Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - Utopia (part v)

Episode Date: March 22, 2018

Our search for Utopia comes to an end at Christiania, an Anarchist haven in the heart of Copenhagen. In 2012 this Utopia went legit, the squatters become property owners. But now they must figure out how to preserve their alternative community, preserve the historical buildings they are now responsible for, and preserve their future. Plus your host loses his Utopian tinted glasses during a musical theater performance of one of his favorite dystopian novels (Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower).  

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Episodes every other week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. This installment is called Utopia, Part 5. In Copenhagen, there is a utopia called Christiana, a self-governing society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the well-being of the entire community. There is no mayor, nor elected leadership, or hierarchies of any kind in Christiana. It operates as a direct consensus-based democracy. It's a village within a city, and it was an old navy yard that was squatted by hippies.

They just kind of took this property from the state. That's my Danish friend, Pike Malinowski. And Christiana is the first place he took me after he picked me up from the airport in Copenhagen. Whenever I'm in Copenhagen and I have visitors from abroad, I always take them to Christiania

because it's an important part of the city and an important part for me in my life. I spent a lot of time there growing up. I went to high school right next to it. I'd go lot of time there growing up. I went to high school right next to it.

You know, I'd go in the lunch break sometimes and play pool in the bar there and smoke pot, you know, and come back to class kind of high. Not kind of high, but high. Christiana's founders, the hippies who in 1971 took over this unused military area, wanted to create an experimental and alternative society. A society that was economically self-sustaining, thus the open-air pot market. Over the years, this drug trade has attracted attention from the police, who have regularly raided Christiania. But the people of Copenhagen have always taken to the streets to protect it.

But there's just so much more to Christiania than the pot market. You know, most tourists who come to Christiania, they just see the front of it. They just see the beginning of it, which is called Pusher Street. There are all these little stands where pushers are selling marijuana and hash. But most tourists only see the kind of the front of Christiania. So and what they don't know is down behind in the back, there is this huge area, which is kind of like a park. There's a lot of trees and bushes and grass, and that's what's so exciting about it. It's a living place.

In 2012, a foundation set up by the people of Christiana purchased the village. They won their battle with the state. They're no longer squatters. The cops still sometimes raid Pusher Street, as cannabis is still illegal in Denmark. But today, Christiana is a legit utopia. Obviously, we all fit into society and we're like normal human beings. But

there is this sense of like just anarchy and like wildness that I don't see in my friends that grew up in the rest of Copenhagen. That's Julie Guant Vivesta. She was born and raised in the very area that Hike First brought me to. It's called Norddysen, and it's like basically the countryside of Christiania. Julie credits Christiana for giving her independence and a sense of hyper-empathy. You talk to people that live in the same area as you in a different way than anyone else does, I think. And that's the really amazing thing about it

because you can't really have the prejudices that other people might have about their neighbors or just the people living 10 streets from them. Julie was born in a house her parents built during the original occupation. And when she turned 16, she got to live on her own in a private circus wagon. Skurvon is the Danish word. It's like a wagon kind of like made of wood,

but there's windows in it and you can sort of like live in it. A circus wagon. Well, that was like definitely the beginning of my life, it seemed like. Christiana has very strict rules on who gets the right to live in a circus wagon or a house or an apartment. And your membership has to be voted on. There's no such thing as automatic citizenship, even if you're born in Christiana. There's this joke in Denmark that it's like the only way you can get into either Christiania or like the royal family is like you fuck your way in. When Julie finished school, she had to give up her circus wagon.

