Does Europe Do It Better?

In more than fifteen years of rock-and-roll touring, my worst night of sleep followed a June 10, 1989, show at Centro Sociale Leoncavallo, an anticapitalist squat in Milan. On that impossibly long tour, ending just months before the Berlin wall fell, my band Soul Side played at social centers lodged in squatted buildings in Italy, Holland, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and Germany. Several of these places were hygienically challenged, with mangy dogs scurrying about, leaking sewage pipes and nowhere to bathe. None, however, rivaled the squat in Milan where we were taken after our concert at Leoncavallo to "sleep" in a bat-infested room, on mattresses that had seemingly been marinated in bodily fluids.

Since the mid-1970s, groups of anarchists, communists, punks and artists across Europe have availed themselves of liberal housing policies to seize and inhabit abandoned buildings--former factories, churches, schools, etc.--and turn them into nonprofit, anticapitalist social centers. These "autonomous zones" have succeeded to varying degrees in existing outside of government regulation. They are essentially illegal, and plenty are mercilessly crushed by the police (like the vast majority of American attempts at squatting). But many European squats have been tolerated, and have somehow managed to keep their fortified doors open. Milan's Leoncavallo (www.leoncavallo.org) is Italy's oldest and most well-known social center, established in 1975 in a crumbling building by a band of squatters with a manifesto. After several evictions, one of which spurred national solidarity demonstrations in 1994, today's Leoncavallo resides in an assortment of buildings behind huge walls that can be quickly barricaded in the event of another police raid. Social centers like Leoncavallo host a wide range of cultural and political activities: theaters, bookstores, art galleries, guaranteed shelter for homeless immigrants, meeting spaces for antiglobalization ("no global") organizing, Internet cafes, soup kitchens, yoga classes and live music of varied genres.

In recent years European squatters have clashed with increasingly aggressive police forces. As a result, many social centers have disappeared, while a few have been given official recognition and support from local governments. But even under the reign of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi--who is hostile to anything and anyone falling under the "no global" umbrella--Italy has nearly 150 active social centers, most of them stationed in squatted buildings.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.