"Yes Father. It was me, I cannot lie, I did it with my little hatchet..." admitted George Washington, after he cut down his fathers favourite cherry tree, following a familiar and domestic dispute, says an american piece of folklore about George Washington, 1st president of the USA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parson_Weems
Take a closer look at the picture, and the plausible narrative:
Two boys, approximately 10 years of age, have finished building a treehouse. Maybe as a result of a new friendship, or a re-gained friendship, the result in any case a clear symbol of friendship, and not the least a symbol of achievement: an early sense of independence, initiative, talent and self-confidence. A symbol of youth.
The Youthhouse - UNGDOMSHUSET - in Copenhagen is no more.
A 24 year old tree in the copenhagen would-be metropole, has been cut down. Copenhagen, the dark forest, has strangled a feeble cultural symbol. Forgive for getting tacky here: It sucks. Though days of street-rioting only served to confirm that the possibility of violence attracts idiots on both sides, violence has become the definitive argument for the politicians to stand firm and rule them out.
The discussion as whether to open the possibility for a new UNGDOMSHUS is over, the governance of icequeen Ritt Bjerregård and her followers (in particular Martin Geertsen) has smacked the door shot in their faces, and so the violent outbust - the street riots - became the activists greatest blunder. Which can come to nobodys surprise.
However there is so many sides to this case, and I first and foremost find the lack of political will and arrogance towards the problem the most threatening. Its a continuum of a moral and puritanistic panic that seems to have followed in the still waters of a powerful political consensus grounded on the far right in approx. 2001, based ultimately in national and romantic hallucinations of a one-way street society, ruling out any influence and consequences of The Modern and the, in other cases, oh-so celebrated globalization.
Secondly: thats why I choose, the photo, of the two boys in their tree house...The whole approach to the problem of Ungdomshuset, and in particular, in the way that it was left up to the police, the anti-terror-squat, the army and more to solve the problem, is first: embarrassing, and then, just plain stupid. It proves a groundbreaking record in the lack of basic lay-man psychological knowledge. Even though its like stealing candy from a kid, stealing it means a roar. If there is one thing that is common in youngsters universe, it is a immense feeling of justice. An being treated unjust...yea, well: I do not think there is anyone out there, who can not remember that feeling.
How do I explain my 11 year old son, watching the riots from the our window, the complexity of the matter? For him its good guys versus bad guys. He is me, he is my son, he is partly like me watching western movies at his age, always sympathising with the natives when they were being slaughtered by the Yankees. I can tell him that it is more complex, that violence never seems to solve anything. He will then ask me about the war in Iraq and other places, and I can answer him that that is even more complex, and he will answer, that he doesnt think so. He thinks its like this: There is good guys and there is bad guys, ironically representing the world view of George Bush and lapdogs. And watching the riots at Nørrebro, he is - or could be - of the new breed.
Pressure - antipressurre. The problem, the sollution, the problem again, the anti sollution.
And that is the reaction WE now face. And with WE, I especially mean the the citizens living at Nørrebro. A hood in Copenhagen that has always been neighbourhood characterized by its social multitude. Its the most crowded place in Denmark, and has a over representation of social inconvenient issues. Problems and facts that in no way gain the attention or powerplay, though clearly more relevant and needed, that Ungdomshuset did. Ungdomshuset might have stuck out like a sure thumb to many politicians, and thus demanded a instant solution. But is it not saying: You can have all the other social issues, but this one - Ungdomshuset - is just to bend? Thus, defining the right to exist for Ungdomshuset represented, as merely a moral issue.
For the next year or so we, at Nørrebro, can anticipate intensified policecontrol, becoming a rooky trainingground, the constant hoovering of news and police choppers, more riots, closed schools...more idiots, more violence.
And selling the UNGDOMSHUSET (The Youthhouse) to a religious sect called FADERHUSET (The Fatherhouse)...I mean, the connotation alone, is evil. Daddy says no.
Thats as far as I can take it...now, I babble in disbelief and disappointment. In many ways the last word in the case has been said with the demolishing of the Ungdomshus today, there is without doubt more to be said, but sense has gone: The house is no more. The power apparatus have unfolded to full extend and then some.
R:I:P
Ungdomshuset
1982 -2007
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