FREETOWN CHRISTIANIA

Freetown Christiania, or Christiania for short, is a commune in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. The commune is an intentional community, a voluntary residential community sharing a set of beliefs, values and rules. Intentional communities are often established by those wanting to pursue an alternative lifestyle. The kibbutz system found widely in Israel is another example of an intentional community.

Christiania started out as an anarchist community, though its anarchist roots have gradually been undermined by the Danish authorities and drug gangs. But it still remains today as essentially a hippy (or hippie depending how you like to spell the word) commune in which about a thousand people live.

On 26 September 1971, Christiania was established by a group of squatters led by Jacob Ludvigsen, a prominent anarchist provocateur (aka a provo), who had taken over the former military barracks of Bådsmandsstræde. The Danish Ministry of Defence took the squatters to court and in 1978 the Danish Supreme Court ruled that Christiania should be cleared.

But the Danish Parliament came to Christiania's rescue by decreeing that a development plan for the area needed to be put into place first. And, in 1989, the Danish Parliament legalised Christiania. In 2007, Copenhagen's city council agreed to cede control for ten years to the residents of Christiania for the purposes of business development.

Christiania was gradually being accepted by the Danish authorities, probably helped by the fact that Christiania is a major tourist attraction in Denmark. Below is the flag of Christiania, the three yellow circles represent each 'i' in its name.

Christiania as a commune was and still is largely run on anarchist lines, a form of consensus democracy (or syndicalist democracy in anarchist terms). Meetings, not too dissimilar to the town hall meetings in America, are regularly held in which residents have a say about the rules of their neighbourhood. At such meetings, there's a an attempt to reach a consensus of opinion - that's the European way!

One such communal rule is for the sale of and use of cannabis to be allowed in Christiania, despite both being illegal in Denmark. Other communal rules include no hard drugs (eg heroin), no weapons, no bulletproof clothing, no stolen goods, no fireworks and no biker colours. These rules were and are, to an extent, an attempt to stop the Danish authorities moving into the commune.

However, over the years the 'autonomy' of Christiania has been eroded. First, it was car parking. Rather than cars belonging to those living in the commune being parked outside its neighbourhood, the residents of Christiania were required by the Danish authorities to provide designated car parking for its residents - about 15 car parking spots are now available to Christianits.

Next was the requirement for Christainits to buy the land they live on. And then in 2013 came the law that Danish law superseded Christiania's 'laws'. The game was up; the dream of an anarchist community, not wanting to live by establishment laws, in the middle of a European city had been effectively crushed.

But against this backdrop is an ongoing battle that Christianits have fought against drug gangs - remember their rule about soft drugs being okay but hard drugs aren't. In the 1980s, there was a murderous battle between the Bullshit Motorcycle Club and a chapter of the Hells Angels for the control of the drugs market in Christiania (hence no biker colours allowed in the neighbourhood). And these violent turf wars have continued since. Only recently, residents of Christiania have been digging up the cobbles of Pusher Street, Christiania's main street - see photo below, in protest against the organised drug gangs pushing hard drugs in their commune.

I've never visited Denmark, but I'd like to go and Christiania would be top of my list of places to visit in that country.