Aslaug's Axe Shed

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Things are finally quieting down around here, but the old, wise words of the immortal bard from his great play about a prince of my country, Hamlet, springs to mind.

‘There is something rotten in the state of Denmark’.

There bloody well is, and if anything proved it, it has been the events of the last couple of weeks. Denmark has suddenly been world news. Copenhagen has been more like Beirut of 1983 than the home of the Little Mermaid. BBC and CNN could report from streets where huge bonfires had been built by masked youths, fighting violently against policemen in full combat gear.

For what?

Well, that’s a question a lot of Danes ask themselves these days. Originally, many of us believed it was about a house. The adress was ‘Jagtvej 69′. Now…there is nothing but an empty lot on that adress. But until a week or so ago, there was a ramshackle house, rotten and mildewy, where alternative youth culture was practiced and celebrated. Young aspiring musicians could got their first breaks there. It was a safe-house and a breathing space for young people of political opinions that differed radically from society at large. Mostly left wing, or anarchists, admittedly. Kids who had alternative dreams about what the world should be like.

 They are allowed to have their dreams. They are even allowed to voice them and they are, Gods be praised, allowed to -pursue- these dreams…in non-violent, democratic ways.

 Sadly, many of them think democraticy as such was the whole problem, and that only violence would solve their problems. At first, people didn’t think these kids were like that. At first, many of us were honestly concerned when we heard that the house had been sold to a Christian, fundamentalist sect called ‘Faderhuset’ (‘The House of the Father’ in English). The problem as it was, started years and years ago. The local magistrates gave the house at Jagtvej 69 to youth groups to use for their alternative concerts and suchlike. The problem was that the youngsters thought the house now belonged to them. In reality, it never did. They were given the right to use the house indefinitely…even run it into the ground as they ended up doing…but the house and the lot it stood on belonged to city hall all along. Legally, this is indisputable. A small army of lawyers have now confirmed that this was the case. The misunderstanding most likely stems from the kids not knowing legal technicalities, and believing that ‘okay, it’s your house to use’ meant ‘it also legally belongs to you’.

It’s never been a secret that a huge amount of weed has been smoked at this house during various concerts. It’s also never been a secret that radical political groups met there…but the organization behind the house could not really be blamed for it, since it was MEANT to be open to young people in general.

Nonetheless, when a very substantial offer was made for this house by ‘Faderhuset’…City Hall sold it. This was six years ago. Since then, Faderhuset has waited to take over their property, but various attempts to drag the matter through the courts (not to mention that City Hall in Copenhagen showed an ENORMOUS amount of willingness to try to find a reasonable solution, such as locating a new house for alternative youth culture somewhere in the city) has delayed it until late last year.

 Since then, the youngsters at Jagtvej 69 has ruined -everything- for themselves. They’ve alienated the population, created disgust in their methods, they’ve turned to violence to a point where 39 of them are now looking at possibly facing decades of imprisonment for terrorist activity (it is unlikely…but in theory they could be charged as terrorists for the disturbances in Copenhagen) and they have created an unhealthy amount of goodwill for a fundamentalist, religious organization.

Attempt after attempt was made to find a new home for their activities. A fund was set down, which had access to about 13 million Danish Kroner…about 1.8 million Dollars or 1.1 million Pound Sterling. This fund was meant to locate a suitable place in Copenhagen. They found several. It floundered when the kids themselves in a fit of self-righteous bullshit publically stated that they believed that City Hall was responsible for finding them a new place, and that they would only pay the symbolic amount of 1 Danish Krone for any house they were to take over.

But before that, they had clashed with the police, had violent demonstrations, threatened to burn down the city and declare open war on Denmark as a whole, if they were not allowed to stay. Their behavior was, quite frankly, so excessively childish and confrontational that there was never any real chance of a peaceful solution.

