Today is truely a historic day for the colorfull youth of Copenhagen. It started as a big demo 'For more Youthhouses' - and ended fullfilling it's own wishes at once! Another Youthhouse has just opened earlier today in the Copenhagen North Western part of town in a big industrial building, Dortheavej 63, half an hour walk from the other Youth House.
Copyright Mark Knudsen // Monsun.dk
The police tried holding back the peacefull squatting with powerfull means like teargas and clubs, but they met no resistance from several hundred people who just joined in, helping the initiators in the big building by simply overrunning the police by sheer numbers.
Tonight is the big 'housewarming party' at Dortheavej, and there's a koncert at the Youth House Jagtvej too, would you believe?! The demo earlier today showed that there are enough dancehappy people to fill the old buildings of our town, and people evidently aren't satisfied with just one building!
Maybe that's what the police realised a couple of hours ago, when they decided to let people party in peace in the new Youth House and leave the party themselves! We don't know that yet, but the result of their leaving was a lot of happy young people.
A flag hung from the building when people arrived. It said 'welcome to the house - now we have 2!'. Sometimes reality is wilder than phantasy, and today is a good example of that!
These days of depression over the possible eviction of the Youth House and the consequences of that have been truely refreshed by today's events. It's going to be exciting to see how goodlooking this ugly industrial building is going to look in the coming time.
Pictures:
http://indymedia.dk/article/807
---------------------Translation-------------------------
(it's just a simple translation for people who don't read Danish and want to learn more. It has not been OK'ed by the group for more Youth Houses)
Statement to the press, saturday jan 13th, 2007, 15 o'clock.
Dear Press,
we have BZ'd (Squatted) another Youthhouse in Copenhagen, situated Dortheavej 63. We plan to stay and make the house look handsome and nice to be in, so it will be usable for us. We don't plan to defend the house with violence. To make everything easier for you and for us we've made a list of 10 arguments about why we do what we do today. They are meant as a kind of introduction, so we can have a meaningfull conversation. We call for a press meeting in a couple of hours. Contact our press group at telephone no. 50227464.
Beware: we don't represent the Youth House Jagtvej 69, but this house has our full support. We are an independent group working for more Youth Houses.
Best wishes
The initiative for more Youth Houses.
www.myspace.com/flereungdomshuse
10 point agenda for the initiative:
1. More space!
The control with people in DK is constantly increasing. Everywhere and at all levels people are being disciplined and normalised - and the possibilities for unhindered activities, free gettogether and creativity are far worse now than they have been for a long, long time. At the same time the police is gettting better options for control and punishment through empty paragraphs with wider frames of punishment and more non-deadly weapons, such as pepperspray and watercanons. Copenhagen needs more space in a lot of ways - not least mentally. We need more space for unhindered play and thinking, where we are not stoppped by lack of money, by complaints, red tape, unfounded searching by police and political persecution, because our project isn't supported by the establishment. We need more space, more freedom and more selfmanaged Youth Houses to expand our activities.
2. One Youth House isn't enough!
It's not a question if the Youth House Jagtvej 69 should be evicted. Of course it shouldn't! It's rather a question of where to place all the new Youth Houses. Very often the Youth House unwillingly has to close it's doors when there's a party because of lack of space. In practise there isn't space for all the many different kinds of creativity in a house with so many users. The Youth House has arrangements of every kind and size every single day. But it's difficult to have a punkconcert in one room, circus in another, while others are recording an ambient cd in a third room. The Youth of Copenhagen simply need more selfmanaged Youth Houses!
3. It's our Youth Culture - not that of the municipal authorities!
Of course the municipality shouldn't take away our culturel activities, that we make ourselves for each other. Simply because their offers don't satisfy us and our activities have a quality and genuineness, which the commercial scene can't match, even if they wanted to. The activities offered by the municipality of Copenhagen all have in common that they are organised, controlled and stopped from above without concideration of what the Youth wants. It must be obvious that young people know best what they want and what's good for them! Young people are capable of taking part in democratic, organising communities that make a difference for themselves and others without interference from grownup social workers. That's why it's preferable that the Youth take care of their own culture as much as possible, that they are encouraged to do so and that under no circumstances constructive, cultural and selfmanaged Youth Houses like Jagtvej 69 and Dortheavej 63 should be actively fought against. The many people coming to the Pirate parties in Copenhagen is a loud and clear signal that the established offered activities are far from sufficient. The Copenhagen municipality ought to acknowledge this wealth of initiative and active ressources and directly support us instead of fight against us as they do now. We are many people and it's our town too! The politicians should represent us - we don't think they do it very well!
