The megamachine must expand constantly or else collapse. So it came to be that the Hambacher Forest, already a leftover from a much vaster ancient woodland, was almost completely destroyed by the expansion of a huge coalmine, the largest in Europe. Only a small portion of the habitat was spared, owing to fierce resistance centred around numerous occupations of the forest, starting in 2012.
The Hambi has been a focal point for anti-capitalist and radical ecological struggle in Europe. The autonomous zone opened up here is comparable in size to the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes and Exarcheia in Athens. Hambi also served as a key predecessor for many other land struggles in Germany alone, of which Lützerath and the Dannenröder Wald are but the two best known examples.
All the sites of resistance explicitly mentioned here, however, have since been evicted. Yet Hambi remains autonomous to this day, a lawless place where we can do what we want. Rather than being crushed outright, Hambi has mostly been forgotten about – both by comrades and broader society – since the supposed coal-exit was announced. It would be a strange conclusion for this struggle to wither into irrelevance.
The Hambi was never “saved”. Instead of being logged directly, it was sentenced to the slow-death of having its ground water stolen by a toxic pit which continues to expand. There are plans to further exploit the region by turning it into an eco-yuppie tourist resort, complete with a yacht harbour. And in times of militarisation and increased resource scarcity, the state is only an election away from forgetting about the coal-exit and finishing off what remains of the woodland. Continue reading “Germany: HAMBI (RE)BUILDING DAYS”