She didn't want to live with her parents, so she traveled to the U.S. And when her visa was up, she realized she had no home to come back to. So her mom stepped in. Her mom found a family friend whose son was moving out of his room in a shared apartment in downtown Christiana. The deal was that I could have his room, and if he stayed with his girlfriend, I could have it. But if he he stayed with his girlfriend, I could, like, have it. But if he wanted to move out, like, he should have it back. So that's how I got into the apartment I'm in now, thanks to my mother. But this is not the way things are supposed to work in Christiana. As I said, these things are supposed to be decided by vote. I mean, personally, I'm super happy that I got back there. But I mean, if it had

had to been done in the right Christiania way, like, he should have moved out. There should have been a big meeting. Like, everyone should have been able to apply. Even you, Benjamin, should have been able to apply for that room. It's not just moms who are lending a helping hand. Drug dealers are doing the same thing because of the criminal market and the marijuana market that there is and christiania is still so famous for there's also interests in getting other people in that are not necessarily your children but you know it's really hard when you're a normal uh person with like empathy and like someone's like yeah but i'm just taking care of his room because he's in prison and he can't pay their bills and blah blah blah and you're like okay that sounds reasonable but like all of a

sudden uh that person has been in jail for like three years and that person has moved in and their children and wife lives there and you're like so like this was never up for you know my friends to come and apply for living in this place. And you just sort of like took over. And I wonder, and then you get these nasty thoughts. Like I wonder if a lot of money was involved or if you decided to pay up the debt of the guy that is in prison or whatever, because that is stuff that's actually happening in there. Parents and prison-bound pot dealers might be subverting

some of the official bylaws and procedures, but the main reason Christiana has a housing problem is a lack of housing. For most of its history, the government destroyed any new construction. Now, post-agreement, Christiana has the right to build, but only in some parts. Definitely not in the countryside. In fact, the government wouldn't even sell them this area. I mean, they're like extra crazy about that exact part. The problem is also that the most populated parts of Christiania, that's where you can build, but there's already a lot of houses.

The places that are least populated, those are the ones that are restricted the most still by the government. Those are the ones that we rent from the government. We don't own them. Those are the ones that Christiania can't buy.

So we can't decide ourselves completely what to do with them. On a recent visit to Copenhagen, I went back to Christiana. I wanted to learn what happens to Utopia after going legit. I found another resident from the countryside, a guy named Sam. He invited me to visit his house on the very day it was going to be inspected by the government. Sam's house is one of the buildings the government refused to sell. And this would be only the second officially sanctioned renovation ever since the historic agreement of 2012. Hello.

Hi. How's it going, man? It's going good. I put my bike over there. Yeah, no worries. Like Julie, Sam was born and raised in Christiana. The red door with the green things. So I'm born in there, and both my kids are born downstairs. Sam's mother was one of the early settlers,

and his grandfather actually was stationed in the barracks before they were shut down in the late 60s, which makes Sam a rare third generation Christian. My grandmother would kind of like say, oh, I visit your grandfather and she would come like bring him like lunchbox and flowers and stuff. The house, way older. An original defensive fortification. Sam gave me a wheelbarrow tour. tiny windows. On the inside they kind of like expand on an angle so you could have like rifles. And then you got like the bigger windows with metal shutters where you had like the cannons. So these are like the cannon holes. The cannons you fire out there and kind of get the Swedes. Pesky Swedes.

The gun portals don't let in a lot of light, which is why the living quarters have been constructed on the upper levels. So now we're in the inside of it, and you can see how they arch inwards, so you can kind of use your single shot musketeer. So where would the beds go? They'll go in the upstairs. Okay, this is the living room. So this is going to be the living room.

You come in, take off your shoes. So you can defend this place if it needs to be. Over the years, Sam's done a lot of work on this building, much of it with his own hands. Today, for the first time ever, government inspectors are going to judge his work. Well, the better part of my life, which is 36 years, they had no intervention, no light control, and didn't do anything for this house.

Whereabouts? We renovated two-thirds of the house and put in water, put in the electricity, and made sure they had sewer systems. So all of a sudden they come and say, all right, we own this house. So it's a bit funny kind of saying, like, your house is finished. This is a radical change from how things used to be. But Sam seems to have made peace with this new way of doing things. It's a matter of perspective, because you could get bothered of, like...

