RM16 - Eviction notice lost – your conflict – all of our problems!

1. The Foundation of Capitalism: Through hard work, you earn the right to private property. A right that excludes others from social participation and that places the individual above the community – the transformation of common property into private property.

The development from the squatting movement to the institutionalization of house projects in Germany had various consequences: Politically, the fight for housing for everyone (at that time still against the state and capital) was shifted to “We buy or build ourselves a house.”  The latter enables power structures in practice. While these are seen as necessary formalities at best, we are actually seeing people consciously exploiting them. One of the two long-time residents has served on both the association's board and the (sole representative) management over the years. He therefore holds every legal position of power in the RM16.

Especially in a project that has existed for many years, in which there is constant fluctuation, knowledge has to be passed on, etc., there needs to be a continuous discussion in which one's own values ​​and ideas about life are compared with those of the collective. Otherwise, the worst case scenario is that people derive personal ownership claims from the work they have put into the project. If no attempt is made to dismantle emerging hierarchies, it can become a reality that positions of power are used to take legal action against all other residents in order to enforce their own interests. This just happened to us in RM16.

2. The Collective: When you choose to be part of a collective, you give up certain parts of your individual freedom. Your own freedom ends where another person's begins. So if you want to be part of a collective, you have to make compromises. This also means that your behavior has consequences within the collective. But this is not only ignored by the two long-term residents, who throw the entire household out, but also by the rental house syndicate.

3. Problematic Behavior:What do we do if there is a lack of understanding that in relationships of solidarity, giving and accepting criticism is the basis for trust and a prerequisite for living according to shared values ​​and developing further? What consequences can we draw if people completely block themselves from reflecting on and changing their own behavior? 

In conversations with former residents, they confirmed our experiences with the two long-time residents. The problem existed long before we moved in. Even for the last ones, it became apparent at the latest when only three adults lived in the house before we moved in. 

The behavior of the two has been known throughout the city for years. Before the two abused their formal power, they used informal hierarchies to bully out residents they didn't want. Sexist, racist, classist behavior, manipulation and control are only part of the problem. Cross-border behavior on the part of a long-term roommate, such as breaking into the rooms of a child or young person at night while under the influence of drugs, is the tip of the iceberg. The affected people always left the house. Solidarity from the scene should have meant taking responsibility here. But there were almost never any actual consequences for the long-term residents. Violent behavior is declared as a personal conflict in which it is better not to take a position. And besides, you can’t “slap the gun” on someone who has been advising you at MHS for years.  

There have been several arbitrations, mediation attempts and the drafting of an internal treaty in the last 10 years.
The tenement syndicate in Dresden was close to the problems and knew about it. Only  in  most  cases  they  seemed  to  be  closer  to  the  long- ‐time  residents  than  to  the  affected  people. One might ask why the Dresden MHS consultancy doesn't come up with the idea of ​​thinking about how such strong hierarchies have obviously been able to form over the years that a guy who crosses borders in many respects is allowed to continue to advise on new projects, while the rest of the house project has either voluntarily given up or can no longer stand it, or is now being evicted with state funds. One might ask why it doesn't lead to a dispute in the advisory structure when new projects know about the problematic behavior of the two residents and the completely escalated situation in the RM16 and no longer trust this advisor when he raves about the project's own conflict roadmap. One thing is certain: it always requires an environment that enables such behavior over such a long period of time. 

4. “Our Conflict”: The problematic behavior now continues on several levels, in the house, but especially in public and in court. And there are hardly any people who are putting a stop to it.

We are told to settle “our conflict” among ourselves. Don't annoy people with it. Do not share our updates and political analysis in left-wing chats. 

The two long-term roommates have published personal information and group affiliations about us. They have written to places in the city and asked them to stop giving spaces to political groups (that they want to associate with us). Reason: these are left-wing extremist and are being monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. 

One of our co-residents was killed on the Take back the night Demo in front of two hundred people physically attacked and threatened (“I’ll make your life hell”, “I’ll haunt you until you sleep”).  Information about political structures and people in the court is revealed and disseminated to the public. This also has no consequences - these people can continue to go to your events and demos, write in your chats or even manage them.

Everything that has to do with the “conflict” is relativized to our conflict and thus completely depoliticized. This is problematic behavior that has been ignored for years and ultimately shows structural problems in our context! 

