Yesterday (May 26), the court which is responsible for this area (Østre Landsret) decided the evacuation of Christiania.
Makes me sad and angry.
Greets,
Philip
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Christania is an amazing place, if you like the atmosphere and spirit of the freetown, you should try the Roskilde Festival at some point, more of the same :)
As for the court order, it has yet to go through the supreme court, and the lawyer team representing Christania thinks they have a good case. More on that subject here.
This entire situation is a product of 8 years with a liberal government and the extremist nationalist people's party, it's very sad!
Wow -- evacuation! I've never really felt the desire to pick up arms before and join a foreign struggle, but this almost would be the case. Of course that is not the answer. I imagine the people that have lived there for decades and raised families are not happy (for those that don't know, Christiania was an 18th or 19th century military barracks abandoned in the late 60's). They even built playgrounds. It's in the middle of Copenhagen and they don't allow cars inside the walls which still surround it. Very alternative. Etc, etc. Because it was built for the military, no one was able to cut off the utilities.
This is not in the news here at all. Maybe it will be on the BBC in a few hours. Why do you think the people of Denmark, who were "nearly socialists" for so long*, suddenly in the past ten years decided they wanted such a "bad" government?
*that is actually the reason my father emmigrated; he didn't want to pay taxes and felt the business climate would be better for entrepreneur types in North America, so he came here to make money. Which he did. But as an irony, his brother, who is also a mechanical engineer, stayed in Denmark and made even more money.
Look guys, I spoke german and english in the home until I was 5 years old, this haughty attitude that most germans have about how their language is spoken is an entirely modern eurotrash phenomenon. Remember that most of the educated affluent germans left germany prior to 1939 due to the failing economy, what was left was, well, lets not be overly prejudicial in our analysis, the ones that couldnt or wouldnt leave.
People got rich, didn't want to share, i guess? If you are in the top income bracket, which nearly 1/3rd of the country is, you get to pay 62% taxes, back before the liberal government, that number was a bit higher, guess the voters got fed up with it. That's my take on the situation at least, i'm not liberal so i wouldn't really know.
Problem is, with a liberal government, places like Christania, and Ungdomshuset will eventually be shut down, as it goes directly against the liberal ideology.
To be fair, the liberal government got the unemployment rate down, to unprecedented levels. Luckily, their politics will not be beneficial for Denmark in the current financial crisis, which hopefully will get the 'commies' back on the throne (Or so the economical and political experts say, at least)
So, your chance to do something wrong are 10.000 / 20 = 1 to 500.
That Ungdomshuset story is pretty harsh, esp. since it was evangelical right-wing Christians that bought it so they could tear the place down and sell the real estate! There's some familiar Christian meaness and hatred for you!
The significance of "liberalism" in Europe is I believe somewhat the opposite of it what it is here.
There has been no mention of this on the BBC world service. Instead, they are talking about all the sad stupid asses that lost money with Bernie Madoff. I would bet money that a lot of those people would also be the kind of people who would vote against the squatters of Christiania, and drive them out of their homes. But they are now crying for sympathy because "they have unfairly lost their life savings" thanks to some other money-grubber outwitting them. Haha.