MOVED BY MOVING

Frederique de Ridder

The fundamental right of having a home is universal, which makes its protection a common crucial concern at all costs.

It is commonly known that parks, forests and other natural environments, are beneficial for one’s mental well-being. After having worked from homes, having socially distanced by forcibly staying inside, spending time outside has become something to long for. Not for long, when the peace one used to encounter around the edges of the city, has seemingly disappeared. Unavoidable overstimulation intervenes one’s moment of selfcare when a mind full of drilling noises dominate, caused by jackhammers combined with sputtering engines of wheelbarrows, bulldozers and dump trucks. Not having mentioned the visual pollution; the outskirt of Amsterdam North transformed into Dutch dupe of a ‘Manhattan’. It is actually fair to ask oneself whether the skyline of Amsterdam would still be in a recogniseable state, considering the city gained nowadays besides the “Zuid-as” a similar-looking “North-as”. What is moving Amsterdam to actively invest in pursue this reshaping? In what way is imposing the new style, affecting the city’s embodiment of its true identity? The pace of the change comes across as rather impressive. Impressively alarming actually.

‘‘Irreversible segregation veiled under gentrification is namely literally set into concrete.‘‘

Movements are often defined as a hype. The ongoing movement that is taking place concerning the housing crisis however, is not reducible to a fashion trend. The irreversible segregation perceived amongst the public, is feeding the shared aspiration to stand up against it. During the housing protest of the 12th of September in Amsterdam, more than 15,000 people voiced their disagreement upon an alienated interpretation of normal. The reason behind what is making the current situation alien, is the fact that having a home is rapidly becoming unprecedently impossible. The demand for housing in the Netherlands is high, but the possibilities are increasingly scarce and unaffordable. Social rent offers the opportunity to have a home according to convenient measures, however the waiting lists offer a hopeless perspective. Waiting for ten years in order to achieve a position to become qualified, is becoming nowadays namely a crucial requirement. This consequences plans, which were supposed to be subordinate under the category “back-up”, being pushed to the front. The crisis drives students into such extreme circumstances, in which living in tents has become a more respectable solution. Let alone the option of returning to your parents’ house after having studied in a completely different environment. Or not being

able to leave one’s birthplace at all. Also general perspectives upon living situations have been shaped because of the conditions. Being forced to live together, whilst benefiting from having multiple incomes can consequence the establishment of relationships. However, will these instances never meet the amount of the already existing relationships and friend groups that broke, because of it. Desperate needs demand desperate measures, while the private rental sector profits from the manifested mess. On top of that, in the past ten years the amount of homeless people in het Netherlands doubled. The crisis is of general concern and affecting almost all groups in society. Hence, the march in Amsterdam was followed by the organisation of a rising on 17th of October in Rotterdam of which participated more than 7000 protestors, of which eight were arrested by police. Demonstrators united within 201 different communities, declared solidarity towards the people who have been arrested by police.

Another similar group of 4000 people that stood up for constructive change concerning the housing policy in the Netherlands, gathered in Amsterdam on the 16th of October. While enthusiasts across the country made their way to the capital to catch up lost time of celebrating the techno scene during the ‘Amsterdam Dance Event’, a different caliber of dancing manifested itself outside of the clubs and bars. Participants of ‘Amsterdam Danst Ergens Voor’ (Amsterdam dances for something) mobilised on the streets on the 16th of October. The fitting theme they adopted for the march ‘monopoly’ reveals how the established situation has become beyond recall. The protestors of the march were joined by the action group “Pak Mokum Terug” (Reclaim Mokum) which initiated the squatting of the former Marnix Hotel at Marnixstraat 328. The building they entered was empty and neglected; a foreseeable scene which was plausibly comparable to the interior of other 10,700 empty buildings located in Amsterdam, of which around 330 are owned by the Dutch branch of the American investor company ‘Blackstone’. The action group renamed the building and is currently known as ‘Hotel Mokum’. The new name for the building is not an accidental coincident since ‘Mokum’, a word originating from Amsterdam dialect in which the term Mokum implies “home”. Mokum term Amsterdam citizens have used over history to refer to their city, their home.

For already nine years, the community ADEV advocates for affordable housing and spaces for creative refuges. The music that gained its popularity because of attractions such as ADE, with techno in particular, is remarkably closely connected to the Dutch underground scene which is currently increasingly facing its extinction. The aggressive dirty and gritty repetitive features of the genre, causes its industrial nature of which was plausibly comparable to the genre being hard to ignore.

It reveals its roots of the laboratory of Philips factories. The environment in which the counter to nature was embraced. Compositions evolved out of tape montages based on crafty experimental attempts. Reel-to-reel recorders, audio-frequency oscillators, tube amplifiers and general amplifiers allowed experimenters to compose repetitive raw pieces. It created synthetic noises and stereophonics. Modernity brought movement about. Machines facilitated it, the music embodied it for the people to share it.

‘‘A home, in every definition, is not supposed to be a privilege.’’

‘Hotel Mokum’ and all other urban creative refuges, function as both a home as a cultural hub. Already existing spaces for refuges have disappeared for mainly the purpose of real estate exploitation. Empty buildings owned by investors hinder the development of identity of the city which is supposed to be in control by its inhabitants. The systematic breakdown of the refuges facilitates this decline of control. Citizens of cities become increasingly deprived from being able to decide for themselves whether they feel like exploring environments of machinery noises, instead of having no control over being disturbed by it. They become increasingly deprived from having a voice in whatever concerns their home, to the extent that they become increasingly deprived from having one at all. More than ever it is time to realise what forces take over shaping norms for a public which has lost track of what to grant itself. It is time for movement to and for the city to protect it from its eroding identity.