The ex-military compound of Christiania in Copenhagen has been a self-governed squat for 37 years. While he was having his very own squat, Simon Rashleigh pondered the Christiania locals’ assertion of the ‘right’ to free housing in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
Christiania
by Simon Rashleigh
“Why should I pay for the right to sleep?” I read this neatly scrawled on the toilet wall as I sit quietly on the loo. It’s early and my brain is ticking over slowly. Why should I pay for the right to sleep? Because everyone else does. Because, well, because. Where do you start the story? With some feudal feud, some ancient king, one cave and two cavemen? Must I defend property rights, or shall I leave that to the state, that state that apparently doesn’t pertain to where I now sit?
Having finished the business for which I had found myself in that smelly concrete room in the first place, I walk out into the streets of Christiania. There’s a middle-aged gent, who looks like he’s seen some things in his life, sitting, toking on a joint. It is never too early for this in Christiania. I walk past the tiny little houses, that look haphazard, yet well cared for. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” I think. There’s so much creativity, so much energy. The community is something organic, with each part still growing. It won’t look the same tomorrow. To be sure, it’s a lovely place, a little oasis in the middle of the city, but I’m uneasy about something… I can’t put my finger on what.
I find my way back to the van, where it is parked by the side of the canal: the border of Christiania. In ten minutes on the bike I can be smack in the centre of Copenhagen. I look across the canal to the apartments of Holmen; they are beautifully converted old warehouses. The architect has, like the residents of Christiania, made the best of the buildings that were already there. But the comparison between the two sides of the canal stops there. I am told that across the way is some of the most expensive real estate in the city. Every apartment has a little boat parked beside it, and it appears that no expense has been spared in providing every modern convenience inside. All cities have a Holmen: that very nice, too-expensive-for-most, residential area, centrally located and with a beautiful setting. Although, there are not too many cities with a Christiania.
“The community where every individual works for the betterment of the community,” or so went the talk, at least back in 1971, when the thing started. Like any place, the residents have not always agreed. Having a liberal drug culture while ensuring the safety of the community is a tricky task. There have been disagreements about the way this should be achieved, and a brief look at the history shows that the place has not always been big enough for everyone’s idea of Christiania. You have to wonder if the community is held together by some kind of common philosophy, or rather, simply by the fact that, like in any community, they share a space. You feel that it is simultaneously pulling together and growing apart.
The government wants it gone, redeveloped, normalized. They want the residents to realize what they refuse to accept: that they are in Denmark and that the laws of the land do apply to them. I walk past the police who patrol the community, in combat gear and in a group. Violence breaks out from time to time, for example, when they want to tear down a building. Scores are arrested in the process, but the police can’t win, and are forced to retreat. If the government ever really had the will to end the dream, to end Christiania, it would be war. For Christianites and Copenhagen residents alike, Christiania means too much.
But does it mean anything? I guess, like most people who visit the community, I want it to go on existing; not because I necessarily believe in the rights of the residents to the land they occupy, but because it is an interesting place. Not only is it an abnormality in an increasingly uniform world, it is a beautiful little retreat in the middle of a modern city. It is a centre of debauchery, no doubt about it, but also a centre of culture. How sad it would be, then, if it became just another suburb. It would push Copenhagen closer to being just another city.
I walk around the place, unconvinced that the dreams of the founders of Christiania were ever, or will ever be realized. It’s not paradise, but the place has a certain magic to it. Any time I enter Christiania I take something away with me. As I leave, reading those defiant words, “You are now entering the EU,” I smile at the cheek, at the delusion, at the truth of the statement. Everyone who has the chance should take a look, before the war comes, before the modern world definitively lays claim to these three city blocks and forces its residents to, like everybody else, pay for the right to sleep.
Check out April’s European Vibe Magazine for Simon’s article on the whole of Copenhagen, where he explains how to get the most out of a weekend trip to the Danish capital.
