The new residents of Truhlářská 11 pay just one crown per month for each of the three flats they occupy in the building. To most, this nominal rent for their spacious accommodation, centrally located behind the Palladium shopping mall, would seem like an outrageous bargain, especially given the prestigious location and the ever-rising cost of housing in Prague. But, for this particular group of tenants, the three crowns per month is more than they’re used to paying for housing, and it’s more than they’d ideally like to pay.
The about 15 young men and women were forcibly evicted from the last remaining open squat in Prague on 30 June after a highly publicised standoff with private security guards that lasted for several hours. Their reluctant relocation to Truhlářská from their dilapidated Milada villa in Prague 8-Troja was the result of a deal offered by Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb, who intervened when the standoff turned violent. The circumstances of their relocation have been fraught with controversy in the weeks since, with criticism directed every which way – against Kocáb for brokering a deal with illegal squatters, against his friend and Truhlářská 11 owner Petr Svinka over unsupported allegations that he accepted the squatters in a plot to drive out existing tenants, and against the squatters themselves based on fears they might disrupt the neighbourhood.
Yet amid the media maelstrom, here is the paradox: The purpose of squatting was never just housing for the collective from Milada. It was, as they explain, a way of life, a form of political protest and a means of cultural expression. For this reason, the nearly free accommodation at Truhlářská might have resolved their immediate homelessness, but the solution is only temporary. “We will fight for a new squat,” said one young man who declined to be named.
Counterculture
On a Saturday afternoon, four of the new Truhlářská tenants are gathered in their living room. It’s sparsely furnished with a low coffee table that’s strewn with dirty cups, plates and cigarette ash, and mismatched seats, including a patio chair which, one tenant volunteers, was stolen from McDonald’s. They have agreed to grant an interview on the condition that their names are withheld, since they do not wish to be identified by either police or neo-Nazis, both of whom often target the squatters. After much discussion, three people agree to go by the initials A, R and T, respectively. (The fourth declines to participate.)
A, an outspoken man with a partly shaved head and dreadlocks, is the oldest of the bunch at 28. He tells us that he had been living at the Milada squat for about two years when they were evicted. R, a slight 21-year-old woman wearing dark eyeliner and chipped black nail polish, says that she moved to the Czech Republic last autumn from her native Germany, where she also squatted. T, a 26-year-old man sporting a curly blonde faux hawk, has also travelled across many countries, staying at various squats.
A explains the principle behind squatting. Although there are people who live quietly in abandoned buildings, hoping to slip under the radar because they can’t afford to do otherwise, he says the former Milada squatters belong to a different movement. This group is seeking to actively protest mainstream culture by challenging the idea of having to pay for shelter. “It shouldn’t matter if you’re a junkie. It shouldn’t matter if you’re homeless,” he says. “Every human has a right to food, water and a living place. That’s the basic humanity that’s been lost in capitalist society.” When empty buildings lie untouched for years, A says, it is unethical to prevent people from living in them.
At Milada, one of the few dwellings of its kind in the Czech Republic, the squatters often held free cultural events such as parties, music performances and art exhibitions to reflect their anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian values. The house, which had been slated for demolition in the 1980s, remained unlisted in the official property register until a department of the Education, Youth and Sport Ministry reclaimed ownership and hired security guards to shut down the squat, which had been inhabited since 1997. Other major squats in Prague have been similarly culled over the years. In September 1997, authorities broke up the Zenklova squat, evicting about a dozen residents. In November 2000, about 15 squatters were forced from the Ladronka squat in Prague 6. And just last November, police raided the Cibulka squat in Prague 5, throwing out its seven residents. T says that the struggle to squat in the Czech Republic is now more difficult than ever. “Police are more powerful … and people are more interested in the buildings now because prices are rising,” he says.
Defying law
According to section 249a of the Criminal Code, anyone who occupies someone else’s property without authorisation can be fined an unspecified amount or face up to two years in prison. The same punishment goes for those trying to block a rightful owner from entering his or her property. Yet, in other parts of Europe, squatters’ rights vary. In the Netherlands, for instance, people have the right to squat on property that has been unoccupied for 12 months. Similar protection is granted in Spain, where squatting on unoccupied premises is allowed until owners decide to rebuild them.
But the legality of squatting is inconsequential, R says. “For us, it’s not a question of law. After all, who makes the law?” she asks.
She notes that although squatting is illegal in France and Germany, the public there is more supportive of the squatting movement than in the Czech Republic. “I think, for example, in Germany, these things are really part of public debate. We have a long tradition of occupying houses,” she said. But here, “people don’t understand it too much. I think people they see it as just a private matter. They don’t understand that it’s part of a social struggle.”
Sure enough, many passersby, employees and owners of local businesses on Truhlářská street say they’re indifferent to their unconventional new neighbours. They have no complaints about the relocated squatters, but know little about what they stand for. Prague resident Albert Erenyi, 32, stops in front of Truhlářská 11 to read the large crudely drawn banners that the collective has hung from the windows, which carry the slogan “Bydlení je právo” (Housing is a right). “I just heard they came to live here,” Erenyi says. When asked whether he knows anything of their political views, he shrugs. “No, not at all.”
In a recent statement, Minister Kocáb called for tolerance and sympathy toward the squatters’ cause. “Criminalising the lifestyle of alternative communities shows a failure to think about the meaning of those other cultures. A mature society requires that kind of self-reflection,” Kocáb said, warning that dismissal and distrust of unconventional lifestyles is part of the slippery slope leading to bigotry. “And that’s something we should be watching out for,” he said.
Still, the relocated Milada squatters say they are unsatisfied with the new accommodation that Kocáb brokered, since they accepted the offer under duress from what they described as excessively aggressive security guards. “We don’t see this as a solution for us,” R says. “It’s not equivalent to Milada as an autonomous social and cultural centre. We can’t really hold free cultural events here.”
Yet even without a proper squat, she notes that their struggle is far from over. Once they find another empty location, they will set up their squat again.
