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SQUATTING AGAINST THE BAN ON SQUATTING

A lot of folks think squatters are smelly and don't work and have a lot of dreadlocks. They're mostly right, and that's probably the reason the Dutch government is putting a stop to legal squatting. Time was, if a building had been vacant for more than a year squatters could go in there with a bed and a chair and legally set up shop. Two days ago however, the new anti-squatting law went into effect, meaning dirty hippies and crust punks have to move out to the woods or get a job.

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We're not totally unsympathetic to the gross squatters and their demonstrations though. The fact that there is zero affordable housing in Amsterdam raises real concerns over where these kids are going to live. Also, without squatting we wouldn't have great clubs like Paradiso in Amsterdam and Doornroosje in Nijmegen.

So, in a show of solidarity, last Saturday we put on our most squatter-like outfits and joined the protest in Dam Square. The idea was to squat the shit out of the place with sleeping bags, tents, and makeshift toilets--the whole nine yards. In the 60s sleeping in Dam Square weren't no thing, but last Saturday it seemed highly illegal and highly awesome, so we brought out tents as well.

Ewout did his best to look like a squatter. He even brought his dog, Toffie. He had to buy those shoes for a job he had as a luggage carrier at Schiphol airport, which he did for one day, which was exactly long enough to pay for
the shoes. The empty shells hanging from his belt are from a trip he and his friend took into the countryside with the intention of finding bullet shells. It's probably morbidly ironic that his friend died fighting in Iraq.

Jan kept it simple with a CCCP sweater and a scarf with mysterious origins that was hanging in his closet. His vintage, black polished shoes kind of blew his cover, as did his posh filtered cigarettes.

This guy was like the Buddha of squatting. Maybe he was meditating on the ground and maybe he was floating exactly two inches above the wet concrete. Who knows?

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The sign says "No home = free hug." Look at his blue dildo.

This is a knitting clown who has taped a picture of the cast from a Dutch soap opera on his TV.

Toffie turned out to be a natural. He even went the extra mile by running around in the rain and giving us all that wet dog smell that squatters seem to like so much.

Punk all over the place. Which was a plus because it's usually guys in Darth Vader and Neptune suits standing at this exact spot during the day. The latter even made the don'ts once. (Apparently our Don'ts guy uses the cities of Amsterdam and Prague interchangeably.)

There were a few difficulties with putting up a tent on Dam Square. The soil wasn't smooth and earth-like, but hard and un-earth-like, and the square's concrete foundation proved difficult to drive a stake into. Eventually we used the type of bricks we'd half hoped the squatters would throw at police. We're not sensation seeking journalists, but we do like a good riot. We really do.

One thing we noticed is that squatters love signs, jackets, and buttons with anti-capitalist slogans. You could say they use modern day marketing, but in a mediocre and illegible way. The wave of right wing populism crashing over Holland right now is part of the reason a lot of the Dutch have zero tolerance for squatters, but if squatters conveyed their message in a better (legible) way, maybe there'd be more understanding.

Take this advertisement of a big shopping center. "Hebtember" is a play on September, and would read something like "Grabtember" in English. How very clever.

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This is the line in front of the DIY toilets. Thanks for building the DIY toilets guys.

But what's with all the rules? What kind of poser, bureaucratic bullshit is this? I thought we were squatters, not claims adjusters (they have a lot of red tape, right?).

That's a police logo right above my powerful stream.

Not very hygienic, but very photogenic.

It was sort of like the camp sites we stayed at last festival season without the guitar playing neighbour who listens to The Whitest Boy Alive all day and wears an ironic Pantera shirt.

Ewout had a lot of love for the squatters movement, a fact he confessed only after he got drunk and two squatter girls tried to get their tongues in his mouth.

On the edge of society, on the edge of Dam Square and you still belong to a minority. These two guys are sitting firmly behind their ideals.

All squatters are pyromaniacs.

The squat movement has as many symbols as your average religion. Fact remains that these are just two normal-sized melons on two pillows.

The police who showed up were quite benign apart from a couple of rough apprehensions for people peeing in the streets. This was strange, as the rest of the crowd was happily drinking booze, playing loud music, and snorting the
occasional line of speed through their pierced nostrils.

Here things started to go downhill. The DJ was playing RATM's "Killing in the Name" and this clown was rapping Eastern European lyrics over the tune.

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Squatters know how to party.

This anti-air raid horn was playing next to our tent all night, which contributed to our decision not to sleep outside at all, but go back to the warm beds waiting for us in our apartments with central heating.

EWOUT LOWIE AND JAN VAN TIENEN