Postcard From Christiania

EUROPE'S LAST COMMUNE BRACES FOR BATTLE

There is something different in the air at Christiania these days the
usual spicy aroma of marijuana smoke now occasionally mixes with the
smell of tear gas and burning tires. That's because, more than three
decades after Europe's oldest and largest commune was established as
an antidote to "selfish society," Danish authorities are moving to
close it down. More than 90 people were arrested a few weeks ago
after groups of youths fought running battles with police, throwing
bottles and cobblestones and burning homemade barricades. The riot, a
rare occurrence in this normally placid Scandinavian country, was
prompted by police arriving to demolish a shelter deemed unsafe by
the authorities.

"There is a radicalization between young people and police in
Copenhagen that we haven't seen in years," says Henrik Bang,
professor of politics at the University of Copenhagen. "And the
conflict will get worse."

Since 1971 the commune's 800 residents, inspired by the ideals of
peace and free love, have maintained a free-wheeling idyll in this
former navy base — an overgrown woodland spotted with lakes and
pretty redbrick and wood houses that provides a retreat for artists,
musicians and free-thinkers of all stripes in a self-declared "free
state" that flies its own flag and does not pay market property tax rates.

But Christiania sits on prime real estate in Copenhagen's upmarket
Christenhaven neighbourhood, and Denmark's conservative government
wants to reclaim the territory for an ambitious housing project.

"I think ordinary Danish people just think it's a little odd,"
explained Bang. "People are living in houses worth $5 million, the
land has big recreational possibilities — so why should they be
allowed to govern [themselves] outside Danish society?"

Traditionally, the commune's friction with local police has been over
drug policy. Pusher Street, Christiania's ramshackle main
thoroughfare, allowed cannabis dealers to display their wares in
glass-topped cabinets, graded according to strength — until a police
incursion in 2003. Still, the authorities claim, some $200,000 of
marijuana is still bought and sold every day in Christiania, and
critics charge that the commune long ago sold out its ideals.

"The original idealism has long since evaporated," says Jens
Sorensen, a Copenhagen-based political consultant. "Christiania is
now home to an 'alternative' elite."

Still, the old hippie idealism still shapes many of the rules that
govern the commune: Selling property is not allowed, and instead of
cars — also banned — residents use bicycles to ferry everything from
groceries to children.

At the day care center set on the shore of the commune's wooded lake,
minder Richard Lonsdale has just put on a movie for children after
finishing school classes. "I've been here for five years and it's
changed a hell of a lot," he says. "There's been a general hardening
of attitudes [from the police] — they think we're the enemy, but we
don't teach our kids that."

As well as the kindergarten, Christiania also boasts a health clinic,
a book shop, a vegan restaurant and a concert venue, which gets
transformed into an impromptu dining hall once a year when residents
organize a Christmas party for the city's homeless.

But the clashes with the authorities has brought about changes in the
attitudes of a traditionally tolerant Danish society. The current
conservative government, for example, rules in coalition with the
openly anti-immigrant Danish People's Party. In response, a new
political party — dubbed the New Alliance — was set up in May,
electing its leader, Syrian-born Nasser Khader, as the country's
first-ever member of parliament from the 8% of the population whose
origins are foreign. And, in the seven weeks since the Christiania
riots, the New Alliance has become Denmark's third largest party,
boasting 20,000 members and polling 15 percent of the popular vote.

"Danish society used to a be a consensus society," says Khader. "But
in the last few years Danish politicians [have] forgotten the centre.
We want to go back to the middle of the road."

But even a New Alliance surge in elections expected later this year
could be too late for the communards of Christiania. As they make the
most of the long summer evening on a recent Tuesday, the conversation
among the gardeners, painters and barbecue chefs can quickly turn
tense. "The government is taking the temperature of how it's going to
be when they clear the whole place out", says Marco Malcopes, the
25-year old manager of the commune's Info Cafe. "If that's their
intention we showed them what will happen — we have to defend the
places we live in."