The Free Community of Christiania June 9

The sign on the other side of the entrance to “Christiania” read, “You are now entering the EU.” Since, as far as I could tell, we had been in Copenhagen just ten paces ago, I was perplexed, and wondered if we had crossed into some independent political territory. Mette explained that it was “a joke.” Having spent both day and night in what its residents proudly call the “free community of Christiania,” I can state with confidence that it is no joke.

Christiania was truly unlike any place I had ever seen or heard of before. I was fascinated by the idea of a self-governed commune surviving for over thirty years on land that they illegally seized and appropriated as their own in the early 1970s, and I listened with rapt attention to documentary filmmaker and longtime resident Nils Vest’s descriptions of the Christianian way of life.
An unorthodox collection of artists, musicians, craftsmen, anarchists, utopian idealists, and drug addicts (with of course considerable overlap among these categories), the people of Christiania celebrate the notion that they are “the black sheep of all classes” and champion the idea that “when all minorities band together, they become the majority.”

The author of this post with two local "christianians". Can you tell who is the HIA-fellow?

Within the realm of political science, I study political theory – so I couldn’t help seeing Christiania as a radically divergent political and social experiment, and I was intrigued by the philosophical questions that it raised. Is a place like Christiania a possible model for all human political communities, or is it ultimately dependent on the existence of Copenhagen in order to function at all? For instance, Christiania has no criminal justice system of its own; they call the Copenhagen police if crime gets out of control. Christiania also has no military defense system; if for some reason it came under attack, it would most likely call upon Copenhagen to defend it. Could it develop its own legal and defense institutions, or are such institutions contrary to the ideology of a community that is inherently suspicious of raising any decision-making process above the individual level? Yet what does it mean that it chooses to depend on institutions beyond its borders to operate? Is Christiania an idyllic oasis of political idealism – or is it simply a parasite community, claiming to be free while being anything but independent when it comes to the most difficult matters with which political communities must grapple?

More than anything, our visit to Christiania challenged me to reevaluate my assumptions about the possible forms that human political communities can take. I found myself wondering what the democratic world might learn from Christiania, but also what Christiania might learn from the democratic world – and whether some synthesis of rule by majority and rule by consensus was even possible, or whether the two were entirely mutually exclusive. Is there a “best” kind of human political system? If so, just how “on the right track” is Christiania?

-Bronwyn