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An Intergalactic week on the zad. August 27 to September 2, 2018

Saturday 16 June 2018

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An Intergalactic week on the zad. August 27 to September 2, 2018

After the long awaited victory against the airport project, we are trying to lift ourselves out of the brutal spring, a season marked by two phases of evictions in which the government made sure to avenge the affront that the zad had represented for so many years. The massive police operations caused many injuries, the destruction of a part of the living spaces of the zad and a long military presence. But the state was forced to give up going any further and entirely eradicating our presence in this bocage. Resistance on the ground, solidarity elsewhere and the negotiation process resulted in a status quo that maintained of dozens of homes, common spaces and activities on most of the land held by the movement. Nevertheless, what we managed to preserve today could very quickly be attacked again, administratively, politically or militarily. Whilst the zad recovers from its wounds and recomposes itself, the work in the fields and the constructions resumes and we project ourselves towards the struggles of the next months. These however go beyond us and connect with others around the world. They concern the collective and respectful use of the land, the sharing of the commons, the questioning of nation-states and borders, the reappropriation of our habitats, the possibility of producing and exchanging free from the shackles of the market, forms of self-organization on territories in resistance and the right to live there freely ...

Following more than two years of regular building work and a new month of construction this summer, this week of August 27 to September 2, will also be the inauguration of the Ambazada, a space intended to welcome rebels and struggles from around the world to the zad of Notre-Dame-des-Landes. To honor and celebrate the opening of the Ambazada the obvious thing to do was to make a call for a new intergalactic week. We hope that it helps to bring back momentum and horizons before the autumn mobilizations at home and abroad.

/// Open encounters between territories in struggle and in search of autonomy

There are questions that have not ceased to inhabit us during this past season on the zad, these include : How throw down the anchor down for the long term without becoming domesticated, being community centred or more porous in our movements, the power struggles and frontal relationship with the state and possibilities for victories to last. We had to find our own partial answers in the emergency, we had to make decisive choices against the tanks and under dramatic pressure. We want to re question these issues and share them with other territories born out of battles and that have traced their own path. Part of the week will be devoted to open encounters with guests from the Wendland in Germany, Christiania in Danemak, the free district of Lentillères in France, Errekaleor in the Basque Country and perhaps Exarchia in Greece. Each of these territories will tell us the way in which they handled these issues, followed by a debate between all of us.

At another scale, there are peoples everywhere resisting cultural assimilation and liberal ideology . A moment during the week of specific meetings on this subject is also under preparation.

/// Historical junctions and revolutionary legacies

We will also propose that during some evenings you time travel across decades of significant struggles in different European countries. Revolutionary Italy in the 1970s, the German autonomous movements of the 1980s or the radical anti-capitalist ecology of the UK in the 1990s, among others, reconfigured our political language, actions and organizational practices. We dive back into these vibrant stories, in search of the legacies and imaginaries that they offer us, in order to think through the present.

/// More content, workshops and simultaneous meetings tackling other fields of struggle

- Various other contents are being programmed, including:

- an afternoon meeting with a Kurdish activist on the women’s liberation movement in Kurdistan, and her role in society and the movement.

- A presentation of the political, social and struggles situation in Mexico following the presidential elections in July and the campaign of indigenous candidate Marichuy.

- Testimonies of undocumented people in Nantes and groups who organize their support in squats and in their administrative procedures. An update on the asylum-immigration law. The feedback from a group that organized the occupation of the University of Nantes this winter with undocumented people and an overview of the current situation.

-The mornings will be devoted to building work on various sites, to strengthen the zad’s commons, as well as to running the logistics of the camp.

- Participants are welcome to offer contributions to the announced discussions. You can contact us to make additional proposals for workshops and discussions. However, we have made the overall choice to favor a few major themes and common moments in which to advance together, rather than to superimpose a multiplicity of parallel discussions.

- We are thinking of organising another gathering in parallel at another site of the zad, with groups of trade unionists and students who will dedicate certain days of the week to take stock of their mobilizations of the past year and look to the future. We envisage cross pollination between those attending this and the intergalactic week .

/// Let us know that your coming and organize it

Tell us if you want to come !! We need to plan the logistics in advance, and therefore to know the number of participants ( we have provided infrastructure for about 300 people during the week). We hope that the participants will stay the entire week to take time for develop a sense of collective. Please let us know by July the 31st, how many of you will be present and on what dates. Canteen facilities will be organized on site, but do not forget to take a tent and a sleeping bag. Also tell us what language you speak to organize the translation.

