European Alternative Resistance (E.A.R.)

& Sound of Silenced (S.O.S.) Strasbourg Report

This is a report from the organisers of the recent tekno parade in Strasbourg, France which was organised in response to the violent attack on last year’s Czechtek festival and against the general repression of alternative cultures...

The creation of this event was based on the current situation in Europe for free spaces, alternative lifestyles (and forms of creation) and the repression these people face. A small network of activists was formed with people mainly from France, Germany, England, Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

Whether it is the freeparty scenes across Europe, squatters, travellers or any other part of subcultural activities or projects – and even though some regions face more repression than others – we have to deal with it. This includes newly imposed ‘security’ laws and overreacting politicians who grant the orders for evictions as well police brutality and a general lack of respect towards our fundamental human rights. The elimination of old and well established projects such as the trailersite in Kristiania (Copenhagen), the St. Agnes Place squatted street in London, Ex-Steffi and plenty of other squats in Germany shows how much of a need there is to start linking European citizens and standing united in opposition to the current mood of European politics.

The point where we finally decided to act was the Czech Teknival of 2005 where around 100 party people got injured at this 12 year old festival despite this particular year being a legal event.

We originally planned for the 12^th of November 2005 but we had to reset the date because of the riots taking place in France – and mainly due to the emergency law the interior ministry set during this period.

For the revised date of 15^th of April it was looking like a similar situation was going to happen as there was widespread French resistance against the proposed CPE legislation. Fortunately, an emergency state wasn’t declared this time but a lot of rumours of possible riots, which turned out not to be the case at all, had a bad effect on the attendance of people at the event.

The idea was to stage a manifestation (street parade) in front of the European Parliament followed by an afterparty. The City of Strasbourg gave us the authorisation for the street parade, but not to be able to demonstrate in front of the European Parliament nor the authorisation for the afterparty.

European Alternative Resistance was attended by 3000 – 4000 people, 12 wagons with soundsystems and a very small number of police. Also present were a lot of mainstream press and media, which for us was a basic goal; to be given a voice to express what we really want. This is not to start a tekno revolution but moreover to begin a discourse about our situation and make it clear that we are not willing to accept a sell out of our subcultures, nor cultural commerce based on capitalistic behaviours.

The event ran peacefully and without incident. People were doing what they do best: being loud and dancing on the streets on a magic, rainy Saturday afternoon. We were all quite disappointed about the small numbers in attendance because our communications beforehand led us to expect many more people. Still, we were happy because everyone felt that it was just the beginning…

The S.O.S. Party afterwards was held spontaneously and illegally on the German side of the border in an empty, ex-French military city that we occupied in its entirety to celebrate our gathering and to show the link between two strong scenes in Europe – squatters and freeparty people. The authorities were totally taken by surprise and therefore unable to act quick enough and we ran the party till Monday morning, when we left in convoys back to France. This event was organised autonomously and expressed our culture better than anything else we could have done. It also proved that it’s possible to run an auto-organised event with a degree of responsibility. 4000 people visited the afterparty without serious incidents because people acted in a responsible way for themselves and their mates. It was truly magic inside!

For the future, our network will move on to coordinating the next street parade, hopefully in Spring next year, but we will also remain aware and watch this summers events in case of a further incident which requires a spontaneous action.

Our aims are to support the future existence of autonomy in art and culture and to encourage the idea of self-determination throughout life.