But you can also just go with the flow and, like, compromise it. Some more people showed up. Some men who worked on the house, and a few official Christiana representatives. This is Gita. Hi, Gita, Benjamin. And that's Alan. Hey, Alan, Benjamin.

Alan was a carpenter and a neighbor of Sam's. In Cochina, I'm Alan Children's Meadow, actually. That's my name here, because I live in the Children's Meadow. Alan wasn't thrilled about the inspectors. He didn't like Sam's positive attitude either. I'm here. I live every day with the ship, you know, and I work with it every day. So I'm even more adapted than you are, because you just sit here and hide up here and doing whatever you like to do. I'm not hiding up here.

Yeah, you do. I'm not hiding. Building my own house, man. Weeping your own ass. And you guys are crying because I'm not there. Wiping your ass. Sam, Alan and the others laid out some food in bottles. The plan seemed to be to get the inspector drunk. And then they arrived.

So these are the officials. They did not seem like unreasonable people. Kristiania is something very special in Denmark. And they live here and we want them to continue living here. We own these houses, so our interest is to have a good collaboration with them. And we have certain things we want with these buildings, because we own them. Every owner has some ideas about their buildings.

And because they are preserved buildings, we have to take special care of them. I tagged along for the inspection. They examined the flooring, the roof, and some of the window frames. What are they talking about? It's details. It's historical details. It's an old-fashioned style. Not very efficient, but we respect the old traditions. Alan didn't seem to like it when the inspector suggested the wood pieces run vertical rather than horizontal. And then they were done.

Everyone seemed happy. The owners, Sam, everyone except Alan. Before we made the agreement, they stopped all kind of maintenance with violence. They sent out the police and tearing things down. And then we had these eight years of incarceration. And now, after 13 years, we are in this position where we have to apply and ask for everything. They don't want us to spread out on the land. They don't want us to let us act like free people, you know. They want us to decide what's good or what's bad and what is nice and what is not nice.

Except what I just witnessed though, didn't they? Isn't this them saying, yes, you're allowed to... Yeah, but we do what they did that's because we we done what they asked us to do ah then then they are just happy you know and then we just if you just ask and then yeah but you pointed out the vertical versus horizontal if that's the if that's the uh the um if that's where i can win, come on, it's like fucking shit, man. It's like nothing. It's ridiculous. It's like crumbs instead of having a piece of bread.

The agreement of 2012 may have solved some of Christiana's legal problems, but for Alan, it also changed the fundamental identity of his utopia. For the worse. What changed is that now we bought it, so now we have a contract. We are all kind of laws. It's like, it's the same for us like for anybody else. Earlier, we got enormously support from the whole Denmark, but now we don't have it no more. It's the same for us like for anybody else. Earlier we got an enormous support from the whole Denmark,

but now we don't have it no more. It's gone because people don't support us no more. Because now we are just like everybody else. We're just a community like everybody else community in the whole world. So we lost the whole moment of developing, showing new ways of living. For me, it's like a huge loss because we really lost the nice intention of trying to change the world. Now we just have to follow along, you know. I believe that the world needs change. We need to change the world because look at the environment and everything.

And the thing is that we should contribute to these things and show the way to other people because we have so many guests coming here and we should show them these things instead of showing them old historical houses. I give a shit about the old historical. No, I like this story, but that's not what it's all about. On the day I visited, I felt like I was witnessing a fight between two different schools of preservation. On the one hand, Alan wants to preserve his radical utopia, whereas the Danish government wants to preserve its swede-stopping fortifications. But while you can respect the old ways of construction,

the present moment might require a new way of doing utopia. At the very least, letting more people participate. When I began this miniseries, I donned a pair of utopian tinted glasses. The plan was to try and see the world as it should be, as it could be. But keeping these glasses on my face these past few months has turned out to be next to impossible. It's been maddening. All of my darkest fantasies are coming to life, but they all have this annoying rosy hue. So the opportunity to see a musical based on one of the darkest dystopian books that I've ever read, The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, was a welcome respite.