For all contacts, registrations, questions: galaczad@riseup.net

The complete program of the intergalactic week will be online soon on: https://zad.nadir.org/ and on www.zadforever.blog


/// Intergalactic Week Programme

This programme is subject to changes and additions by the end of August. Do not forget to register in advance by writing to: intergalaczad@riseup.net (NB : we had a problem with our initial mailbox. Please DO NOT use galaczad@riseup.net)

# Throughout the week: photo exhibition "territories in struggle"

- Monday, August 27th:

# 10am: welcome / presentation of the week

# 2pm: Daily, just after lunch, various announcements and open presentations by participants.

# 5pm: Discussion around the book Fight for spaces, fight for our lives: squat movements today - with the collective "squatting everywhere". The book provides glimpses into a diverse and multi-faceted movement, with accounts from local struggles, experiences of repression and stories of the collective forms of life which grow out of squatted spaces in various cities and countries throughout the world, including accounts from Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Seattle and Australia. For more info: http://www.edition-assemblage.de/fighting-for-spaces/

# 8.30pm: Journey through decades of struggle (see call) - episode 1 - Intervento about the Italian revolutionary movements of the 70s

- Tuesday, August 28th

# 10am: Walks with stories about the zad

# 3pm: Screening and presentation of the fight against extractivism in Venezuela with a comrade from Libertalia, a self-managed cooperative.

# 5pm: Journey through decades of struggle - episode 2 - Back to the German autonomous movements of the 80s# 9pm: A retrospective of films by the OGAWA collective on the struggle through the 70’s against Tokyo-Narita airport in Japa "In what is the most striking and significant precedent to Notre-Dame-des-Landes, the expropriation of agricultural land for the construction of the Tokyo-Narita airport began in 1966. By 1971 a decade of murderous battles between the state and the farmers who refused to give up their land had begun. According to the testimony of many French militants of the time, it was these highly exemplary battles that inspired their own direct and physical confrontations with the police in the streets of Paris and other cities. The Ogawa collective’s film series aims to tell the story of the struggle, not a posteriori but as it takes place. It is one of the most intelligent and exciting films series we have ever seen, in that it offers, in an inseparable way, the direct chronicle of these events and an immediate reflection (by those who live them, the peasants fighting Sanrizuka). They give us the opportunity to see and hear both the battleground as well as the day-to-day strategy that is deployed within it. It also opens a window on the impact of these long years of resistance on everyday life and thought upon those who found themselves forced to fight, against a force that wanted to kick them out. The alliance of precision and lyricism at work in Ogawa Productions films shot in Sanrizuka makes them an example: an example that is not meant to be quoted, but to be reproduced, on the the field of cinema as on that of the political struggle." For more info: https://www.zintv.org/Our-camera-will-be-in-the-first-line-to-receive-the-coups-

Wednesday, August 29th

# 10am: Collective work / logistics

# 3pm: Presentation of the women’s liberation movement in Kurdistan and its role in society.

# 9pm: Journey through decades of struggle - episode 3 - the radical and anti-capitalist ecologist movements of the nineties in the UK, from road protests, street parties to the rise of the anti-globalization movement.

- Thursday, August 30th

# 10am: Presentation of the situation of Azawad and Touareg struggles

# 2pm: Opening of meetings between territories in struggle / areas in search of autonomy (see call) with the participation of inhabitants of Wendland (Germany), Christiania (Denmark), Lentillères (France), Errekaleor (Country Basque), of the zad of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Birth and emergence of a territory in struggle - Living on a territory //

# 9pm: Concert with Portron Portron Lopez + Portron Portron Tuaregs + Culture Emotion + Channel at Bellevue...

- Friday, August 31st

# 10am then 2pm: Continuation of open encounters between territories in battle / zones in search of autonomy: Staying amongst ourselves and porosity of the territory - Getting organized

# 9pm: Journey through decades of struggle - episode 4 - back to the French movements from 2005 to 2017 - riots from 2005 / CPE to the labor law via zads

- Saturday 1st September

# 9am: building sites / logistics

# 3pm: Continuation and end of the open encounters between territories in struggle / zones in search of autonomy: The inspirations of the past - To endure, to project oneself, beyond defeats and victories

*** Inauguration of the Ambazada *** # 7pm: Aperitif-songs with an invitation to participants from all countries to share songs from home

# 8pm: International Buffet

# 9pm: Ball more or less trad and party.

- Sunday, September 2nd

# 10am: Lie in and recovery

# 3pm: Discussion about Bure and the current investigation

# 9pm: Ambazada Ciné-club: Michael Cimino’s "Heaven’s Gate" The cult movie that sank Hollywood’s biggest production company. About the whirling swarm of migrants, prostitutes, farmers, facing the mercenary armies of the big landowners in America at the end of the 19th century.

Attached documents