Resistances and Alternatives are the key words chosen by the Liaison Committee, established during the World Assembly of Inhabitants (WAI) in order to unify the Global Campaign for the right to housing and to land from the 16th September until the 31st October this year.
The central focus is the struggle against expulsions, evictions, the land grabbing and the persecution of activists. This year, these matters involve not only the organisations that have long been committed to the World Zero Evictions Days and other campaigns, but the entire world.
The targets are neoliberal politicies: the roots of the urban and global crisis, corruption and real estate and land speculation, they exclude more than a billion people from a home and throw tens of millions more out on the street every year. In the dock the principal authors of the global and housing crisis.
Among those in the dock are the nameless or ‘sovereign’ hidden parasites behind funds such as the IMF, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, i.e. the principal authors of the crisis. They don’t have any legitimacy to propose their suggestions, which are based upon the market and war, to overcome it.
Also in the dock are governments, at every level, and occasionally certain supranational institutions, like UN-Habitat who, in principle, should be allies in the struggle for the rights to housing and to land, but become accomplices to forced evictions if its bureaucracies prioritise market laws above human rights and sustainability.
Thanks to the drive of the WAI, all together for the first time
Thanks to the drive of the WAI, the main international networks for the right to inhabit decided to unite their efforts for the first time, convinced that only with a united struggle can they effectively confront the global and housing crises. By doing so, they can defend the most threatened inhabitants and thoroughly tackle the roots of inequality, such as social and environmental non-sustainability.
This is an historic decision, translated into concrete initiatives (marches, occupations, the defence of threatened people and communities, forums, etc.) that will be announced on the interactive maps of the joint blog.
For these reasons, all organisations of inhabitants (neighbours, the poorly accommodated, tenants, homeless, native peoples, etc.) are invited to join the World Habitat Days and bring their own experience to strengthen the struggles of themselves and others.
Consolidating the collaboration, constituting “Joint Anti-EvictionsTask Force”
For these same reasons, the invitation is extended, with the aim of consolidating the collaboration between these same organisations thanks to the constitution of the “Joint Anti-EvictionsTask Force” at local level, as well as the development of dialogue and the convergence towards the “Urban and Communitarian Way”, improved during the process of the WAI, under the proposal of the IAI.
In effect, we are trying to jointly construct the treasure of dialogue and of initiatives that bring together: a global and common space for organisations and networks of inhabitants, the aim of which is to exchange experiences of struggle and of alternatives, share strategies and put into specific practice g-local solidarity.
Thus the beauty of the World Habitat Days 2011: together we shout ‘enough!’ to violations against the right to housing and to land, together we build solid foundations that are essential for winning specific battles and reaching ‘another possible world’.
The organisations of inhabitants challenges governments
Having won the unitary challenge, from the World Habitat Days the organisations of inhabitants will from now on challenge governments at every level (local, national, regional, supranational) to obtain “Zero Evictions” public policies for land and housing.
With the objective of opening the possibility of a true dialogue about these topics with opposing parties, the organisations of inhabitants and their networks, along with the support of allies and associates, are marching together.
It follows that governments should respond positively to these proposals, rejecting any repressive measures.
The Volunteer translator for housing rights without frontiers of IAI who has collaborated on the translation of this text was: David Jennings
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