4. We are fed up with their ballclubs!
We are fed up with the town's ballclubs and youthclubs filled with rules and regulations and fed up with commercial discotheques, stinking with profitgreed and discrimination. We want genuineness, honesty and a life we have influence on. We are tired of social events closing when the party is at it's peak, because nobody wants to work for free in a club with a boss. We decide when to close and start our parties, where they take place and what's going to happen. We don't have to consider tickets and profit, because we don't care if we make money or not. Our culture is not about money, power and control.
5. Management by users, selfmanagement!
The Youth House is one of numerous examples of how a lot of people can decide things togetther. When we want to take decisions, we sit together and talk until we agree. And we are basically in agreement about that we won't let anyone decide over us and our way of reaching decisions. Why should social workers in the municipal youthclubs decide if there is to be graffiti on the walls of the club or if the party is to finish at 23 o'clock? It isn't their club, it the youth's club. We want Youth Houses without social workers, where we make our own decisions.
6. Culture is a common responsibility - not a commodity!
Why does the state use unbelievable sums to support an Operahouse, that is only for a minority, while they use equally unbelievable sums to repress a Youth House, which is possibly also for a minority. But at least is economically selfsupporting? Culture is a common responsibility - that also goes for the parts of the culture, that doesn't earn so much money. That's true also for an Underground music culture, that the politicians might find untastefull and full of noise, but never the less is the nerve and meaning of life for other people. Promises of culturel diversity, culturel support and protection of culturel heritage and subcultures isn't only about a few kinds of taste, while other tastes like the youthculture is represses with reductions and lack of funds or with teargass. Culture is much more than something a hundred years old or hanging on a white wall in a museum. Culture sometimes is fleeting, scaring, chaotic, childish and very difficult to relate to. We don't buy our culture - and it isn't for sale!
7. Unlimited release of creative energy!
We want studios with lots of paint, ventilation when we spraypaint, good light and open all day. We want rehearsingrooms, where we can play precisely the music we want to and as loud as we want to any time of the day. We want bicycleworkrooms with welders, metalcutters and all kinds of tools for everyone to use. And we want the police to give us all the bicyclewrecks, they steal on the streets, so we can repair them and give them new life - instead of the police selling them in auctions. We want photoworkshops with darkrooms and digital photoprocessing and printing. We want sewingworkshops with textile printing fascilities. We want small cinemas in Copenhagen, where you can watch films for free, when you are tired and want to relax. We want more legal graffitiwalls, since we can't paint all over town. We want a copymachine and a printing fascility with unlimitted paper and inks. We want lots of musicplaces that don't have to be limited by money but are able to book bands htat can't play anywhere else. We will provide a sensible, democratic and wellfunctioning organization of all of this. We don't need one single social worker. In return the Copenhagen municipality pays the working expenses.
8. You can't own a house you don't use!
We think that if a house isn't used and nobody plan to use it - then nobody owns it. There are still a lot of empty buildings in Copenhagen, because somebody thinks for what ever reason that this is sensible - or buildings which can only be used for an industry. At the same time many need rehearsingrooms, bicycleworkshops, studios, info-shops, people's restaurants, photoworkshops, underground cinemas, cheap musicplaces, small theatres, strange basements, cheap appartments and all the rest making it worthwhile living in a big city. But some people think there's more sense in condemnation and reconstruction again and agin, untill the city is one big empty shell. We want to have Youth Houses in some of the empty houses just standing there - and the rest of you won't see us hanging in the streets when the Youth house is filled up.
9. We are tired of being seen as a creditcard!
We want to go out to eat a lot of times and really inexpensive too, maybe free. We want to eat with a lot of other people and prefrably in a place, where you can meet new friends in a nice atmosphere. We want to go out and get a little drunk without having to eat dirt the rest of the week because of no money. We like to go to concerts every week, maybe buy a cd or two and a T-shirt. We like to go to a café all day and only drink our own homemade coffee without being thrown out. Impossible? Not at all! We have done that for 24 years in the Youth House. It's possible in a lot of other places, because some people like to work without pay, as long as they don't have a boss they have to make profit for - and as long as they make the rules and take the initiatives. We want to and are able to create refuges, where money don't make you valuable, but the pleasantness of being with you, the amount of your dedication or the size of your need to be seen or comforted.
10. Active fight against discriminating structures!
Foremost we want to create a better world - a world free of discrimination where everyone feels good and isn't afraid. Untill we have done that, we feel we have the right to at least try to create some refuges in a world filled with fear, anger and discrimination. We lack more places that actively oppose and fight against racism, sexism, heterosexism, homofobia and violence. We are sorry to hear that our homophile friends hide their love going to town, because of the risk of being thrown out or molested. We are angry when we hear again and again women being treated in humiliating ways just because they are women - from ridiculing remarks to rape. The socalled constitutional state does very little about these problems, but we won't tolerate it! So we demand liberated places, where we can meet and be together without inhuman, repressing structures of power.
