WILLIAMS: Think of Denmark and chances are the words liberal, tolerant, compassionate come to mind. Its what this small nation is known for. And yet, forces are at work to undo a Danish social experiment.
WILLIAMS: It looks like a rural village, but all this is in the heart of the Danish capital. Around 700 men, women and children live by communal rules, a consensus democracy.
NILS VEST: Im sure if you asked people in Denmark, how many would live here, its not only tens, its hundreds of thousands of people whod love to live the way we live at Christiania.
School children sing anthem
WILLIAMS: From Christianias only anthem to the defiant red flag, life here is deliberately different.
Community leader Nils Vest is leading the fight against a government he believes is using free market ideology to destroy the dream
NILS VEST: The way they want it to be is that you should pay the market value, and Christiania is totally opposed to market values.
WILLIAMS: The key here is mutual support and self sufficiency.
PETER POST: When youre living out here you cannot call the police, Peter you cannot call the technical assistance if you have a problem with your house, or with the pipelines, or whatever. You should make it yourself.
WILLIAMS: And this is the house Peter Post built. Surname Post, because he used to be the Christiania postman.
PETER POST: We have a lot of people who are coming from apartments in Copenhagen, very, very nice apartments in very, very nice areas.
And they come here and queue to get a lousy wagon without electricity and water. And this is amazing.
WILLIAMS: But to get a house first you have to prove yourself willing to work, at one of the many small businesses that underpin the Christiania experiment.
Liv Jorgenson has lived in Christiania for most of her life. Her childhood here was something special.
JORGENSON: We had a lot of freedom, a big playground, lots of space to move around. I think it was really a very safe area to grow up.
WILLIAMS: Whats different about you compared to if youd lived outside?
JORGENSON: I think I learned earlier to handle the freedom within the limits you should have as a child.
WILLIAMS: Now Christiania has become a tourist attraction. A million people a year peer into this bastion of hippy values a haven for all types and a social experiment with a socialising effect.
NILS VEST: Even some very violent guys they had a pain inside, and they react, but after three or four years they calm down, and suddenly they become very social.
Williams: Its a beautiful garden youve established here and a fantastic house.
WILLIAMS: Filmmaker and long term resident Nils Vest spent years of energy and earnings fixing up this old military building into a home for five families.
NILS: When we moved in it was in very poor shape.
WILLIAMS: For lots of people watching this programme, they would say yes its a lovely environment, youve created a beautiful home, but they would want a sense of ownership.
NILS VEST: We dont want that. To us its essential that when we do something, its also for those people who come after us. And we dont want to speculate in lack of housing for people -- we think thats shameful.
WILLIAMS: Nils Vest sees the communal ownership of the houses as the most important difference with the outside world.
People on streets in Christiania
According to the conservative government, Christiania is run down, a crime ridden haven for drug deals, a fire risk with a stressed environment and thats just for starters. Their solution privatisation residents offered their own houses at a discount. If they cant or wont buy them, theyll be sold on the open market.
ULRIK KRAGH, Government Spokesman: We need to make sure the people living at Christiania have responsibility personally for their house out there, so that we make sure this slumming way will end.
WILLIAMS: The residents say: Why should we pay buy our houses, we already live in them, we own them communally, why should we pay money for houses we already occupy?
KRAGH: They do not own the houses. Thats very sure. Its the Defence Ministry who owns the area and for the last fifteen years Christiania had the possibility to use the area, but theres no ownership there at all.
Pusher Street
WILLIAMS: One of the reasons Christiania is famous is the hash market, and whats known as Pusher Street.
NILS VEST: There was a rule. If you sold some hashish to a friend, you should not make any profit on it, just for what you had paid yourself.
Suddenly it became market powers which took over, and not the hippy ideals which existed in the start of Christiania.
La Cour. Super:Inspector Richard La CourArea Commander, Danish police
LA COUR: In what we called Pusher Street we had about ten thousand customers per day and we estimate that they were dealing about 40 kilos of hashish per day.
WILLIAMS: As Area Police Commander, Inspector Richard La Cour was ordered by the government to conduct a massive early morning raid on the hash dealers. Dozens were arrested. Overnight the market was closed down. He doesnt like the drugs, but even he is a strong supporter of Christiania.
LA COUR: As a private person, yes, but as a police officer I cant have an official opinion on that because we do whatever the government says we have to do according to the laws, but as a private individual, yes I do.
WILLIAMS: This is all thats left of Pusher Street a few stalls selling drug pipes and pieces, but the actual dealing is almost gone.
Pernille Hansen is the unofficial spokesman for the hash dealers, many of whom are now in jail.