The people who have been ignoring, legitimizing, and enabling the behavior for years are calling us the problem because we talk about it and confront them about it. The prevailing attitude at the MHS is: “Everyone please move out!”. This is not a solution to any problem. On the contrary: it tends to have the consequence that people are punished when they try to criticize problematic behavior and change structural grievances. 

Nevertheless, we also made the settlement offer in court that we would be willing to move out. For us it was never about our personal living situation (you can imagine what the last 1.5 years were like in the house), but rather about a political perspective for the RM16. 

Just as some people seem to see going to court as a legitimate way to assert their own civil rights and property rights, others seem unable to understand that we don't want to talk about “our conflict”, but rather about the problem we all have in our own political spaces and structures.

5. Shift in focus through (public) defamation:The two long-time residents and their social circle quickly decided to make their version public. The fact that it wasn't about facts, but simply about a shift in focus and public defamation on our part, is shown by the changing narratives: First we should be authoritarian communists, then anti-feminists and perpetrator protectors who have gathered around a violent foreigner, then anti-Semites who want to destroy the last project in Dresden in solidarity with Israel. There are no limits to your imagination.

The strategy: You could say that just post so much bullshit until everyone is confused and annoyed. In fact, it is also a struggle for the sovereignty of interpretation. Those who are defamed are from then on only concerned with justifications or are actually socially isolated as others distance themselves out of fear. 

There are probably not many people left in the city who, after the last 1.5 years, would not come to the conclusion that the two long-time residents are lying and manipulating. Be it on the Internet, in mediation and conflict resolution attempts or directly in personal conversations. But that is the consequence of successful manipulation: reality no longer plays a role.  Rather, after 1.5 years of “our conflict” - yes, somehow everything is so unclear and difficult to position yourself! The power imbalance was restored. 

6. Court hearings:It is clear to us that we cannot expect justice from the state. For example, the story in which one of our roommates is defamed as a violent foreigner using racist stereotypes was rejected by the judge Violence protection lawsuitgratefully taken up in court (hello perpetrator-victim reversal!) and peppered with further racist narratives in the reasons for the verdict. It always hits the most vulnerable people first. This is how the opposing lawyer used the classic argument against one of our co-residents in court, thus continuing the discrimination that had already been practiced while living together. The two long-established residents not only appeared in court openly as landlords, but also presented screenshots and nicknames from our house signal chat as supposed evidence. Whatever information the state receives about us through these lawsuits, they either consciously accepted or used it specifically against us because they know that we are politically active and therefore subject to repressionOare open. We are supposedly sitting opposite left-wing scene lawyers from the Red Help in these trials who asked for our signal nicknames, called us “criminals” and threatened us with the police, such as Attorney Malkus from Leipzig. 

7. Conclusion:

• Conservative values ​​and authoritarian behavior also continue on the “left”. Common goods would rather be privatized than face collective processes and our own behavioral patterns. 
• People who speak out about problematic behavior and structural abuse of power are made a problem and isolated because they disrupt the peace. Instead of taking a stand, violent behavior is depoliticized. 
• We must take responsibility when projects get into trouble, because the longer we ignore the problems, the bigger they become/the more difficult they become to solve and the more suffering they cause.
• It must be an elementary part of our political practice to develop collective solutions to social problems and to take ourselves seriously.
• There must be social consequences when people refuse to take responsibility for their behavior. We cannot wait for courts to supposedly solve problems for us so that we can remain in avoidance.
• If gossip is not questioned and confronted directly in the scene, it not only causes harm on a human level, but also becomes a problem of repression within its own structures.
• There seems to be hardly any approaches and experience for dealing with psychological violence outside of romantic relationships. It was simply not recognized what role this plays in our conflict and how it affects us psychologically and physically. If there is no differentiation between conflict and violence and no actual analysis of the situation, attempts to protect yourself will, in the worst case, be used against you (violence can never be understood without context!)
• As a scene, we decide for ourselves whether we want to give up a place like the RM16 or not. We are fighting for it because we believe it is an important resource given the political situation.

We've made mistakes and learned from them over the last year and a half and we think it's important for everyone to understand what happened here:
For anyone who wants to make the effort to understand it. We have decided to have one chronologyto publish.

United we stand – divided we fall!

Thank you to everyone who has the courage to take uncomfortable positions, voice criticism and support tirelessly!

https://rm16bleibt.org

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