Against the risk of eviction Spin Time calls the city together in a public meeting scheduled for January 10th.
“The mayor cannot allow the government to ignore his authority with the aim of vacating our idea of society. – is the message of activists -. In favor of a property that wants to speculate on a property taken away from the citizens for two decades, to the detriment of the citizens who today have access to our regenerated building”.
The risk of eviction
After the eviction of the Askatasuna social center in Turin, the historic occupations of Rome also began to shake. And rightly so: “Throughout the national territory we are proceeding according to a progressive order established by the prefectures. Many have been evicted and we hope to carry out many more” the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, told “Libero”.
From what we learn, there are two occupied properties in Rome that are in the government’s sights: that of CasaPound in Via Napoleone III and where he was born Spin Time in via di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.
Hence the choice of activists to mobilize.
“Spaces like Spin Time are a civic resource – they explain -. They are places where people self-organise to respond to real needs not satisfied by institutions, such as home, work, health, culture and sociality. Here citizenship is not a status, but a daily practice of shared care, which over the years has involved the over 130 families who live there and the thousands of people who pass through it”.
The appeal
“Defending social and living spaces means defending an idea of the city based on participation, justice and solidarity – continue the activists -. Spin Time is part of this vision: a city that is not only administered from above, but is built every day from below. The mayor cannot allow the government to ignore its authority with the aim of vacating our idea of society. In favor of an ownership that wants to speculate on a property taken away from the citizens for two decades, to the detriment of the citizens who today have access to our regenerated palace.”
And then: “Spaces like Spin Time represent a civic resource. Another city is possible if popular and supportive sovereignty arises from every neighborhood and every community, rooted in social justice and anti-fascist values. We invite all supportive entities to relaunch our appeal and participate in the public assembly that we will hold on January 10th in our building”.
From Spin Time also comes the comment on the comparison with the occupation carried out by Casapound militants, defined as “unacceptable and dangerous. Casapound – say activists – must be dissolved because it is a neo-fascist collective. It is one of the diseases of our city, together with all the political forces that are based on racism, sexism and discrimination. Anti-fascism is not a memory of the past, but a living condition for building a common future, free from injustice”.
A political question
As explained in this article of RomaToday, Spin Time, born in 2013, has become a real laboratory over the years. And it is a place where politics frequently passes, between electoral campaigns, assemblies and public meetings. Roberto Gualtieri went there in 2021 while he was preparing to win the Center-Left primaries, just to give an example. Various types of courses are held inside, there are real workshops, parties and dinners are organised. Even New Year’s Eve parties, against which the current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni lashed out already in 2019. In the former Inpdap building, later acquired by Investire SGR (Banca Finnat), there is the Roman headquarters of the magazine “Scomodo”.
The City’s attempts to save Spin Time
The Municipality has tried in every way to convince the owners to sell it the building, to carry out an operation at the “Metropoliz” (the occupied former Fiorucci sausage factory), and perhaps complete the regularization of the occupants along the lines of what was also done at the Porto Fluviale, but there was no way. Investire Sgr’s intentions are to redevelop the property and transform it into a hotel, even if the construction times should have followed those of the Jubilee, which in the meantime has ended.
