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

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.

The main grievance of Moller and his colleagues is that Christiania,
which is a no-go area for Copenhagen's police, has become a haven for
drug dealers. No one denies drugs are on sale in the 840-acre
waterside enclave in flagrant defiance of strict Danish laws. Last
week, 24 hours after a major police raid, The Observer found a dozen
stalls open on 'Pusher Street' in the centre of Christiania. At each,
customers, predominantly young locals, browsed a range of different
resins and pre-rolled joints. Prices ranged from 20 kroners (UKP2.20)
for joints containing 'home-grown' hashish to 40 kroners for those
made with powerful stuff from Afghanistan. Nearby stalls sold drugs
paraphernalia.

Many of the drugs purchased are smoked in Christiana itself. The
sprawling complex is full of cafes and terraces where, all year round,
Copenhagen's young come to smoke. There are restaurants with a
city-wide reputation where local literati sit down to UKP50-a-head meals
and have a smoke with their post-prandial coffee. There is a sports
club, with the motto, 'You'll never smoke alone'. Christiana is also a
massive tourist attraction, visited by 750,000 people each year. In
the summer its cobbled streets are thronged with visitors from all
over Europe, some drawn by the drugs, some by the thriving music
scene, some by both.

More than 66lbs of drugs was seized in last week's raid, bringing the
total haul from there this year to 1,543lbs, said Inspector Lauridson
of Copenhagen police. Yet the dealers keep only a single day's stock
in hand.

A self-imposed ban on hard drugs, brought in 20 years ago, has held,
however. All over Christiana are colourful murals and signs making the
commune's opposition to hard drugs clear.

Only residents of Christiania, who have to be admitted by a consensus
vote of its governing council, are allowed by the commune to sell
drugs on Pusher Street. The police claim dealers run multi-million
pound businesses, have links all over Europe and are involved in hard
drugs trafficking. Anti-drugs officers in Norway and Sweden complain
the commune acts as a base for people importing drugs into their countries.

Police say the Christiania sellers buy their drugs from motorbike
gangs - the rival Hell's Angels and Bandidos - who dominate much of
Denmark's organised crime. Recently gangs from Copenhagen's new ethnic
minorities, have tried to muscle in. 'Turkish, Arab and Balkan figures
have joined forces and given the motorbike gangs an ultimatum. That's
why the Pusher Street dealers are well armed,' said Lauridson.

He said police raids often provoked a rash of robberies. 'We take
their stock. They are left with debts to the biker gangs. If they
don't pay there is serious violence.'

Even within Christiania, where around 700 adults and 300 children
live, there is controversy over Pusher Street. Many Christianites say
they would be happy for Christiania's role as a haven for soft drugs
consumption to end.

'Let's face it, it would be a far more interesting place if half the
people here weren't centred on drugs,' said Lykke, who has lived in
Christiania for 24 years. Lykke wants a compromise - maybe the
creation of licensed coffee shops, as in Amsterdam. He points out that
hundreds of thousands of Danes smoke cannabis, despite it being
illegal, and describes Pusher Street as a 'bad solution to a stupid
situation'. Others say that the drugs distract attention from the true
focus of Christiana - community, democracy, shared property,
sustainable development and recycling, social welfarism and 'peace'.

Such opinions are not welcomed by those who profit from drugs. One
seller on Pusher Street, who was born in Christiania, said he and his
fellow tradesmen would battle to save their livelihoods. 'We will
fight peacefully at first,' he said, standing beneath a board covered
in photographs of plainclothes policemen sent to infiltrate the
commune. 'We offend politicians just by existing.'

Like almost everyone in Christiana, the 31-year-old, who refused to
give his name, said that the state was using the drugs issue as an
excuse to grab one of the capital's most valuable tracts of land.
'They just want more luxury flats for the rich,' he said. 'I built my
own house here. I have two young children who are third generation
Christianites. I am not going to give all that up without a struggle.'

So the battle lines are drawn. The Christianites say they have rights
to the land they took 30 years ago and legal status as a 'social
experiment'. They point to the social work they do with alcoholics and
former junkies. Preparations are in train for the annual Christmas
dinner - free food for thousands of down-and-outs.

Voters are divided. Polls show only 45 per cent back the government's
plan to 'normalise' Christiania.

Eva Schmidt, a law professor at Copenhagen University, says the row
reveals a Danish swing to the right and individualism. 'The
traditional Danish emphasis on the social side of society is being
replaced by a stress on individual opportunity. There is less of a
sense of solidarity with one's countrymen, that supporting the weak
benefits everyone.'

Despite the lights, the trees and the tourists buying home-made plum
chutney, Buddha chill-out CDs and quantities of hash, there is little
seasonal cheer in Christiania this Christmas.