Counter-Statement regarding XB take-over

Regarding the XB collective evacuation, free-room take over and the justification by the Liebig34 collective:

This action realized by some part of the Liebig 34 house collective along with 25+ mixgender people in masks from neighbouring house projects, followed by an extremely accusative statement, is a strong manifestation of a mentality that is discriminative, predominant and police/military-like.

Multiversal is an event series started in Berlin in 2011, as an alternative to the music business, focusing on experimental sounds, without any limitations of genre, and it is an itinerant reality since 2014, active in all around Europe and Middle East, organizing gatherings and festivals for hard listening music and negletive arts, mostly in occupied and liberated spaces, with the participation of more than 500 music and performative arts professionals so far, who are strong supporters of independency and liberation of the arts and music from the intitutionalized realities, and connected to many of the egalitarian counter politics from different parts of the world.
Brain Pussyfication is a label and radio show focusing on extreme sounds in all forms, operating in a completely DIY manner, in Asia and Europe within the liberated and occupied realities and independent and pirate radios with a strong focus on removing borders in music (and not only) from genre to gender.

Together with other groups and collectives, over the last couple of years we have been organizing concerts and parties (which the first one was a soli party for XB back in 2014 when the collective was still run by the inhabitants of the house - except the technical responsables who were cis-men), in the free room, on the groundfloor of the building on Liebigstr. 34 in Berlin. In the past year we have given tech and logistic support to all the events held at XB-Liebig by various collectives, who were able to communicate with the XB bar collective , without encountering any discrimination, aggression or abusive behaviour, which cannot be said for the times when the XB was run by only L34 habitants, as at that time the communication was slow or non existent, disrespectful and dismissive, without any interest and/or possibility for debate.

This brings us to sunday's events; the unwillingness for a healthy and constructive debate, extreme accusations towards ALL the members of XB collective, which in our opinion extends to many who have collaborated with them, and a violent take-over:

- This is not a militant action, this is an action that was repeated in different parts of the world by military and police forces to topple other groups.
- The extreme accusations and identifying a group of people as the enemy, which shared the same roof for years, is a system that is used by the most of the oppressive regimes all around the world.
- This is an action of predominance of a group over another, using gender issues and other categorizations as an excuse to justify their own violent methods, physical and verbal.
- The extend of generalization in the statement by Liebig 34 (or the part of the collective which is responsable for the take-over, who speak in the name of the whole house), is ridiculously ignorant and has extremely terrifying similarities to rhetoric which is used by populist right wing movements all around the world.
- Not being open to any communication (contrary to what the statement from L34 declares), is a dismissive and unrespectful behaviour.
- Even though there was an accord at the very first meeting with whoever was present from the L34 collective and XB collective back in June, to improve the conditions of coexistence, this violant take-over ignores also this agreement, different parties involved seem to have had at the first meeting and a follow up, upon request by XB collective.

This so called femminist-queer action brings also other problems:
Since last couple of years, the changing and more inclusive XB collective, has been able to reach different music scenes in Berlin. From free improvisation to noise, to various intergenre musics that are contaminated by different academic and activist backgrounds.
Thanks to thi,s XB has become one of the free rooms that is crutial to the counter-culture and ongoing struggle against commercialization of different identities and forms in/of music. This is one of the main reasons, why the concert calendar of XB was so full, with people coming from all around the world, performing doing lectures and workshops etc. Almost without any doubt all the people who did perform, give lectures run workshops and/or organized concerts, are antiracist, antifascist, antisexist, against any form of phobia (including xenophobia which in our opinion is one of the biggest issues of the neighborhood's militant scene which manifests itself with mostly the language) and supportive of inclusive gender and border politics, which manifested itself also by presentations of groups who are directly active in Europe's refugee crisis, in the frontline and not only in Germany.
This take-over and implemented pause is putting on hold all the cultural activism that XB was doing together with groups like ours.
If the reasons behind the take over were as stated by L34, then there would have been made an effort at least to continue the concerts which were booked months in advance by people who dedicate their lives to sonic activism, whom, some of them, have been also important figures in worldwide LGBTIQ communities and activism.
As both Multiversal and Brain Pussyfication are mixgender groups we think, the actions of and the statement provided by a part of L34, are very patriarchal and offensive towards all the principales and history of femminism and not only; their accusations towards the women (as their statement accuses ALL) who have collaborated with XB is insulting and diminuitive.

To conclude, both Multiversal and Brain Pussyfication do work and collaborate with independent realities from many different places. We do understand the group dynamics, and differences in idealogies, approaches and languages. This action, without any effort to communicate for the last two years by the responsables from L34 and R94, is not a liberation or reclaim of a free room in order to create a safe space for a certain group, it is an invasion. Our understanding of a safe space is not seperatist, but inclusive. The dismissal of different idealogies and groups is fascism in its essence.

Multiversal & Brain Pussyfication