Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

"We Will Not Be Moved"

bobo | 23.04.2008 20:18 | Globalisation | Migration | Zapatista | Liverpool | London

El Barrio Fights Back Against Globalized Gentrification

By Michael Gould-Wartofsky
CounterPunch




From London's Grosvenor Square, you can't see East Harlem. But you can buy it. For
£250 million. 47 buildings and 1,137 homes at a time. That, at least, was supposed
to be the deal for UK-based investment bank Dawnay, Day Group when it reached across
the ocean last March and snatched up entire blocks of this historic neighborhood of
low-income immigrants—one of the last such communities left in Manhattan.

Dawnay, Day Group's plan follows the typical logic of displacement for
"development," a logic well known both to real estate profiteers and to the poor
people they displace. East Harlem tenants like Carmen Sanchez know the game: "The
only purpose is to take us out of our homes. So they can renovate our apartments and
then rent them for ten times what we are paying now." Director Phil Blakeley has
publicly pledged to do as much, saying the company is doing its part to "bring along
Harlem's gentrification" as a beachhead in its bid to build a $5 billion real estate
empire here.

Yet Dawnay, Day may have gotten more than it bargained for in East Harlem, known as
El Barrio to those who call it home. Here, the powerful multinational corporation
has run into a different kind of power: The power of a community ready to defend
its right to exist.

For tenants, the company's offer to "bring along Harlem's gentrification" can be
translated to mean harassment, eviction, displacement—experiences all too familiar
to the people of Harlem, if all too invisible to the media. For every time we hear
of the deepening housing crisis facing homeowners, we hear nothing of the other
housing crisis—the perpetual crisis that low-income renters face every day in cities
like New York, in neighborhoods like East Harlem.

But here is a "community in resistance." Since 2004, inspired by the Zapatista
rebels of Mexico and by a long tradition of struggle in their neighborhood, tenants
have organized themselves into a force to be reckoned with, a force called Movement
for Justice in El Barrio (MJB). For four years, led by the community itself, MJB has
battled the gentrification juggernaut from the ground up, winning victory after
victory, building by building.

On April 6, Movement for Justice in El Barrio descended on New York's City Hall.
They marched up the steep stone steps of the municipal palace—mothers, fathers,
children and elders helping each other up the steps as they called out to one
another:

—¡Si se puede!

—What do we want? Dignified housing!

—El Barrio, united, will never be defeated!

Following an indigenous invocation, and standing among hand-painted signs and
banners and a giant puppet of a masked Zapatista woman, the hundreds assembled
declared that they were taking their struggle against gentrification to the next
level: Today would see the launch of their International Campaign in Defense of El
Barrio.

"Dawnay, Day Group is waging a war against our community from their headquarters
across the ocean," they proclaimed in a recent declaration, "with the sole purpose
of forcing us from our homes in order to increase their profits…Together, we make
our dignity resistance and we fight back against the actions of capitalist landlords
and multinational corporations who are displacing poor families from our
neighborhood. We fight back locally and across borders."

Both faces of the struggle were on vivid display on the steps of City
Hall. On the local front, tenants shared their experiences with the new
capitalist on the block— speaking of a campaign of threats and
harassments, of needed repairs never made, of supposed debts never owed,
of actions befitting an absentee slumlord. They told their supporters
how MJB is fighting back, as it has done before, with tenant committees
demanding dignified conditions in their buildings, members taking
Dawnay, Day to court for illegal harassment, and growing grassroots
mobilizations bringing heat in the streets.

Filiberto Hernandez, member of Movement for Justice in El Barrio,
brought a clear message for the company, and another for the community:
"¡Ya Basta! Enough!...We know how this multinational company works. They
want to squash us at any cost. They want to displace the immigrants,
people of color, poor people, our people." But the people would not go
quietly: "We are El Barrio. We believe in El Barrio. And we are not
going to go. Here we are going to stay."

As the crowd erupted in shouts and chants (¡Aqui estamos! ¡Y no nos
vamos!), Filiberto insisted: "We are going to save El Barrio."

If they save El Barrio, there will be no politicians to thank for it. In
a year when so many are looking to the political system for salvation,
MJB looks to its own community for solutions, believing the struggle can
only be won by the people of El Barrio themselves, not by those who
claim to represent them. So MJB came to City Hall also to denounce those
within its walls: The City Council, which has rubberstamped the
displacement of thousands across Harlem and beyond, and the Department
of Housing Preservation and Development, which is doing little to
preserve anything more than landlords' profits.

Clutching her baby girl, Josefina Salazar spoke of the complicity of
elected officials who knew nothing of the life or the will of the
people: "We are here to let it be known who the politicians really
are…[The politician] does not know what it is to live and suffer the bad
conditions in our homes." And not just East Harlem, but West Harlem,
where the government has approved plans for Columbia and other
businesses to push out the historic African-American community: "This
project has thousands of poor people who will be displaced…As always, to
change everything for the rich."

Behind Josefina, the faces of the crowd were turned not towards the halls of power,
but towards each other.

As promised, the struggle has overflowed across borders and across the ocean,
reaching from community to community in a "fight against the global empire of money.
A fight against neoliberalism. A fight for humanity." In a very real way, this
immigrant-led organization has always struggled without borders. Its "urban
Zapatistas" have already joined those in Mexico as part of the Other Campaign, the
Zapatista-inspired movement against neoliberal capitalism and for a politics "from
below and to the left," and they have stood with Mexico's social movements against
those who would crush them.

Now MJB is extending the fight across the Atlantic, taking its message from its own
neighborhood to Dawnay, Day's and setting out on a whirlwind tour of cities in
England, Scotland, Wales, France, and Spain. There, according to Oscar Dominguez,
members will "invite the communities of the world to accompany us in our
international campaign…When we have any activity against that company, they, in the
places where they live, will accompany us in taking direct action."

In a company like Dawnay, Day, gentrification has reached global proportions. In the
International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio, Dawnay, Day now faces the prospect
of a resistance as global as its capital, a challenge as transnational as the threat
it poses to community.

Such corporations would rather keep a safe distance from the people affected and
displaced by their dealings. But the people below are encircling their corporate
castles and city halls, uniting in defense of their homes, their cultures and
communities. The resistance began on the block, in the heart of El Barrio, but now
it is echoing on a thousand blocks, in a thousand barrios. It can even be heard in
the distance from the corporate boardrooms, the cry growing louder, coming closer,
impossible to shut out:

—No nos moverán. We will not be moved.

bobo

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech