Direct democracy demolished Pusher Street -- the notorious hash-selling enclave inside the autonomous freetown of Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark.
We just happened to be there last Friday morning September 2nd to see the hash market being knocked down - nine hours after Christianites made their decision.
Christianites - about 900 residents of the hippie self-governing community established in 1971 - erupted with anger and condemnation after last Wednesday’s late-night triple shootings of two policemen and an impoverished bottle collector by a Pusher Street gunman.
A five-hour common meeting - the highest governing power in Christiania - was held on Thursday night.
It opened with offering sympathies and condolences to the policeman, who was shot in the head, and the other officer in the leg.
The gunman, male mid-twenties originally from Bosnia and a violence-affected family, was shot and killed by police in Kastrup, south of Copenhagen.
The meeting heard an eyewitness report that the gunman, was on a bike carrying a bag and had been approached by two cops.
There were other cops around, behind, both in civilian clothes and in uniform.
The guy grappled with the cops, and then there was firing.
Two cops went down.
The other police had disappeared.
The gunman looked over at an unfortunate bottle-collector who just happened at that time to check for discarded glass bottles so he could earn a pittance on returns.
The poor bottle-collect stood frozen.
The gunman raised his firearm.
He leveled it.
Aimed it at the bottle-collector’s head.
He then lowered it.
And shot the bottle-collector in the leg.
The psycho-gunman, made off, escaping out of Christiania, into Christianstown, down Amager, south towards the airport to Kastrup, where on Thursday morning Copenhagen Police’s Special Intervention Unit finally cornered him.
Mesa Hodzic, who came to Denmark when he was four from Bosnia, had a history of violence. In 2010 he was acquitted of stabbing a man, but his father was also involved in the fight and was found guilty. Before his death by bullets from Danish cops 25-year-old Hodzic was facing three counts of attempted murder, illegal possession of firearms and drug trafficking charges.
Christianites had had enough.
The common meeting, attended by 400-500 people in the Grey Hall, agreed by consensus to close Pusher Street.
The long meeting finally ended by midnight.
By 9 AM - nine hours after the meeting - on Friday, September 2, 2016, the demolition of Pusher Street began.
Christianites broke up the timber-framed plywood stands in Pusher Street - the main avenue of Christiania’s town area.
Pushers had previously stood in these camouflaged plywood stalls wearing sky-masks, balaclavas, hoods, gloves and bullet-proof vests while selling hash.
This little cottage industry generates some two billion kroner in cannabis sales annually. (€1 = DKK 7.4; $1 = DKK 6.6)
But who got the profits?
Not Christiania.
The freetown has a long history of supporting cannabis, including campaigning for legalization, and some Christianites did work on the stalls, making one thousand to two thousand kroner an hour, but most kids working the place were paid way less, some as low as 200 kroner an hour on the late night shift.
Kids were risking years in jail, with the constant on-going raids by Danish police on Pusher Street, risking their freedom for what: $30 an hour.
The Gangsters, Hells-Angels, biker-gangs, professional criminals sucked the fat off this market, and left fear and despair in their wake.
About ten gangs fight for control of Copenhagen’s hash market, and they employ hundreds of eager young people yearning to live life dangerously.
But they were finally ejected, and Friday felt like a new day, a Christmas morning, as the stalls fell, and gangster power crumbled, thanks to people-power, especially the power of the women in Christiania, they are mighty women: strong voiced, bright smiles but determined, and nothing, nothing can stop these women.
They have now created a space where art, and music, and fun, creativity and joy can take the place of fear and violence.
Christiania has done its part, now it is up to the Danish government to legalize cannabis (more Danes polled want legalization and 80% want medical legalized) and get the psycho gunmen criminals out of this industry, which after all is basically a health industry.
Christianites worked into Friday afternoon knocking down Pusher Street stalls and skiping them.
The sun shone.
The Machine Halls tractors, diggers and fork-lifts hauled the Pusher garbage off to Christiania’s in-house waste centre, which overflowed with gangster debris.
Christianities set up picnic tables and celebrated the end of Pusher Street; beers popped, and laughter replaced fear.
We then sat in the Machine Hall blowing spliffs as the Danish rain came -- after the work was done.
The Christianites with their people power have set the bar for democracy… now will the politicians rise to this rolling history?
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