Communist Cats

One of my oldest friends used to have a cat when she grew up. She died.

The cat, not my friend. This story is not about her. This story is about another cat. The one she didn’t have at all. She would come in every once in a while, devour the cat food they left out for her, then vanish again for days. Presumably to eat cat food somewhere else because cats don’t care about ownership. Cats don’t care about which house belongs to whom. And perhaps, as you’ll see, we should be more like cats in this regard.

As some of you may have heard, Köpi 137, a building in Berlin that has been occupied since 1990 when it would have otherwise been demolished, is now meant to be evacuated soon. Everything in this project is free or rather not for profit. Living and cultural spaces: free. Concerts, sport clubs, movie screenings, the communal kitchen: free. An anti-capitalist symbol of autonomous living.

Now some of you may think, 'free food and housing sounds nice, but it's kind of illegal and all that jazz'. Well, in my hometown a group of activists has recently occupied an old monastery that had been vacated for 12 years. And while their endeavour is certainly not any more legal than that of Köpi 137 was, their media presence illustrates more effectively why such projects are nonetheless incredibly valuable.

For example, they have documented rooms that are opened exclusively for FLINTA, that is female, lesbian, intersex, nonbinary, trans and agender people and rooms for BIPoC persons. These are some of the few truly safe spaces for these communities in my hometown. Their goal, however, is not only to be a safe space and centre for the local community to gather, but also to be

a symbol of protest against the state of the housing market in Germany. While there’s a huge population of people without shelter, there’s also a massive pile of vacant buildings in many cities that are just sitting there, waiting to be either renovated or demolished. Landlords and investors in doing so increase the value of the properties they purposefully leave to rot:

“The housing market is just another secure investment for rich financiers resulting in the gentrification of entire neighbourhoods which means that people affected by poverty or racism can afford less and less housing and are slowly being pushed out of the cities.”, one of the statements on their blog reads.

The monastery is just one of such buildings wilfully being kept vacant. And by occupying it, their very presence may be illegal, but it is one of protest and one that is supported by many of the locals who themselves have in the past often wondered whether they may enter the now publicly accessible gardens and halls.

Maybe, you’ll still think to yourself, ‘oh, this is just some obscure German town with a terrible housing market, it has nothing to do with me’ and you may be right. All I’ll say is that the number of vacant houses in Aberdeen city at this moment in time is, perhaps unsurprisingly to anyone who has ever set foot into this city, over 2000 - according to their website. And how important are laws really, if what the activists are doing is only profiting the community. No one has anything against it and the property would still be empty had they not occupied it.

A cat certainly wouldn’t care to ask whom it belonged to!

By Fi Hennicken