Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.04.2007, Page 9

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REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_INFO_ISSUE 04_007
(mínus)
The Great Northern Whalekill
& Aldrei fór ég suður
It could have been a scene from a James Bond
movie. Cops in bullet-proof vests descended
from a helicopter above onto the roof of the
building, while below others shot teargas into
the house before entering it from all sides.
After serving as a user-run community centre
for almost 25 years, Ungdomshuset at Jagtvej
69 in Copenhagen was cleared on Thursday
morning, March 1. As a regular user of the
house and a supporter of its residents’ struggle,
I was angry at the sale and ultimate eviction of
people from the house as well as the efforts
of local authorities to homogenise culture and
eliminate unwanted social elements such as
punks and anarchists. So I joined the protests.
March 1, at 10 pm, I joined around 2000
people gathered at Radhuspladsen in central
Copenhagen before marching into Nørrebro,
the neighbourhood where Ungdomshuset was
situated. We carried coffins emblazoned with
slogans such as “diversity” and “freedom”,
we sang songs and shouted slogans and
you could sense a lot of anger in the group.
There had been protests all day, some of them
violent, and more than 100 people had already
been arrested so I really did not know what to
expect.
The march ended in Folkets Park in Nørrebro
where a few speeches were made, a large
bonfire was lit and people began mingling and
drinking beer. At some point a barricade was
built in the street and lit on fire and shortly
thereafter came the teargas.
I still don’t know which came first, the
throwing of stones at the police or the
teargas canisters, but either way I ran a safe
distance away with the majority of the crowd,
tears running down my face and a burning
sensation in my eyes, nose, throat and lungs.
The crowd gathered again, more barricades
were built and subsequently set on fire and
then the sequence repeated itself. More
teargas and flying rocks and bottles and this
time a teargas canister hit me in the leg giving
me a limp for the rest of the weekend. This
continued for a while and I ended up hiding in
a churchyard together with a couple of other
protesters while the police swept through the
area arresting everyone in their way. The riots
were still in full swing when I decided to call it
a night and go home.
Two days later – as I marched down a street in
central Copenhagen and looked around at the
thousands of demonstrators marching against
the eviction of Ungdomshuset – I couldn’t help
but think how much our view of the world is
distorted by the mainstream media. Although
the rioting had stopped, the demonstrations
and protests continued. But since there were
no burning fires or flying Molotov cocktails,
the media was disinterested.
They would rather have everyone believe
that the activists and supporters of this
controversial house were all stone-throwing,
troublemaking teenagers with Mohawks and
piercings in the strangest places. Black clad
anarchist extremists with their faces covered
and their backpacks filled with destructive
devices. Violent psychopaths hell bent on
destruction.
Yet as I looked around I saw only diversity.
There were Mohawk-sporting punks, bead-
wearing hippies, leather-clad metalheads,
baggy pants-wearing hip-hop crews, ravers,
senior citizens, middle-aged parents with
their children and a whole bunch of people
that were impossible to categorise, they just
looked “normal” (whatever that is!). And
the demonstration was a success. Not only
was it peaceful and enjoyable, it was also
huge, with up to 5000 people marching for
Ungdomshuset, diversity and freedom from
police control.
Later that day I was again in Nørrebro
trying to find a demonstration that had been
announced. There were a lot of people walking
down the main street. It was a Saturday night
and people were on their way to parties or
clubs. When I reached an intersection about
50 metres from where Ungdomshuset used
to be, several police vans were lined up across
the street, stopping people from going further
into the neighbourhood. All of a sudden their
sirens began to wail, the vans charged ahead
full speed and those unlucky enough to be
there had to run for their lives.
This is a tactic that was frequently used
during the demonstrations and at least one
person had been run over by a police car.
After that, everyone walking away from the
area was stopped by police, searched and
questioned and ordered to go home. The
policeman told me that if the police stopped
me again anywhere in the city that night, I
would be arrested.
This was how the police attempted to
control the situation: threats and intimidation;
systematically breaking the laws they are
supposed to uphold; beating up arrested
individuals inside police vans where there
were no witnesses; refusing to give their name
and badge number when asked (as they are
required to by law); harassing anyone who
looked remotely suspicious; videotaping and
photographing everyone walking the streets to
build a database of possible suspects; arresting
people for commenting on their behaviour,
putting up posters or other harmless activities;
the list is endless.