Things kept escalating, and in the background, Ruth Evensen, the head of Faderhuset, rubbed her hands in glee. While appearing before national TV-audiences with a sad face, declaring how deeply saddened she was by all this and how -much- she sympathized with the young people at Jagtvej 69, and how -deeply- she hoped they’d find a new home…she ranted and raved to her own followers (this has now been documented by four university students who were present at such a meeting as observers) about how Faderhuset would now convert all of Denmark. How they would abolish abortion, hunt down homosexuals, get rid of pornography…and so on and so forth. All the usual -garbage- you might expect from a true, rabid, foaming-about-the-mouth fundamentalist. She stood there, in front of her small congregation of about 40 people, so secure in her own power that she didn’t care that there were four outsiders present, and declared that God spoke directly to her, and that he had directed her to buy that specific house to defeat the youngsters, who represented ‘Satan’s futile fight against God’.

Her words, not mine!

Fortunately, the four university students chose to take their experience -directly- to the nearest newspaper, which published it all next day. It left many Danes with a foul taste in their mouth. This patient if slightly over-zealous woman whom they had started to see as the rational one in the whole mess, was suddenly revealed to be as rabid and crazy as some of us had feared all along.

But what about the burning streets?

Nothing excuses the youngsters from Jagtvej 69. Nothing exhonorates their guilt for having set the capital ablaze. Nothing excuses their arrogance and their unwillingness to listen to any kind of rational solution-model.

Nothing.

And so Denmark is left with the connundrum that in this case, -no one- is the hero. There are only villains.

Except of course the police who risked life and limb going out there to try to restore peace and order.

But of course…the youngsters and their parents are all screeching about police brutality…

Nevermind the images of teenagers and young people in their early twenties, hooded and masked, armed with cobblestones torn from the streets, piling private property on bonfires, vandalizing and plundering shops…

Of course the police were -brutal- in their arrests, so that excuses everything, doesn’t it?

Of course it doesn’t.

All this had nothing to do with a house. No house would result in that amount of extreme behavior.

 Being leftist myself, by political standpoint, I fully support the idea that young men and women should have breathing spaces where they can explore their creativity. Where they are free from constantly dealing with raised index fingers from their parents or other authority figures.

But I also believe that that kind of freedom comes with a tremendous responsibility not to -abuse- this freedom. To act with some semblance of maturity and decency towards the world around them who choose NOT to be a part of their ‘alternative ways’. If we all did it, it wouldn’t be alternative, after all…and then young people in need of rebellion would simply find some other way of expressing it.

In this case, the people at Jagtvej 69 grotesquely ignored their responsibilities. Their whole, entire behavior was egotistical and radical to the point of rampant idiocy.

They had all the chances they could ask for, to get themselves a new place where they could hang out, play their music, paint their pictures and get away from the world. They didn’t want it. They chose to fight the bad fight instead. And predictably, they lost.

If it hadn’t been for four conscientious students from Roskilde University, studying Christian Fundamentalism and writing a paper about the issue, this whole mess would also have resulted in an upsurge of goodwill for a secterian organization so radical it makes the Christian Coalition look like ‘Atheists United’.

Bullocks to all of them, I say. On both sides.

Let reason and sanity reign again…and let young hoodlums with cobblestones, and born-again-Christian secterians bitch and whine at each other all they want. But keep it away from the rest of us.

 

 

At last something positive to say about the world today.

Music has been a means for people to express their feelings ever since Ugh the Caveman picked up a rock and hit it against another rock for the first time.

During the Warring States period in Chinese history…a 2 century long civil war situation of varying seriousness…a ruler was still burried with a set of dozens of musical bells made from bronze that could better have been used for weapons and armor for his troops.

During the middle ages, minstrels brought secret messages between courts, disguised in music. In villages all over Europe, songs and music helped the toil of backbreaking work in the fields pass more easily.

In the age of enlightenment, music has been quantified and analyzed to the point where Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music based on a mathematical system, yet people to this day listen to his works as some of the most beautiful ever written.

During the second world war, English soldiers sang along to the song ‘Underneath the Lamppost’ while their German enemies sang ‘Unter den lanterne’ on the other side of the lines. Same song, different languages.

And on March 10th, 2003, Londoners heard an incredibly brave American, Natalie Maines, speak the words “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President is from Texas” in between two songs, during a concert at Shepherd’s Bush Empire Theatre.

And, to paraphrase another famous and important songwriter, that was ‘the day the music died’. (more…)

Little by little, the site takes shape. Transitions, Transitions II and Amat Victoria Curam are all posted, under ‘writings’ which can be found at the top of the screen. Much easier than on the old site.

Hoope you all enjoy it.