It was set up in the heart of Copenhagen as an antidote to the selfish society. But Europe's most famous commune is under threat from a right-wing government determined to 'normalise' this relic of the 1970s.

 

 

 

There is something new in the air over Christiania. Along with the wafts of cannabis smoke that linger over Europe's oldest hippie commune there now comes the stench of burnt tyres, charred rubbish and traces of tear gas.

The cloying odour rises from blackened barricades at the entrance to the 36-year-old self-declared "Fristaden" or Free Town in the heart of Copenhagen. These festering blockades stand just feet from gaudy graffiti advocating "eternal peace" and posters advertising products from yoga workshops to organic lettuce. A few feet further, teenagers carry on business as usual by smoking joints of hashish bought on Pusher Street - the ramshackle thoroughfare where marijuana dealers still hawk their wares sotto voce despite a prolonged police crackdown on the trade.

This stark contrast between love and war bears testimony to difficult times for Copenhagen's 800 Christianians, residents of the commune who fear their free-wheeling idyll in a disused naval barracks dotted with lakes and overgrown with woodland is about to be claimed back in what Denmark's right-wing government describes in Orwellian terms as "normalisation".

For two long nights this month the commune has been hit by one of the worst spasms of violence in its history as dozens of youths clashed with riot police in streets immediately outside Christiania's "border", marked out by two totem poles declaring "Welcome to Christiania" to incomers and "You are now entering the EU" to those leaving. Such is the fervour with which residents hold on to their self-declared autonomy, they even have their own flag - three yellow discs on a red background.

An attempt by the authorities to clear the burnt-out remains of a house in part of the 85-acre site that has been earmarked for a public park led to more than 90 arrests earlier this month. Black-clad youths launched cobble stones and bottles at the riot squads after setting fire to the barricades of furniture, cars and rubbish bins. The police replied with baton charges and tear gas as the rioters turned on a nearby school and damaged a library. There were unconfirmed reports that residents were also attacked.

Jens, a 23-year-old art student wearing the Christianian uniform of batik trousers and ripped T-shirt topped with a beanie hat, took part in the disturbances. Sitting in the garden of the Moonfisher Cafe, which has been raided by police so often that the air once thick with hash smoke is now perfumed only with coffee, this would-be class warrior said: "This is war. If the police want to come in and rip down our homes they will get what they deserve. It's simple really - how would you react to an organisation that wants to destroy your way of life?"

This sounds a long way from the founding spirit of the Scandinavian beatniks and working- class Copehagenites looking for affordable housing who first annexed the disused military base in 1971, extolling residents to "emigrate on the number eight bus route" and build homes to be owned by the collective in a community governed by meetings. As the original mission statement put it: "The objective of Christiania is to create a self-governing society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the well-being of the entire community."

The vast majority of Christianians denounced the recent violence when The Independent visited in the aftermath, pointing out that at least half of those arrested - a figure confirmed by the Copenhagen Police - were youths from other parts of the city using the commune as an excuse to confront the authorities.

But the riots served to highlight a far more fundamental question about whether the "self-governing society" admired by Scandinavians for a generation is a thriving entity of which Danes should be proud or if it has become a closed community for privileged beatniks living cheek-by-jowl with a grubby cannabis trade, albeit one where hard drugs have been successfully eschewed for almost two decades.

At a time when Denmark is tempering its liberal traditions with a lurch towards conservative values - the governing coalition includes the ultra right-wing and anti-immigrant Danish People's Party - Christianians believe they have become the front line for a crackdown on tolerance. The authorities have shifted their focus after clearing out the Ungdomshuset or Youth House, a squat in another Copenhagen district used by leftist radicals and drop outs. The police action in March prompted the worst rioting in the Danish capital for a decade.

As Karsten S, a husky-voiced artist and social worker who has lived in Christiania for 29 years, put it: "They want to make us like any other part of any other European city. They want to make Christiania fashionable and gentrified. Everyone must own their house and pay their taxes. Well, that's not going to happen. We are obliged to preserve something that is unique."

Indeed, a stroll around Christiania, less than a mile from the Danish royal family's palace, reveals a place that is far more complex and structured than the 85-acres of unruly cliché that is Pusher Street, with its stalls selling Che Guevara t-shirts and Bob Marley CDs, might lead visitors to believe. It is largely governed by eight eclectic but inviolable rules: no cars, no hard drugs (after a disastrous flirtation with tolerating heroin addicts in the late 1970s), no guns, no violence, no selling property, no stealing, no bulletproof vests, and no biker colours (after a biker gang infiltrated the marijuana trade and the dismembered corpse of a rival was found under the floor boards of a house).

Instead of cars, people get around on contraptions known as Christiania Bikes, a sort of back-to-front tricycle with a large box on the front to carry anything from groceries to children. Accommodation is a mix of large 19th-century warehouses divided into flats and dozens of self-built houses, some accomplished feats of eco-engineering and others little more than garden sheds.

Christiania boasts its own kindergarten, health clinic, vegan restaurant, health food shop, book shop and the Gra Haus, a fully-fledged concert venue where recent performers have included the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It is in this tranquil hinterland that the real Christiania emerges. Children ride their bikes up and down apparently unsupervised, neighbours help each other install wiring or plumbing while artists sit on terraces completing their latest painting or sculpture. In this cleanest of Scandinavian capitals, there is even a squad of volunteer street cleaners to keep the place spotless.

Each house has a name rather than a number - Blue House, The Hot Potato Girls House, Big Cigar House, The Banana House. Rubbish has been sorted and recycled since long before it became the norm elsewhere and teams of volunteers conduct periodic clean ups of public areas. Tourists stream through the area, making it the second biggest tourist attraction in Copenhagen after the Tivoli Gardens, with more than 500,000 visitors a year.