http://www.arpajournal.net/breaking-in/ On The Squatters Hand | Antifascist 'Pics&Vids'

http://www.arpajournal.net/breaking-in/

On The Squatters Handbook

“In the spring of 1969, a publication entitled Handleiding Krakers1 appeared in Amsterdam. The title translates into English as “Squatters’ Handbook” except that in Dutch the term kracken refers to the act of breaking into or “cracking” a building rather than its obstinate occupation. The handbook’s publishers are listed as the Federatie Onafhankelyke [sic] Vakgroepen, or the Federation of Independent Departments, and the Buro de Kraker, or Squatting Bureau: two activist groups named in parody of the state agencies—the planning department and the housing bureau—which they sought to oppose and counter. Despite being a thin booklet of only fourteen pages, Handleiding Krakers manages to communicate a precisely targeted political message and function as a planning document, positing a future state of the city and supplying a set of instructions for creating it. Unlike many speculative, utopian architecture projects contemporary to it, the handbook does not provide pictorial images of spectacular “future” possibilities, or include maps or plans of completed ideal conditions. Instead it assembles a collection of rudimentary instructions for breaking and reinstalling locks, fixing toilets and repairing damaged floors and roofs. These are paired with a sharp critique of planning and development policy, and an assertion of modes of spatial and political practice oriented towards autonomous self-organization and community mobilization.”