Saturday, February 19, 2011

Slow Saturday Special: Danes Hate Hippies

Then they are just like everybody else. 

 "Danish court rules against hippie enclave" by Associated Press / February 19, 2011

COPENHAGEN — The Danish government yesterday won a legal battle against a freewheeling neighborhood that has remained largely self-governing since its creation by hippie squatters four decades ago....

The decision ends a six-year legal standoff and means the government can go ahead with plans to “normalize’’ the neighborhood and tear down scores of ramshackle homes built at the site without permits.  

Looks like hippies and Palestinians have something in common.  

Yeah, you hippies ain't normal!

Residents say they will resist any attempts to evict them from the neighborhood, which has become a major draw for tourists curious about its counterculture lifestyle and liberal attitude toward soft drugs....  

There has to be a lesson in there somewhere for Americans.

Christiania was formed in 1971 when hippies moved into an abandoned naval base and built an alternative society with houses painted in psychedelic colors and hashish traded and smoked in the open, while authorities turned a blind eye.

That all changed when a center-right government took power in 2001. Initially authorities cracked down on the drug trade, which had been taken over by criminal gangs, then they launched a plan to redevelop the area, charge residents rent, and allow outsiders to move in....    

Hippies feeling like Gypsies.

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