WILLIAMS: For years youve had in a sense a blind eye turned to the hash dealing here. Why suddenly have the police clamped down and tried to shut this place down?
HANSEN: Because its a very, very nice area and its worth a lot of money for developers.
WILLIAMS: Simply that?
HANSEN: Simply that.
WILLIAMS: For many Christianites, Pusher Street and the governments push to privatise have become interwoven a conspiracy destroy their way of life.
PREBAN KRISTENSEN: The government we have right now is making a sort of ideological crusade against everything and anything that they have an idea could be a little bit left wing, so they are going really to destroy.
WILLIAMS: Preban Kristensen has been making and selling these special Christiania bikes since the early days. Hes witnessed many attempts to drive them out, but fears forced private ownership may divide and finally conquer.
PREBAN: The thing which is common in Christiania is there is a freedom and the very strange thing is that this government is marketing themselves on the same thing, We sell freedom.
Defence committee meeting
WILLIAMS:A defence committee has been formed to rally opposition to the proposed privatisation.
PETER POST: First of all they crush all this openness of tolerance in Denmark, as well as they do in Germany, and England and Australia maybe. If Christiania is crushed, my future life will be homeless.
WILLIAMS: And you would fight?
POST: Of course.
WILLIAMS: Till the end?
POST: Till the end. Of course. .This is a question about life and death.
WILLIAMS: In the workshops and across the counters, the campaign continues. The government says it simply wants to raise standards of housing, water, sewage and the like -- to regularise but not destroy.
WILLIAMS: But eople here did not come in search of sanitised suburbs. Children don lifejackets. These third generation Christianites appear blissfully unaware of the older residents fear for their future. Like 26 year old Jonathan Goransson once a pupil, now a teacher.
GORANSSON: I would lose all my childhood memories. It would break my heart. I couldnt face that. They just want to dip this whole place in concrete and build humungous houses for rich people, and were not going to allow that, first of all. But the thought alone scares the shit out of me.
Children in kayaks
WILLIAMS: Outside, a world of order, of market forces, private ownership, schedules and rules continues uninterrupted. The fear here is that those values will seep into the very foundations of Christiania imposed by a government determined to make this place like everywhere else. And that these children will be the last to know the real state of Christiania.
Credits:
Reporter: Philip Williams
Camera: John Benes
Editor: Kate Prevost
Research: Sharon Roobol
WILLIAMS: It looks like a rural village, but all this is in the heart of the Danish capital. Around 700 men, women and children live by communal rules, a consensus democracy.
NILS VEST: Im sure if you asked people in Denmark, how many would live here, its not only tens, its hundreds of thousands of people whod love to live the way we live at Christiania.
School children sing anthem
WILLIAMS: From Christianias only anthem to the defiant red flag, life here is deliberately different.
Community leader Nils Vest is leading the fight against a government he believes is using free market ideology to destroy the dream
NILS VEST: The way they want it to be is that you should pay the market value, and Christiania is totally opposed to market values.
WILLIAMS: The key here is mutual support and self sufficiency.
PETER POST: When youre living out here you cannot call the police, Peter you cannot call the technical assistance if you have a problem with your house, or with the pipelines, or whatever. You should make it yourself.
WILLIAMS: And this is the house Peter Post built. Surname Post, because he used to be the Christiania postman.
PETER POST: We have a lot of people who are coming from apartments in Copenhagen, very, very nice apartments in very, very nice areas.
And they come here and queue to get a lousy wagon without electricity and water. And this is amazing.
WILLIAMS: But to get a house first you have to prove yourself willing to work, at one of the many small businesses that underpin the Christiania experiment.
Liv Jorgenson has lived in Christiania for most of her life. Her childhood here was something special.
JORGENSON: We had a lot of freedom, a big playground, lots of space to move around. I think it was really a very safe area to grow up.
WILLIAMS: Whats different about you compared to if youd lived outside?
JORGENSON: I think I learned earlier to handle the freedom within the limits you should have as a child.
WILLIAMS: Now Christiania has become a tourist attraction. A million people a year peer into this bastion of hippy values a haven for all types and a social experiment with a socialising effect.
NILS VEST: Even some very violent guys they had a pain inside, and they react, but after three or four years they calm down, and suddenly they become very social.
Williams: Its a beautiful garden youve established here and a fantastic house.
WILLIAMS: Filmmaker and long term resident Nils Vest spent years of energy and earnings fixing up this old military building into a home for five families.
NILS: When we moved in it was in very poor shape.
