Christiania er lukket

No doubt, it is a symbol. A symbol threatened by the ghost of the normalization. Well, let's say destruction or abolishment, as in Christiania nothing has ever been normal. I've been questioning myself about Christiania for a long time with contrasting feelings. The first time there, I got disappointed. I've dreamt about the Danish free community during all my adolescence and once there i just saw a camping village, with some very scary mugs, and a constant flying smell of pot...Decadence, but not an inspiring one, just a sad feeling of stubborn incomprehension of this age. Since then, i've thought it was just an anachronistic project. Maybe the shelter of some people who couldn't face the true, cruel and extremely fast contemporary world. Yes, i got into the trap. Conformity, Legalization...Normalization.

Our society likes putting into boxes. Better, it has to put everything into boxes, in order not to be reversed. This society freaks out when something is out of control. There has been a shift towards order and other traditional right-wing values everywhere in Europe. And it is not a matter of political orientation, it is the whole western society. Christiania has been there since the 1971 and it never really caused any problem, besides the drug trade that, willy-nilly is there, in every country. Actually, leaving Christiania with its status allowed a certain control on the phenomenon. It is known that since the police started hitting hard on Christiania the drug dealing moved to Nørrebro, driving the quartier to be known as the infamous Nørrebronx.

Now, the municipality of Copenhagen has imposed them to buy their soil. Since yesterday, the inhabitants has barricaded the entrances to the free town. "Christiania er lukket" (Christiania is closed) says the sign on the closed gate. They say they need time and peace in order to decide what to do next, therefore they ask all visitors to respect their stop. I think most of the people in Copenhagen stand for the commune: "It's the only special thing we have in Denmark", "the only place in Copenhagen where you have the feeling that something unexpected can happen". I am with them. Hopefully, since the first time i visited Christiania I grew up and I got back to an old philosophical concept...something called tolerance. You don't need to agree or understand, just accept that other people live their live as they decided to, of course, in the respect of human coexistence. Christiania is a sort of fulfilled imperfect utopia. It has to stand there to be the bastion of ideas and values that almost all of us seem to have forgotten. If Christiania shuts down, our society forgoes another piece of that healthy transgression which is son of one of the highest concept of the history of humanity: Freedom.
But, we all know, how nowadays freedom sounds like such an uncomfortable word.