Tonight is the big 'housewarming party' at Dortheavej, and there's a koncert at the Youth House Jagtvej too, would you believe?! The demo earlier today showed that there are enough dancehappy people to fill the old buildings of our town, and people evidently aren't satisfied with just one building!
Maybe that's what the police realised a couple of hours ago, when they decided to let people party in peace in the new Youth House and leave the party themselves! We don't know that yet, but the result of their leaving was a lot of happy young people.
A flag hung from the building when people arrived. It said 'welcome to the house - now we have 2!'. Sometimes reality is wilder than phantasy, and today is a good example of that!
These days of depression over the possible eviction of the Youth House and the consequences of that have been truely refreshed by today's events. It's going to be exciting to see how goodlooking this ugly industrial building is going to look in the coming time.
Pictures:
http://indymedia.dk/article/807 ---------------------Translation-------------------------
(it's just a simple translation for people who don't read Danish and want to learn more. It has not been OK'ed by the group for more Youth Houses)
Statement to the press, saturday jan 13th, 2007, 15 o'clock.
Dear Press,
we have BZ'd (Squatted) another Youthhouse in Copenhagen, situated Dortheavej 63. We plan to stay and make the house look handsome and nice to be in, so it will be usable for us. We don't plan to defend the house with violence. To make everything easier for you and for us we've made a list of 10 arguments about why we do what we do today. They are meant as a kind of introduction, so we can have a meaningfull conversation. We call for a press meeting in a couple of hours. Contact our press group at telephone no. 50227464.
Beware: we don't represent the Youth House Jagtvej 69, but this house has our full support. We are an independent group working for more Youth Houses.
Best wishes
The initiative for more Youth Houses.
www.myspace.com/flereungdomshuse
10 point agenda for the initiative:
1. More space!
The control with people in DK is constantly increasing. Everywhere and at all levels people are being disciplined and normalised - and the possibilities for unhindered activities, free gettogether and creativity are far worse now than they have been for a long, long time. At the same time the police is gettting better options for control and punishment through empty paragraphs with wider frames of punishment and more non-deadly weapons, such as pepperspray and watercanons. Copenhagen needs more space in a lot of ways - not least mentally. We need more space for unhindered play and thinking, where we are not stoppped by lack of money, by complaints, red tape, unfounded searching by police and political persecution, because our project isn't supported by the establishment. We need more space, more freedom and more selfmanaged Youth Houses to expand our activities.
2. One Youth House isn't enough!
It's not a question if the Youth House Jagtvej 69 should be evicted. Of course it shouldn't! It's rather a question of where to place all the new Youth Houses. Very often the Youth House unwillingly has to close it's doors when there's a party because of lack of space. In practise there isn't space for all the many different kinds of creativity in a house with so many users. The Youth House has arrangements of every kind and size every single day. But it's difficult to have a punkconcert in one room, circus in another, while others are recording an ambient cd in a third room. The Youth of Copenhagen simply need more selfmanaged Youth Houses!
3. It's our Youth Culture - not that of the municipal authorities!
Of course the municipality shouldn't take away our culturel activities, that we make ourselves for each other. Simply because their offers don't satisfy us and our activities have a quality and genuineness, which the commercial scene can't match, even if they wanted to. The activities offered by the municipality of Copenhagen all have in common that they are organised, controlled and stopped from above without concideration of what the Youth wants. It must be obvious that young people know best what they want and what's good for them! Young people are capable of taking part in democratic, organising communities that make a difference for themselves and others without interference from grownup social workers. That's why it's preferable that the Youth take care of their own culture as much as possible, that they are encouraged to do so and that under no circumstances constructive, cultural and selfmanaged Youth Houses like Jagtvej 69 and Dortheavej 63 should be actively fought against. The many people coming to the Pirate parties in Copenhagen is a loud and clear signal that the established offered activities are far from sufficient. The Copenhagen municipality ought to acknowledge this wealth of initiative and active ressources and directly support us instead of fight against us as they do now. We are many people and it's our town too! The politicians should represent us - we don't think they do it very well!
4. We are fed up with their ballclubs!
We are fed up with the town's ballclubs and youthclubs filled with rules and regulations and fed up with commercial discotheques, stinking with profitgreed and discrimination. We want genuineness, honesty and a life we have influence on. We are tired of social events closing when the party is at it's peak, because nobody wants to work for free in a club with a boss. We decide when to close and start our parties, where they take place and what's going to happen. We don't have to consider tickets and profit, because we don't care if we make money or not. Our culture is not about money, power and control.