I read Parable of the Sower years ago, but it's a book that still gives me nightmares. There's something about this story, about this young girl Lauren, that's always stuck with me. Perhaps it's the roving gang of pyromaniacs on drugs that kill her family and destroy her community. Or perhaps it's the hellish journey she takes across the failed landscape of future America. Or perhaps it's just Octavia Butler's prophetic sensibility. The whole thing starts off with talk about this new American president, this former TV guy who has this ridiculous slogan about making America great again. They elect a new president in 2024, and he starts to talk about like, why do we have these kind of barbaric high, you know, minimum wages and how can we lower them?

And you also get like it's a corporation, like a multinational corporation that comes in and buys up the town. We know that we have the capacity to make this happen. That's Toshi Regan, the songwriter, performer, writer, who had the vision for Parable of the Sower musical. Toshi sits center stage for the entire performance. She guides us through the story with her guitar and commentary. She also makes a lot of references to the present and our current relationship with our friendly technological overlords who are turning us into serfs. What Octavia is telling you in Parable is technology isn't meant for everybody.

It is only going to be meant for a very specific class who can keep up with the economic push. And that is very few people. You know, there's 1% and then everybody else falls. Don't let your baby go. Don't let your baby go to Oz. few people. You know, there's 1%, and then everybody else falls. Toshi wrote a song about one of these company towns. In Parable of the Sower, Olivar is a place that guarantees you safety and convenience. All you have to do is sign over your life. Olivar is like a combo of We Work plus We Live plus electronic callers that kill you if you try to we escape. Like Parable of the Sower, All of Our Blues is not just a story about the future.

It's also a story about the here and now. All of us could end up in Olivar, and they're trying to, you know, deal with that. But before they got to Olivar, they were here in Brooklyn. Olivar. Way back there, way back then 2015 in brooklyn when the police got crazy and the rents got high we shouldn't have watched from a distance because that was our life we were feeling pretty healthy we were feeling the love we had craft beer and we had good jobs, but couldn't afford to buy a house.

We started to think that maybe we should get out with the rents getting higher. Every day it didn't make sense to try to keep the pace or the American dream. It took a wrong turn. They say, with, like, that really can't access the communities that are here has got to be petrified. You know, one of those buildings could be an Al-A our building one day. Every time I do it, it's different because every audience is different and every town is different. And sometimes I know something about the town I'm in and I start talking about things.

And, you know, you kind of can get into it with the audience, which is great. When it was way more fun, way more fun. We used to see Big Lovely at Joe's Pub. That was the time to take you to the streets to define the line against a real enemy the economic system that sucks you like a drugs imprisons people of color and says they're all fugs and that's when we should have given two fucks, taken everything we had and tried our luck. Say fight, fight, strategize, stay together, equal rights. Say fight, fight, strategize, stay together, equal rights. And so all of our is a call to create the changes that you want.

And I think they take that home with them and, you know, implement that energy into their daily lives. Like I said, Parable is a dark, dark book. But for Toshi Regan, it's also a map. A map that Octavia Butler has given us to guide us out of this darkness. And you don't even need to wear utopian tinted glasses to follow this map. It actually shows you these directions. The thing that saves us is going to be each other in our capacity to stand together

and to be considerate people to each other and to be kind and of service to each other. Like, that will be our saving grace. That's the real map. Don't let your baby go to Oliver That's the of Everything. This installment is called Utopia, Part 5. This episode was produced by me, Benjamin Walker, and Andrew Calloway. Special thanks to Toshi Regan, Pike Malinowski,

and everyone I met at Christiana, Sam, Julie, and Alan. So that's it for Utopia. Coming up next on The Theory of Everything, False Alarm. The Theory of Everything is a proud member of Radiotopia, home to some of the world's best podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.

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