The large house on Jagtvej 69 was originally
built in the 1890s by the Danish labour
movement, financed by donations from the
Danish working class at a time when salaries
barely covered basic needs. It was called
Folkets Hus – The People’s House – and there
they held political meetings, fundraising balls
and so on.
The house was abandoned in the 1950s
and stood empty for the better part of 30 years
until 1981 when a large squatting movement
rose up in Copenhagen, seizing empty houses
all over the city, including the one at Folkets
Hus. It was there that the Initiative Group for
More Youth Houses was formed and drafted a
document with four basic demands to present
to the authorities. After several evictions
and riots, the city council finally gave up and
agreed to give the house at Jagtvej 69 to the
group. The mayor handed them the keys to
the house at an official ceremony in October
1982.
The agreement between them was that, in
return for control of the house, the Initiative
Group would run it for public use, holding
concerts, art exhibitions, seminars, workshops
and so on – a duty the occupants of the
house have fulfilled non-stop for the past
25 years. The house was promptly renamed
Ungdomshuset, or The Youth House.
Ever since, the users themselves have been
responsible for operating the house, without
assistance or interference from outside.
Ungdomshuset was run on the principle
of consensus democracy, where all major
decisions are taken at collective meetings
open to everyone, and the issues are discussed
until everyone is satisfied, as opposed to
conventional majority rule democracy whereby
an unsatisfied minority has to accept the will
of the majority.
In the house itself there was a small
bookshop, two concert halls, practice spaces
for bands, meeting rooms for political groups,
a large kitchen which served cheap vegan
food once a week and probably other things
that I am unaware of. There were concerts,
raves, art exhibitions, seminars and workshops
teaching everything from bicycle building
to self defence for women, along with
more ambitious projects, like how to start a
revolution.
Eventually, the authorities were fed up with
the radical activities of the users of the house
and since, legally, the house was still the
property of the Municipality of Copenhagen
it was sold to a fundamentalist Christian sect
called Faderhuset in the year 2000. Since
then, the activists at Ungeren – as the house
was lovingly called by its users – have fought
three court battles and countless awareness
campaigns and peaceful demonstrations to try
to keep their beloved house, but to no avail.
Faderhuset, the religious organisation that
bought the house, is a tiny fundamentalist
Christian sect led by Ruth Evensen who claims
she is in direct contact with God. The sect is
very controversial in Denmark. Their school
was closed down last year since they refused
to teach certain obligatory subjects such as
Darwin’s theory of evolution, opting instead
to teach the children that the biblical tale of
creation was in fact how the world began.
The sect has attacked toy manufacturers
for manufacturing “satanic” toys. They
have been accused of brainwashing young
people attending their schools and religious
sermons and Ruth Evensen declared during
the Sunday sermon on March 4, that after the
satanic influence of Ungdomshuset had finally
been defeated, their next targets would be
homosexuals and abortion.
Ungdomshuset meant a lot to many very
different people. It was a meeting place
for political groups, it was a place where
homeless people could occasionally get free
meals, a place where bands could rehearse
and play gigs, where thousands of people
went to meet friends and party. It was a safe
haven for homosexuals and others who often
feel threatened out in the “real world.” But
ultimately, the house isn’t the real issue. The real
issue at hand is to protect cultural diversity: the
right to think, live and be different. It’s about
being able to be free to maintain, operate
and define our own culture without outside
interference or having to ask for permission.
It’s about finding your own identity in a world
that is becoming increasingly homogenous
and monotonous.
This is not possible in a society where people
are refused the autonomous space necessary
for the realisation of such projects. A society
that sends its storm troopers to evict houses
and beat up citizens in the streets whenever
their existence threatens the status quo. The
house was a symbol for that freedom, that
diversity.
