Published by the Meuterei collective on 29th May 2020 via https://de.indymedia.org/node/84948
Beloved Friends of the Meuterei,
As you probably all know, we haven’t had a rental contract since one year, and have been in a constant struggle to keep the Meuterei running. However, only a few of you know that we’re also facing another problem for one and a half years, which we have deliberately kept out of the public sphere! Unfortunately, the situation has escalated so far, that we feel obliged to inform you.
But what exactly is it that are we talking about?
Um was gehts nun aber genau? Dafür muss ein bisschen ausgeholt werden. ( this sentence looks strange in English and im not sure if u still wanna have it! IN ENGLISH)
The Meuterei was founded 11 years ago by a group of people who wanted to work together collectively. During the founding period, the former collective decided for various reasons to register different official contracts in the name of one individual. The collective, however, and naturally has changed quite a lot throughout the passing years; People have come, others have gone, including the individual who officially signed the lease and business contracts, and in his absence, the collective continued to work and run the place. The contract owner has been living outside of Berlin, until one and a half years ago, he returned unannounced and wanted to be a part of the collective again, which the collective accepted! And quite fast it became quite obvious, that the current collective and the contract holder have clearly different views of collective work.
For us, working collectively means that decisions are supported and made together and at an equal eye level.
The contract holder had deliberately acted against collective decisions, which naturally led to conflicts. A mediation aimed towards resolving the conflicts was planned, however never took place, as he chose to leave the collective before.
Eventually, we have tried on different levels to find solutions to social, professional and financial problems together with him. More than a year ago, and as a business owner, we offered him the opportunity to change something about that, which we refused. He rejected and did not pursue various options to stabilize his financial situation beyond the Meuterei.
In addition, we have contractually assured him that we will pay for any costs that the operation of the Meuterei and the continued use after the end of the lease.
For some time now, however, he has been making repeated financial demands on the collective and believes that the Meuterei is bound to provide for his livelihood. Beyond the fact that this would not be manageable for the collective as it exists, we also feel differently. He also demands to influence decisions of the collective. After threats to take measures that would have made the continuation of the Meuterei impossible, we gave in on parts of the financial demands.
In the end, we did not give in to more and more demands, which resulted in the situation that persons of the Meuterei collective were dismissed by him by mail and he pressed for the surrender of the rooms to him.
We personally see this process as an eviction threat from our “landlord”. One difference to not having a rental contract anymore is that we are now officially no longer working there and therefore cannot continue the business.
What we’re really trying to say here…
We love the rooms at Reichenberger 58 and we love our neighbourhood. And we are so in love, enough to claim that the Meuterei is not the rooms in Reiche 58, but us, the collective and you.
At the end of the leasing contract, we decided to stay in the rooms and fight to keep them. We still see things that way. We thought it was important to keep the rooms open as long as possible and to continue as a pub. Finally Corona intervened and we had to close down for the time being.
However, and due to the current situation we now have no possibility to run a legal pub there. So there is a possibility that the Meuterei as you know it may not reopen.
We still stand by our political decisions. “Keine Beute mid Der Meute” refers to both money-hungry investors* and power-hungry would-be bosses. We have heard some rumors about what the contract owner would do, we don’t care about what is true. Above all, we want to make it clear that we will neither give up nor disappear, nor allow ourselves to be appropriated. If something about the “Meuterei” is published in the near future or if you hear something that you find funny, it might well be that it is not coming from us. Be prepared for this, please. For reliable info on our situation, please follow our website (meuterei.tk), the website of the support group ‘Leute für die Meute’ (leutefuerdiemeute.noblogs.org) and their Twitter account (@keinebeute). Our
e-mail address as well (meuterei@riseup.net).
In this situation we still stand together as a united collective against the opinion and view of the contract owner. We discuss a great deal in this context and we also argue, but we work as one. The Meuterei collective is us. We continue to stand with our friends of the other (threatened) projects, the Interkiezionale. Our struggle continues, despite everything unpredictable.
We do not know what will happen in the next days or weeks. If you see us, please stay updated and feel free to contact us!
Your Meuterei collective <3 <3 <3
