Copenhagen & Christiania / Blog

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Spiral

Spoke with N. about the riots last spring in Copenhagen. There were lot of fires. Some a few storys high. Even books from a school got burned, in Christianshavn, just in front of Christiania. Come on! Hard to imagine. S. told me that when there was that Ungdomshuset crisis many people, who before and for a long time had ‚kept quiet’ now thought: Enough is enough. And they went on the streets. N. said that also a lot of people joined in the riots to get rid of their frustrations. The riots were a valve (german: ‚ventil’) for something that had been cooking up... He was part of an anti-violence-group that tried to convince people that violence is not the propper reaction and will only cause more violence.

When I asked who those frustrated people were N. said a lot of 2nd generation foreigners who do not feel accepted in this country. Someone had told me earlier that if I would have a kid now and here in Denmark chances were hight that it would not be accepted by the Danish society. I was shocked to hear that.

Ok. But when is this spiral gonna end? If the Danes do not learn to integrate foreign ideas, people, creativity, energy etc. the spiral will not end. So again these extremes: white-black, right-left, foreign-local. Come on, get a bit softer Denmark.

Talking about this another person said he does not see it so negative, instead he thinks that the riots kind of shook a lot of people up and made the community around Ungdomshuset much stronger. That’s also an aspect that should be kept in mind.

image: Christians Church in Christinshavn, Copenhagen

17.01.2008, 17:59