Who are they to demand such things...?

[Chroelle]

This thread is of course inspired by the debate regarding the Youthhouse "Ungdomshuset" and the extreme protesting and rampaging following the eviction of the squatters living in it.
Here is the situation:

A high number of young people take over an abandoned building.
They use it to party, have concerts, make art and in general it becomes a symbol of youth and its expressions.
The Copenhagen Mayor decides to sell the house, as it is actually their house. They sell it to a much smaller church group called Faderhuset (The Fatherhouse).
The youths are outraged that the building they have come to see as their own is taken away from them.
The Mayor decides to try and find a solution that will make everyone happy.
The youth decides that if they are to get another house they want the mayor to sell it to them for tops 1 danish kroner = 0.17$
The mayor finds an abandoned school and is willing to sell it to them. The price is lowered to 12 million Danish kroner. (A villa in Copenhagen would be about 3-4 million Danish kroner)
A foundation is willing to pay the money for the house but the kids say no. They still want a house for 1 Danish kroner.
The mayor is not willing to do this, and as such the deadline runs out and the house was evicted on thursday.
All thursday, Friday and Saturday there were youths rampaging through the streets, some in demonstrations and some just throwing stones and molotovs at the police.
Alot of the youth participating are activists from outside of Denmark. So far we have had Norwegian, Swedish, German, Latvian, English etc. people participating because the youths had contacted activist groups in these countries to ask them for help.
The youths have been setting cars on fire, smashing windows, made bonfires in the street, gathering things to throw at the police and in general rampaged.

What is your take on a story like this?

[spanek]

Something like that is happening in Greece now but with universities. I like the idea of strikes and marches to protest your rights but I am totally against violence and destruction of someone else's property.

For the above matter I believe that the mayor should provide an abandoned house for free for the youth. It will help everyone...

[Scythe]

I won't correct the nitpicky details, that's beside the point.

I have, all the time this has been hot news, said they're a bunch of spoiled kids (I know not all of them are, but the face they use for the public is). All it is with them is want, want, want. Well, if they want to live in this society, they can follow its rules. I know they've tried their case in court, which was exactly the right thing to do, but when that didn't work, wanton destruction was the response. They use the laws of this country when it suits them, and when it doesn't, they break stuff and blame somebody else. "The police made me burn down this car." "Faderhuset made me throw cobblestones at this window." "The politicians made me pick up this iron bar and attack the police."

As it happens, living in this country means that you can't just take, or do, what you want, without consequence. Time to grow up and face facts. If you're going to change the system, change it from within. Forceful changes are not possible in this day and age, no matter how loud you whine, or how many troublemakers you call for from out of the country.

If they don't want to follow all the rules, let them go to prison for a while for their destructive behavior. Better yet, deport them to Iraq. In other unrealistic suggestions, put them on an island and let them make their own society there. They can throw all the cobblestones they like out there, at passing ships or whatever. Sure, it won't make them happy, but it's not our job to make sure they're happy. After destroying some more stuff, it still isn't.

[Chroelle]

It is funny how we see eye to eye on this matter Scythe. Spanek let me tell you this. I would agree to the deal that the mayor gave them with the school for 12 million. It was a PERFECT location for them, and it would be very easy to make it into a new youth house. Unfortunately they had to turn SPOILED BRAT on the mayor and say: "NO - If we cant have it our way we don't want it at all..."

I was told that these kids (which I know quite a few of - mostly peacefully demonstrators) think the mayor HAD TO give them a building. As if it was her job... In that case I think it is the Mayors job to get me a huge house near the water, and I only want to pay 1 danish kroner for it... After all I plan to be a 4 person household, and I know one house where only one bachelor guy lives in. Has its own swimming pool and everything... I'll buy that for a dollar...

Honestly I think there is a discursion between what is expected from these kids and what is actually the states job to provide. We provide healthcare, schooling, allowance for students, cheap dorms, grants and so forth, but the kids (yes I will refer to them as kids even though the average age I guess is about 21) want more.

I think we should keep the benefits we have like free schooling, and allowance for students, but I dont think we should expect so much more. And if we get a no, then maybe we should accept that that is the way it is going to be.
And start looking at how we could better our own situation instead of asking what everyone else can do to better our situation...
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for you !

[Pater Alf]

First of all I have to admit that I sympathize a lot with people who take over abandoned houses.
When I was a student some of my friends (most of them punks or young people who felt there wasn´t a right place for them in society) did so and lived in these houses or turned them to places were people can meet and where art was made and performed.
Most of the houses were nearly rotten, left on their own and nobody was there who cared about them. So the young people put a lot of effort and money into making the houses nice and a place where you will feel at home. Doing this they saved the houses and gave something back to community (nicer houses, concerts, a place where people can meet) for taking the house.

If the situation was similar in Copenhagen (and from which I read in german newspapers it is) I think it wasn´t right (and also not wise) to ask for 12 million Danish for the abandoned school (something about 2 million euro?) by the mayor. Which use is there for an abandoned school? Normally it´s just another building that goes down and starts to rotten within a year. The mayor should have given it to the kids for free (or at least for a symbolic price)...

The mayor finds an abandoned school and is willing to sell it to them. The price is lowered to 12 million Danish kroner. (A villa in Copenhagen would be about 3-4 million Danish kroner)
A foundation is willing to pay the money for the house but the kids say no. They still want a house for 1 Danish kroner.

That´s the part of the story I don´t understand. If there was a foundation who was willing to pay the money (I´m sure there was no way the youth could have afforded that much money on their own) the young people should have taken the school and open their new youth centre. Everybody could´ve been happy and there´s no need for violance.

Even if I sympathize with the idea of taken over abandoned houses and turn them into something nice my sympathy ends when it comes to violance and destroying things that belong to people who are not involved into the whole situation.
Anyway there will never come anything good from rampaging and attacking police men who only do their work. The young peple will only loose the sympathy of the community that might been there before.

Looking at the story I think everyone made mistakes at some point. The community did, the mayor did and the young people of course too. They all should sit down at a table again and search for a peaceful way to end their argument.

[Chroelle]

Actually the mayor fooled up on one point. She offered the school, and only later found out that there was plans to move a special class institution into the school. So it was only abandoned as a school.
Please do not get me wrong. As you might be able to read between the lines in my first post - I am very much for, letting the youth use abandoned buildings for housing, if they do not have any other place to stay. But they have to remember that they are borrowing it. It is actually somebody elses house.
Also it is a bit glorified to say that the kids cleaned up the house, as they moslty thrashed the place... It didn't look fixed up, lets just keep it at that.

I truelly do feel it would have been a good solution to take over the school building, but I cannot get past the fact that the youth community really scr*wed up when they decided to say no, and then afterwards complain about how the community didn't help them.
I think they had a lot of peoples support up until they exploded into a violent havoc-spreading mob. nobody likes a mob... And nobody likes a mopping mob.

[Scythe]

First of all I have to admit that I sympathize a lot with people who take over abandoned houses.

A lot of people sympathized with them for many years. Some of their parents still do. Most everybody else dropped the sympathy when it came to riots.

That´s the part of the story I don´t understand. If there was a foundation who was willing to pay the money (I´m sure there was no way the youth could have afforded that much money on their own) the young people should have taken the school and open their new youth centre.

The only people understanding this are the youths themselves. They have made four demands to what a new youth house should be. One of the demands is that the house must cost no more than a symbolic price. If their four demands are not met, they refuse on principle, whether or not somebody else will pay for it. No, I understand it either.