Since the beginning of the development of capitalism, the housing question has been an urgent problem of the labouring masses of many countries. Starting from the first workers' slums in Manchester up to the slums today of Brazil, Mexico, India, Senegal and Turkey, the working class and the labouring masses are condemned to live under miserable conditions. In these slums, that worldwide grow every year with 25-30 million people settling there; hunger, unemployment, pittances, insufficient opportunities for education and health service are part of everyday life' problems such as drugs and degeneration. Water, electricity, garbage collection and insufficient means of public transport cause also many problems. In Turkey 42% of the town population live in such poor quarters built over night.
However, this is not even all. The capitalist state has not only not solved the housing question, but has deteriorated the situation with new broad attacks on the labourers' right of housing. The demolitions of the labourers' quarters which are carried out worldwide and the push into an unknown future are one of these attacks. With the imperialist globalisation the towns have entered a new transformation process. On the one hand the class contradictions are coming to a head more and more in the towns, on the other hand the meaning of rent as a form of added value and profitable investments in the towns have achieved a tremendous meaning for the bourgeoisie. The prices of property are rapidly increasing and the bourgeoisie tries to make as much money as out of the property sector. The labourers' quarters are an obstacle for that and should leave the space to expensive apartment housing estates, shopping centres and luxury villas.
In Turkey this attack is carried out under the AKP government's "Project for Urban Change". In relation to this project, 5 million people are planned to be driven out from their current residential areas and moved to the outer districts while the land should b given to the big monopolies. The magazine "Bizim Istanbul", published by the Labourer People's Coordination Against Demolition, states that in 25 quarters 1 million houses are planned to be torn down. The second reason for the policy of demolition is seen in the danger that the quarters of the labourers appear for the regime, because in these quarters there is united rage, the revolutionary organisations have been based in these quarters since their foundation and the opportunities and conditions for revolts in the towns display a huge revolutionary potential. Because of this reason these centres of the workers and oppressed should be destroyed and driven out of the city centres.
However, there has also been resistance in many cities of Turkey against the demolitions of houses for some years. The people organise themselves and resists with many different means of struggle, from walking exhibitions to barricade fights, against the state policy of demolition. For that, from July 20-27 the cultural centre BEKSAV organised a cultural program against the demolitions under the title "Resistance in the quarter, art on the street".
On July 27, the Labourer People's Coordination Against Demolition organised the Conference for the Right on Housing at Okmeydani, Istanbul, joined by representatives of many different quarters facing demolition as well as democratic organisations. Experiences were exchanged and many problems were discussed in connection with the demolitions, among them also health problems, the necessity of an international organisation in the struggle for the right of housing, which was especially emphasized in the speech of the Italian representative Cezare Ottavini of the International Alliance Movement for Housing, as well as the womens' role in the struggle against demolishing houses. At the conference the Labourer People's Coordination Against Demolition founded three years ago decided to change their name into "Coordination for the Right of Housing" and many proposals were agreed on for future activities. Among those were the decisions of supporting and participation in international organisations, the development of the struggle against demolition during the upcoming local elections, informing the labourers on this problem with different information material as well as founding committees in the quarters that are facing demolitions.