IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Waar: Time Travelers Hotel, Rokin, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Wanneer: 29/09/2023 - 13:09

Time travelers arrived a couple months in Amsterdam to usher in a new era of activism and change. They have been publishing newspapers, running amok, and resurrecting the inherited tradition of the Hi-Ha Happenings originally started by the Provos in the sixties. After the succes of the first Happening, during which the structure that eats away at the lives of ordinary folk was denounced and partially dismantled through ritual and magic, a second Hi-Ha Happening took place on the 29th of September.

This Happening was a constructive one, in counterpart to it's destructive predecessor. This came to a climax when at the end of the Happening a new squat was announced: the Time Travelers Hotel. The following statement was made during the revealing, and is thus made public for all those who experience a likeminded sense of time-dysmorphia, unrest, urge for change, and willingness to provoke and be provoked.

"What can we learn from the future? If anything it teaches us that we should embrace the more radical parts within ourselves. What used to be a massage parlor will give this happening a happy ending! An ending that will pave the way for new beginnings!

The egg that we find ourselves in is constantly hatching, as constantly new and ever growing projects come again into this world. The world that we have inherited is a broken one. It is a necessity to look towards a future where living is once again possible. Where the vile tar that seeps into our lives as weeds, is rooted out by the stem. This is done not only by expressing ourselves through ludicrous and perfectly reasonable happenings, but also with a physical reclamation of space. This place, located at Rokin, is at the center of a consumerist society. The tourist shop below speaks for itself. This society is sick, and its disease needs to be shown to the everyday ostrich that seeks to avert it’s gaze. The activists from the future have looked upon our timeline, and concluded that the present circumstances are not made to be built upon. How can someone resist the system if they don’t have a stable home to organize from?! How can demo’s be organized when the very streets are filled with those mindless zombies called tourists?! How can life realise itself in a place where it is constantly repressed?! And still it will always find a way. That is why we are here today, to offer an alternative. This place has been squated!!! It will be a transformative presence, one that will give people an actual place to live. It’s white doors will be opened! It will be a sanctuary to time refugees, this time travelers hotel! Because it is insane that a perfectly good living space should stay empty to fill the pockets of investors and rich magicians. Instead of squatting being illegal, it should be the norm! It should be illegal to evict people from their homes, when all they are looking for is a place to live!

Let houses once more be filled, doors painted white! Make Rokin once more a place for people to call home! Take to the streets, this is a happy ending! And as this night will pass into morning, the spirit of those that take up their arms, crowbars, instruments, and voices, will not die down! But the night is yet long, and we have only just started happening! Free yourself and each other of your shackles! Free yourself of your bonds! As Takland annexes new territory, it grows to be an even larger place of potential, inclusivity, and organization! Want Wet of geen wet: Kraken Gaat Door!!!"

And so it was that on the 29th of September Amsterdam came to have a new squat, on one of it's most central and busiest streets. It will be made into a place for people to live, with a social space on the first floor. What was previously a massage parlor had been empty for over four years. The owner, an investor from Belgium, has as of yet not filed a case with the police. The police that were at the revealing were, when it became clear that the place had been squatted for some time already, didn't wish to intervene. Which can also likely be attributed to the large crowd that had gathered there in good spirits. Thus concludes a very succesful Hi-Ha Happening, with a Hi-Ha Happy Ending.

-H