REALITY THREATENS THE FAIRYTALE OF COPENHAGEN'S HIPPIE SQUAT

Christiania Is A Draw For Copenhagen's Fringe. But The Times, They
Are A' Changin, And Rules Are Rules After All, It Seems

There is little heating in the sparsely furnished ex-barracks. The
ashtrays need emptying, the tables need customers, and the walls need
a fresh coat of paint, but 22-year-old Montreal-born Nicco doesn't
seem to mind.

It's the end of a day's work at the Infocafe. The
Canadian-Dane-Christianite is pouring leftover coffee down the sink.
He has spent most of his adult life living and working in the Free
State of Christiania.

Established in Copenhagen 35 years ago when a group of hippies
breached fences around disused military barracks in the district of
Christianshavn, land is collectively owned and administered in
Christiania. The community began in 1971 as a self-governing safe
haven for artists and intellectuals who wanted to live simply,
affordably and by their own rules.

More young families subsequently moved in, and soon they had built
alternative homes or occupied empty barracks over 85 acres, and
banned cars, hard drugs and violence within Christiania's borders.

Dogs and children roamed free in what the visitor's guide still calls
the "green lung of the city." They lived almost free, paying about
$50 Canadian per month to the collective pot.

It was a kind of privilege tax, used to set up recycling, sewage
composting and community plumbing; and not all for flaky hippie-ism;
Christiania was also the first place in Denmark to install high-speed
Internet. In the summer, artists and small-time merchants could set
up stands on the main strip and sell their wares to the 500,000
tourists that visit Christiania each year, making it the
second-largest tourist attraction in Hans Christian Andersen's
homeland. Many of them could live off their earnings all winter.

Today, much of the idealism that founded Denmark's famous fairytale
squat has faded, and what remains is under threat.

Still a place to escape capitalism yet remain close to its best
amenities, the "inner-city" or commercial area of Christiania is now
littered with drunks, pushers, social rejects and outlaws. Gathered
around trash-barrel fires and on the verandahs of bars, drinking,
smoking, they make visitors feel unwelcome to say the least.

Nevertheless, Christiania retains a level of social cohesion. The
community runs its own kindergartens, waste management, businesses
and a radio show. The Christiania bike - a kind of reversed tricycle
with two wheels in front supporting a grocery or child-carrying wood
bucket - is famous in Europe.

Christiania's citizens still turn to the city for higher education
and health care. Others work in Copenhagen and return at night. But
those wanting their spot in the Free State will find it not so free
after all: When a vacancy in the community arises, the Citizens'
Council decides on the next Christianite from the long waiting list.

At least, once they did. Now, the argument goes, it is not fair that
Christianites should have free access to the Danish welfare system
while controlling which Danes have access to Christiania and on what terms.

On Jan. 1, 2006, an amendment to the Christiania Act ended the
'collective right to use' agreement that has allowed the urban
commune to exist on the fringes of the free market.

"It's all a dream in my eyes," Nicco says. He speaks grimly of the
impending changes.

Since the politically conservative Liberal Party - an accepted
contradiction of terms in Danish politics - formed a majority
coalition with the Conservative Party in 2001, Christianites have
been fighting to preserve their alternative lifestyle.

Beginning with the crackdown of its multi-million dollar open-air
hash market in 2004, Christiania now faces real-estate development
and urbanization of the state-owned land it occupies. 'Normalization'
is the term the government uses.

" 'Normalizing' means shutting us down," Nicco says. Authorities
insist that's not the case.

"We don't want to interfere in the life they want to live in
Christiania. They just have to live by the same rules," says Peter
Christensen, a Liberal Party spokesperson.

Last December, residents and business operators in Christiania were
required to register the properties they occupy in order for it to be
leased back to them to them individually by the state.

"Christiania should be a place where all Danes have access to live,
without being exempt from the normal laws of the country," says Peter
Fangel, manager in Copenhagen's planning and architecture department.

"Things are going to change," he admits, but "it is important to
preserve whatever is worth preserving out there."

But will there be anything worth preserving left? Can freedom be
total, or is Christiania's protectionism necessary to preserve the
good thing they have?

Leaving the Free State of Christiania, a sign over the gate reads as
if a prediction: "You are now entering the EU."