The last half month has been overwhelming to say the least. I have spent most all of the days at the city hall encampment (AKA Abolition Park) organizing with the Abolition Commons Library. The time not spent at the camp, I’ve been doing content analysis on the zad. The work at city hall dovetails very nicely with the work on the zad. Although both places were initiated by different crises, the zad being ecological and city hall being racial inequality and police violence, they are both fighting for similar abolitionist goals. Ultimately, both spaces are anti-capitalist and organized for the purpose of creating an alternative to the injustices of our current system.
I started by working my way through the blog posts on the zad’s site. Through these posts I gained knowledge about the events held at the zad which gave me insight about the communal patterns practiced in the area. There was a post about solidarity with Rojava. And there were many posts about the 2018 riot police attack. Photos and internal dialogue was shared about the experience of having their homes destroyed. 2012 saw a similar moment, when the government of Jean-Marc Ayrault launchd Opération César. More than 1,000 police forces, two helicopters, and several armed vehicles were deployed in the operation. 30,000 to 50,000 people responded to the call to protect the zad, and through violence and destruction, the zad survived and was built back up again.
I watched many youtube videos (mostly of the police attacks) and read interviews of residents living there. In one interview, John Jordan says “This is not a TAZ, a ‘temporary autonomous zone’… This is a PAZ, a ‘permanent autonomous zone.'” This is evident in the infrastructure they have built out—a fromagerie, a bakery, a brewery, a Free Shop, a forge, a bar, and more. I looked through pictures of the structures there, and the barricades built for the invasion. The more videos and pictures I look through the more I envy the residents of the zad who have successfully built a community that’s protected their home for so many years. Living at city hall has proven the extreme difficulties of organizing community. Looking towards the zad for knowledge about how to organize in crisis is crucial. In the next couple weeks I will be interviewing a couple of folks who have recently visited, as well as John Jordan who lives there currently. Learning from the zad has been a fulfilling experience to pair with the current uprisings.