WILLIAMS: For lots of people watching this programme, they would say yes its a lovely environment, youve created a beautiful home, but they would want a sense of ownership.
NILS VEST: We dont want that. To us its essential that when we do something, its also for those people who come after us. And we dont want to speculate in lack of housing for people -- we think thats shameful.
WILLIAMS: Nils Vest sees the communal ownership of the houses as the most important difference with the outside world.
People on streets in Christiania
According to the conservative government, Christiania is run down, a crime ridden haven for drug deals, a fire risk with a stressed environment and thats just for starters. Their solution privatisation residents offered their own houses at a discount. If they cant or wont buy them, theyll be sold on the open market.
ULRIK KRAGH, Government Spokesman: We need to make sure the people living at Christiania have responsibility personally for their house out there, so that we make sure this slumming way will end.
WILLIAMS: The residents say: Why should we pay buy our houses, we already live in them, we own them communally, why should we pay money for houses we already occupy?
KRAGH: They do not own the houses. Thats very sure. Its the Defence Ministry who owns the area and for the last fifteen years Christiania had the possibility to use the area, but theres no ownership there at all.
Pusher Street
WILLIAMS: One of the reasons Christiania is famous is the hash market, and whats known as Pusher Street.
NILS VEST: There was a rule. If you sold some hashish to a friend, you should not make any profit on it, just for what you had paid yourself.
Suddenly it became market powers which took over, and not the hippy ideals which existed in the start of Christiania.
La Cour. Super:Inspector Richard La CourArea Commander, Danish police
LA COUR: In what we called Pusher Street we had about ten thousand customers per day and we estimate that they were dealing about 40 kilos of hashish per day.
WILLIAMS: As Area Police Commander, Inspector Richard La Cour was ordered by the government to conduct a massive early morning raid on the hash dealers. Dozens were arrested. Overnight the market was closed down. He doesnt like the drugs, but even he is a strong supporter of Christiania.
LA COUR: As a private person, yes, but as a police officer I cant have an official opinion on that because we do whatever the government says we have to do according to the laws, but as a private individual, yes I do.
WILLIAMS: This is all thats left of Pusher Street a few stalls selling drug pipes and pieces, but the actual dealing is almost gone.
Pernille Hansen is the unofficial spokesman for the hash dealers, many of whom are now in jail.
WILLIAMS: For years youve had in a sense a blind eye turned to the hash dealing here. Why suddenly have the police clamped down and tried to shut this place down?
HANSEN: Because its a very, very nice area and its worth a lot of money for developers.
WILLIAMS: Simply that?
HANSEN: Simply that.
WILLIAMS: For many Christianites, Pusher Street and the governments push to privatise have become interwoven a conspiracy destroy their way of life.
PREBAN KRISTENSEN: The government we have right now is making a sort of ideological crusade against everything and anything that they have an idea could be a little bit left wing, so they are going really to destroy.
WILLIAMS: Preban Kristensen has been making and selling these special Christiania bikes since the early days. Hes witnessed many attempts to drive them out, but fears forced private ownership may divide and finally conquer.
PREBAN: The thing which is common in Christiania is there is a freedom and the very strange thing is that this government is marketing themselves on the same thing, We sell freedom.
Defence committee meeting
WILLIAMS:A defence committee has been formed to rally opposition to the proposed privatisation.
PETER POST: First of all they crush all this openness of tolerance in Denmark, as well as they do in Germany, and England and Australia maybe. If Christiania is crushed, my future life will be homeless.
WILLIAMS: And you would fight?
POST: Of course.
WILLIAMS: Till the end?
POST: Till the end. Of course. .This is a question about life and death.
WILLIAMS: In the workshops and across the counters, the campaign continues. The government says it simply wants to raise standards of housing, water, sewage and the like -- to regularise but not destroy.
WILLIAMS: But eople here did not come in search of sanitised suburbs. Children don lifejackets. These third generation Christianites appear blissfully unaware of the older residents fear for their future. Like 26 year old Jonathan Goransson once a pupil, now a teacher.
GORANSSON: I would lose all my childhood memories. It would break my heart. I couldnt face that. They just want to dip this whole place in concrete and build humungous houses for rich people, and were not going to allow that, first of all. But the thought alone scares the shit out of me.
Children in kayaks
WILLIAMS: Outside, a world of order, of market forces, private ownership, schedules and rules continues uninterrupted. The fear here is that those values will seep into the very foundations of Christiania imposed by a government determined to make this place like everywhere else. And that these children will be the last to know the real state of Christiania.
Credits:
Reporter: Philip Williams
Camera: John Benes
Editor: Kate Prevost
Research: Sharon Roobol