discovering the movement: the anarchists

While in buenos aires we continued our quest to understand the state of the popular movement in argentina, we decided to talk to anarchists to see what they had to say. We met up wtih this group La Rivolta that does work in the amamblea de almagro. Betty and another guy from la reivolta and this guy from indymedie told us about there assembaly. It was taken spontaniously in 2001. It use to be meat distrobution factory. Some guy bought the space before the occupation. In 2002 there would hvae been 5000 people ther at any given time. Since the economy as stabled some what the middle clesses have stopped participating. La rivolta doesn´t run the place, but works in a few different assembablies. 6 people live there at the moment. The large outdoor space, that use to be used for pick-up is used for party´s, film nights, workshops etc. The day we were there a juggling workshop with about five punks was taking place. Inside there is a meeting space and a small library. Betty said that she came there because that was her area. But you get the impression now that it operates as a libertairan soical centre, not nessissarliy for the local community but for the anarchist community. We went back there a few times shared stories from ireland and gave them some revolt video films.

We did find out much from everyone there. They were critical of some of the other assembalies that have taken government subsidies and food. Other then a few more punk-anarchist squats they were not connected to any other local groups. They were busy at this time with an eviction notice that they had recieved and are fighting in court, they assume that by march they will be fighting in streets to protect there space.

What we did get from them was much anarchist literature and found out about a few libraries and archives. The second archieve and library we visited was brillant, it was the largest I have even seen and a women who is studying and using anarchist historial literature said that she went to spain for her research and was surprised to find that theres was larger and more detailed. They also had a group of computers that had a huge collection of films in the database and you could burn them for free. They burnt a few copies of the revolt video stuff for us and were excited to have us send them literature from ireland, as they didn´t have any. Down stairs was a huge space to watch movies and a cafe that sold veggie and vegan food. We stayed that night for a screening of an action that had happened just a month before. There are this shanty towns outside of the city that open are squated. This particular one as far was we can gather we promised land and houses, but everything was stolen from the houses that were being built. One day they went and took over the land demanding that they can stay there, but a battle with the cops had many of them arrested and injured. It sounds like they are planning to take it over again but havn´t yet. From talking to other people it sounds like usually what happens in these situations is a group takes over the land and starts to build homes and hold the land for a while from the cops. The other moviewere about squats in spain and this fiction something about a snail and its house on its back. The theme was something like space, speculation and squating.