July 1st, 2013: Today we’re happy; today we feel strong. Catalunya Caixa has requested the paralyzation of the proceeding against the Expropriated Bank (a squatted former bank branch). Our joy is due in part to this, but what makes us really happy is how we got here: it’s mostly been thanks to all those anonymous individuals who day after day have given support in some way to this project, turning solidarity into something more than a simple word.
We have made it all together, from autonomy, mutual support, disobedience, self-management, and direct action. Without asking for permission, without having to beg any institution, without selling our words to the mass media. This is our victory and this is the way which step by step and stone after stone we desire to continue building.
Catalunya Caixa will keep trying to recover its property. We will keep trying to make this city a place where people are more important than any economic benefit. The Expropriated Bank is only four walls, and we know that Catalunya Caixa has many more branches where life, resistance networks and self-organization could be created. More importantly, this idea has percolated through our neighbourhood, where lots of our neighbours, who dramatically suffer day after day the abuses of economic and political power, have found in this space a place where they don’t feel alone and excluded.
From now on, we want to refocus our efforts on the project of the Expropriated Bank itself, at least until we get news about the judicial process, as Catalunya Caixa has only requested a temporary suspension. This doesn’t mean it has withdrawn the complaint. They can restart the process again at any time, and we will be vigilant and prepared for the moment it happens.
The struggle against Capital continues; see you at the Expropriated Bank and on the streets.