The thousands of people demonstrating
feel that the authorities are systematically
trying to wipe out anything that doesn’t fit
into their idea of culture and society. That
they are trying to eliminate a political culture
of resistance: the anarchists and socialists,
or, as they are more commonly called, the
“autonomer.” Most people I talked to at
demonstrations weren’t regular users of
Ungdomshuset – some had never even been
there – but rather people tired of this ongoing
homogenising and culture-destroying process
that has been dubbed the “normalisation
process.”
The official response from politicians
after the uproar began when the people
were evicted from the house on March 1
has been one of denial and a naive refusal to
find a common solution to the problem they
created when they sold the house. They have
mostly been interested in finding someone to
blame. The police response has been random
violence and extreme violations of human and
civil rights, all sanctioned by the Minister of
Justice, Lene Espersen, who put the blame for
the riots on “bad parenting.”
As of March 12, over 700 people have
been arrested and 200 of those have been
sentenced to custody for up to 4 weeks.
33 of those are minors (children under 18
years) including a 15-year-old girl accused of
digging stones up from the street. All these
people were sentenced without any evidence
being presented against them other than
police reports. A 64-year-old retired doctor
was arrested along with a group of about 40
people who had been at a demonstration but
were fleeing away after the stones began to
fly and teargas filled the air. The group was
held for 24 hours in a crowded cell and then
brought in front of a judge, five at a time, all
accused of violence against the police. She
says the only reason she wasn’t sentenced to
custody like everybody else in the group was
her old age.
Two days after the people were evicted the
police raided ten more houses in Copenhagen
with only one warrant – including the offices
of legal political organisations – looking for
foreign activists. More than 100 people were
arrested and every foreigner in the group
deported without any evidence of illegal
activities. In at least one of these raids, at a
collective in Baldersgade, the police started
the process by firing teargas canisters into the
house where most occupants were sleeping,
then promptly kicked down the door, locked
the house owners’ two dogs in a room filled
with teargas for the duration of the two-hour
raid, arrested everybody and then proceeded
to destroy furniture and personal belongings
in the house.
The evening after the eviction, a young man
by the name of Alex was going downtown
with a group of friends to celebrate his 17th
birthday. As the group was walking down a
street an unmarked car began racing after
them and they started running away. The
car caught up with young Alex and three
plainclothes policemen jumped on him and
beat him with batons. He was then thrown
into the backseat of the car and it was only
then that he realised they were policemen
because he heard them give reports on their
radio. In the car he was questioned about the
rest of the group and what th y were up to,
receiving beatings whenever the policemen
didn’t like his response. He was then driven
to a jail where he was held until the next day
when he was again questioned. He was never
told what he was accused of or why he had
been arrested, but he did receive a fine for
“disturbing the peace” and was subsequently
released.
Another man shouted, “go home, this isn’t
your fight” at a few policemen as he walked
by on his way home. He was jumped by three
policemen in riot gear, beaten a few times
with the policemen’s helmets and, when a
search of his pockets revealed nothing illegal,
he was forced to take off his clothes so the
policemen could search them thoroughly. He
was eventually allowed to go home. They’ve
also arrested members of the prisoner support
network ABC and the Street’s First Aid group
who were attending an injured protester
when the police arrested them, even though
they were clearly marked as a neutral first aid
team.
These are just a few examples of how the
police “protected and served” the community
in Copenhagen during the period. If you even
looked like an “autonom” you could expect
to be stopped in the street, questioned and
searched, possibly arrested or beaten. If
you happened to be at the wrong place at
the wrong time, if you complained about
police behaviour or if you dared to attend a
demonstration you risked being arrested and
detained in custody.
The house at Jagtvej 69 is now gone. It was
demolished just a few days after the eviction.
A lot of people loved that house, and I saw
many people cry as it was being demolished.
At the time of writing, the empty site where
the house once stood is filled with thousands
of flowers, candles, goodbye notes and
poems.
But we are not giving up. The demonstrations
and protest actions will continue until another
house will be available to us, until the
authorities stop threatening Christiania with
eviction, until we are recognised as a part of
this society, no better and no worse than the
rest. They can tear down all our houses but not
our convictions, our beliefs and our opinions.
We will not be shut up, locked out or pushed
away. The struggle for free, autonomous space
continues.
Text by Vilhelm Vilhelmsson Photo by Ali André Nabulsi