I posted this on Ornery recently, yet no one responded
quote: End is nigh for the commune that kept hippie dream alive
The laid-back life of the enclave of Christiania is under threat from a resurgent Danish Right, reports Jason Burke in Copenhagen
Sunday December 21, 2003 The Observer
It's Christmas in Christiania. There are trees outside the meeting house, a Santa near the commune's archives and above the array of Moroccan, Afghan or Lebanese cannabis resin, are strings of fairy lights.
But the people of Christiania, a 30-year-old self-governing commune in central Copenhagen, are far from jolly. There is a sense of unease in the chill, damp air that drifts in off the Baltic and the North Sea. For the 1,000 strong 'alternative community' knows this Christmas may be its last.
Ever since local hippies, performance artists and homeless people seized a complex of old military barracks and refused to co-operate with the state 32 years ago, conservative politicians have sought to close Christiania down. Now, for the first time in Denmark's recent political history, an alliance of the commune's harshest political opponents has a majority in parliament. A law will be passed within months in effect ending the commune's de facto autonomy. Eviction notices will be issued shortly afterwards.
The controversy has split Denmark. Critics of the government say the right-wingers and their supporters are reacting 'like Pavlov's dogs' against anything that smacks of traditional Danish leftism. 'From sustainable power to welfarism to immigration, they are fighting the battles of the Seventies all over again,' said Ole Lykke, the editor of Christiania's own newspaper.
This is admitted by Adam Moller, a former special forces soldier and conservative MP, whose party is in alliance with the hard-right Danish People's Party. 'We have been too tolerant and too liberal for too long in this country. No one in Denmark should be beyond the law. There is a limit and Christiania is past that limit,' he said.
Maybe Ornery people were waiting to hear your opinion. What do you think of this article?
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
quote: The controversy has split Denmark. Critics of the government say the right-wingers and their supporters are reacting 'like Pavlov's dogs' against anything that smacks of traditional Danish leftism. 'From sustainable power to welfarism to immigration, they are fighting the battles of the Seventies all over again,' said Ole Lykke, the editor of Christiania's own newspaper.
How is sustainable power "leftist"??
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
I have no idea. But the left is usualy friendlier to green causes than the right. I think it is extreamly sad, and wrong to. You don't give someone the right to live somewhere and then tak it away. Unless you are a U.S. senator and that person is Amer-Indian.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I guess thievery becomes acceptable 32 years later?
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
The reporting is not biased in the least.
Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
Seems like if Christiania shut down Pusher Street, they'd be all right . . .
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I think it's a really fascinating look at an independent community.
I think that the community's existence and the selling of drugs are two seperate issues.
If the people of Christiana can support themsevles, buy the land they're on, and the drug dealing stops, I don't see any reason why the state wouldn't let Christiana exist.
Actually, the drug dealing shouldn't make Christiana's existence be in question either. If someone is breaking the law, then the state can arrest them. They have that power. What they shouldn't have the power to do is kick people off of land they own.
Did the Christiana-ers get it in a kind of weird way? Sure. I would need to know more about what the state was doing with the land, really, before I say anything. If the buildings were just sitting there, then, yeah, technically it was theft, but what the hell. The buildings are owned by the people anyway. They basically approve of Christiana-ers being there. Let'em be there. Let'em buy the land and then they'll own it themselves.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
They took the lad illegaly, but the state made it legal As no one os using the land and the state onwned, they had every right to do that, they don't really have the right to throw them off three decades later. I am sorry about having to use a Gaurdian source.