18.12.2006 17:06

On Saturday things got hot at Ungdomshuset. I was at that famous demonstration. I stayed in the neighbourhood of the house and my home (at Jagtvej), when people ran away to crash some things and get arrested elsewhere. Of course I was very peaceful and too innocent looking to be arrested and banned from Denmark. Regardless what you might have read somewhere else: The scenery at Jagtvej itself wasn't too bad. They just burnt some waste containers, the police blocked the street and played the usual silly police games.

-"Don't step over this line."
-"which line?"
-"the blue one."
It's just the bike lane delimiter, and the next policemen three meters away doesn't give a shit whether you cross it or not.

And the next day, they (people from Ungdomshuset) cleaned the street to make it fit again for normal traffic. Sweet isn't it and very well educated. Why I was there? Well, tradition and sympathy. Ungdomshuset should be preserved. It contributes something to the city life which will be missing otherwise. There is a need for such autonomousely ruled cultural places. You don't like their style? The music they play, the clothes they wear? Well, fair enough they don't like yours neither. The building belonged to the city and they had the right to sell it? Did they? They had promised it to the people running the house, they had promised that they could use it. It is a political act to sell a house like this, much more than to sell any other house. It means: we want to get rid of those bloody punks, we censor their culture. And it is even much more a political statement to sell despite an existing agreement. Those people do not pay rent, it costs the city a lot? Yes, but how many millions does a normal city spend for theatres and opera houses? Why not also do something for places of a different style?
Most people I meet who are against places like Ungdomshuset, have never been there, but they are convinced that they wouldn't be welcome. That is not true. I don't wear the traditional clothing of far left wingers but I have always been welcome. And there are many locations around where you really don't get in if you look in a way they like it, right?! If you go to Ungdomshuset at the moment, they will of course not necessarily welcome you because they are afraid of infiltration by the police. (I actually saw a group of about 5 young men, disguised as people of the autonomists movement disappear in a waiting police van, long after the rest of the police had left).
The only thing I don't like about it, that they turn to violent means too fast. Why not try to block the street peacefully? On the other hand they have tried to preserve their house by legal means. Without succcess. 15 million Danish crowns (approx. 2 Million Euros) is a lot of money.
And: That those people are likely to get much worse an image in the press that the one they deserve, It's so easy to publish pictures of a black clothed guy face hidden waving a flag in the midst of flames and smoke of a burning something and then cry "desaster and destruction" most of the time the scene was much less dramatic than the picture is. On Saturday there was a bunch of journalists taking photographs of a guy posing like a body builder on a pile of bikes that blocked the entrance to the backyard of the house, that was long after the police had left.
And then finally: I believe that in these days our society is far more in danger by religious fundamentalists who come in tidy clothes and apparently have the right on their side, but not the morals. than by a handful of punks hanging out together. Faderhuset? They seem to be pretty bad. Check out (sorry Danish) dialogcentret

where ex members speak of having to work a lot in their community appartments and not being aloud to sleep enough.

and this one where it says:

In 2000 60 members left the group, some of them still have psychological problems

No thank you. Ungdomshuset overir sig aldrig.