
https://vimeo.com/236277743

ZAD will survive!
Oliver



https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article5416


  A call for intergalactic solidarity actions everywhere to end the
  destruction of the ZAD

Wednesday 11 April 2018

We are writing with the smell of tear gas rising from our fingers. The 
springtime symphony of birdsong is punctuated by the explosive echo of 
concussion grenades. Our eyes are watering, less from the gas than the 
sadness; because our friends’ homes, barns and organic farms are being 
destroyed. Bulldozers, supported by 2500 riot police, armored vehicles, 
helicopters and drones, are rampaging through these forests, pastures 
and wetlands to crush the future we are building here on the to the zad 
(The zone à defendre).

We are calling on you to take solidarity actions everywhere, it could be 
holding demos at your local french embassy or consulate, or taking 
actions against any suitable symbol (corporate or otherwise) of France ! 
And if you are not too far away, bring your disobedient bodies to join 
us on the zone. If the French government evicts the zad, it will be like 
evicting hope.

For fifty years, this unique chequerboard landscape was the site of a 
relentless struggle against yet another climate wrecking infrastructure, 
a new airport for the nearby city of Nantes. Farmers and villagers, 
activists and naturalists, squatters and trade unionists wove an 
unbreakable ecology of struggle together and three months ago on the 
17th of January, the French government announced that the airport 
project would be abandoned. But this incredible victory, won through a 
diversity of creative tactics from petitions to direct action, legal 
challenges to sabotage, had a dark shadow. In the same breath that 
declared the abandonment, came the announcement that the people 
occupying these 4000 acres of liberated territory, the 300 of us living 
and farming in 80 different collectives, would be evicted because we 
dared not just to be against the airport, but its WORLD as well.

Since that victorious day, the battle has transformed itself and is now 
no longer about a destructive infrastructure project, but about sharing 
the territory we inhabit. We stoped this place from being covered in 
concrete and so it is up to us to take care of its future. The movement 
therefore maintains that we should have the right to manage the land as 
a commons (see its declaration The Six Points for the Zad because there 
will never be an Airport). Today this is the struggle of the zad (zone 
to defend) of Notre Dame Des Landes.

The zad was launched in 2009 after a letter (distributed during the 
first french climate camp here) written by locals inviting people to 
occupy the zone and squat the abandoned farmhouses. Now the zone has 
become one of Europe’s largest laboratory of commoning. With its 
bakeries, pirate radio station, tractor repair workshop, brewery, 
anarchitectural cabins, banqueting hall, medicinal herb gardens, a rap 
studio, dairy, vegetable plots, weekly newspaper, flour mill, library 
and even a surrealist lighthouse. It has become a concrete experiment in 
taking back control of everyday life.

In 2012 the French state’s attempt to evict the zone to build the 
airport was fiercely resisted, despite numerous demolitions 40,000 
people turned up to rebuild and the government withdrew. The police have 
not set foot on the zad since, that is, until Monday morning, when at 
3am the gendarmes pierced into the zone.

On day one they destroyed some of the most beautiful cabins and barns, 
but yesterday we stopped the cops from getting to the Vraies Rouge, 
which happens to be where one of our negotiators with the government 
lives. Destroying the house of those that agreed to sit at the table 
with you was a strategic mistake. The fabulous zad press team used this 
as the media hook and today we are winning the battle of the story. If 
enough people get to the zone over the next days we could win the battle 
on the territory as well. We need rebel everything, from cooks to 
medics, fighters to witnesses. We doubt this rural revolt will be 
finished before the weekend, when we are also calling people to come and 
rebuild en mass.

Already solidarity demonstrations have taken place in over 100 cities 
across France, whilst the town halls of several towns were occupied. 
Zapatistas demonstrated in Chiapas Mexico, there were actions in 
Brussels, Spain, Lebanon, London, Poland, Palestine and New York and the 
underground carpark of the french embassy in Munich was sabotaged. They 
will never be able to evict our solidarity.

Post your reports on twitter @zad_nddl #zad #nddl and to our solidarity 
action email soutienzad at riseup.net for more info in english see 
www.zadforever.blog <http://www.zadforever.blog> and watch this video to 
see what is being destroyed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqrtUkBmv8s

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