5. Management by users, selfmanagement!
The Youth House is one of numerous examples of how a lot of people can decide things togetther. When we want to take decisions, we sit together and talk until we agree. And we are basically in agreement about that we won't let anyone decide over us and our way of reaching decisions. Why should social workers in the municipal youthclubs decide if there is to be graffiti on the walls of the club or if the party is to finish at 23 o'clock? It isn't their club, it the youth's club. We want Youth Houses without social workers, where we make our own decisions.
6. Culture is a common responsibility - not a commodity!
Why does the state use unbelievable sums to support an Operahouse, that is only for a minority, while they use equally unbelievable sums to repress a Youth House, which is possibly also for a minority. But at least is economically selfsupporting? Culture is a common responsibility - that also goes for the parts of the culture, that doesn't earn so much money. That's true also for an Underground music culture, that the politicians might find untastefull and full of noise, but never the less is the nerve and meaning of life for other people. Promises of culturel diversity, culturel support and protection of culturel heritage and subcultures isn't only about a few kinds of taste, while other tastes like the youthculture is represses with reductions and lack of funds or with teargass. Culture is much more than something a hundred years old or hanging on a white wall in a museum. Culture sometimes is fleeting, scaring, chaotic, childish and very difficult to relate to. We don't buy our culture - and it isn't for sale!
7. Unlimited release of creative energy!
We want studios with lots of paint, ventilation when we spraypaint, good light and open all day. We want rehearsingrooms, where we can play precisely the music we want to and as loud as we want to any time of the day. We want bicycleworkrooms with welders, metalcutters and all kinds of tools for everyone to use. And we want the police to give us all the bicyclewrecks, they steal on the streets, so we can repair them and give them new life - instead of the police selling them in auctions. We want photoworkshops with darkrooms and digital photoprocessing and printing. We want sewingworkshops with textile printing fascilities. We want small cinemas in Copenhagen, where you can watch films for free, when you are tired and want to relax. We want more legal graffitiwalls, since we can't paint all over town. We want a copymachine and a printing fascility with unlimitted paper and inks. We want lots of musicplaces that don't have to be limited by money but are able to book bands htat can't play anywhere else. We will provide a sensible, democratic and wellfunctioning organization of all of this. We don't need one single social worker. In return the Copenhagen municipality pays the working expenses.
8. You can't own a house you don't use!
We think that if a house isn't used and nobody plan to use it - then nobody owns it. There are still a lot of empty buildings in Copenhagen, because somebody thinks for what ever reason that this is sensible - or buildings which can only be used for an industry. At the same time many need rehearsingrooms, bicycleworkshops, studios, info-shops, people's restaurants, photoworkshops, underground cinemas, cheap musicplaces, small theatres, strange basements, cheap appartments and all the rest making it worthwhile living in a big city. But some people think there's more sense in condemnation and reconstruction again and agin, untill the city is one big empty shell. We want to have Youth Houses in some of the empty houses just standing there - and the rest of you won't see us hanging in the streets when the Youth house is filled up.
9. We are tired of being seen as a creditcard!
We want to go out to eat a lot of times and really inexpensive too, maybe free. We want to eat with a lot of other people and prefrably in a place, where you can meet new friends in a nice atmosphere. We want to go out and get a little drunk without having to eat dirt the rest of the week because of no money. We like to go to concerts every week, maybe buy a cd or two and a T-shirt. We like to go to a café all day and only drink our own homemade coffee without being thrown out. Impossible? Not at all! We have done that for 24 years in the Youth House. It's possible in a lot of other places, because some people like to work without pay, as long as they don't have a boss they have to make profit for - and as long as they make the rules and take the initiatives. We want to and are able to create refuges, where money don't make you valuable, but the pleasantness of being with you, the amount of your dedication or the size of your need to be seen or comforted.
10. Active fight against discriminating structures!
Foremost we want to create a better world - a world free of discrimination where everyone feels good and isn't afraid. Untill we have done that, we feel we have the right to at least try to create some refuges in a world filled with fear, anger and discrimination. We lack more places that actively oppose and fight against racism, sexism, heterosexism, homofobia and violence. We are sorry to hear that our homophile friends hide their love going to town, because of the risk of being thrown out or molested. We are angry when we hear again and again women being treated in humiliating ways just because they are women - from ridiculing remarks to rape. The socalled constitutional state does very little about these problems, but we won't tolerate it! So we demand liberated places, where we can meet and be together without inhuman, repressing structures of power.
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