2004 and 2018

In March 2004, I left Sweden for, as I first supposed, Austria, via Denmark and Germany. I got stuck in Denmark and stayed in Copenhagen for a while.

In homeless shelters I could still sleep at night in the night shelters, and I could still get new friends in the day shelters, including one "breakfast up to lunch" one. One of the men I met was a pusher who was working at Pusher Street in Christiania.

Now, some Puritans may frown, some Medical Precautionists (which is really a form of Puritans) may frown, but one should understand that Pusher Street was not about heavy drugs. Hashish, kat, mushrooms - but no coke and no heroin, no lsd, no metamphetamine, no ketamine and so on. A pusher on Pusher Street had a kind of aristocratic position in Christiania (which is a kind of Communist kibbutznik thing), so he was in certain ways running things. And one of the things he guaranteed was keeping what he classified as "heavy drugs" away.

Now, in Christiania's own "free state" rules, he was not a criminal. Before the Danish law in common, he was. Up to 2004, he had been tolerated. Denmark said, more or less, Christianites do their thing. In March 2004n there came a crackdown on them.

The pusher I had met (or presumable such), was no longer seen, I think he was caught in one of the big police trucks which were driving to and from Christiania several ones a day. If not, he got out and kept away or started living in hiding.

It is interesting, however, that the volunteers (at the Lutheran "Kirkens Korsehær" - literally "Church Crusaders") explained this crackdown in these terms : the police was showing off its capacity to guarantee the safety at the wedding of Crown Prince Frederik. (If he is king, after Queen Margarethe, he will be Frederik X). It took place 4pm and 47min in the Our Lady's Church of Copenhagen.

Nobody dreamed of a crackdown on the homeless. As I was not (and I have also not since become) a pusher, I was safe, and I was learning Waltzing Matilda, which I used as a street singer in Copenhagen and some places elsewhere for 2004 and much of 2005 after this. (Btw, this was not my only song, back when my throat was not burdened by infections and my front teeth were good).

Now, look at this:

Windsor official backs homeless crackdown for royal wedding
https://www.mail.com/int/entertainment/celebrity/8182566-windsor-official-backs-homeless-crackdown-royal-we.html#.1258-stage-hero1-7

Borough council leader Simon Dudley kicked off the controversy by tweeting over the Christmas holidays about the need to clean up Windsor's streets. He then wrote to police and Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May suggesting that action be taken to reduce the presence of beggars and the homeless.

Dudley referred to an "epidemic" of homelessness and vagrancy in Windsor and suggested many of those begging in the town are not really homeless. He said the situation presents a beautiful town in an unfavorable light.

Oh dear ... I see a Puritan hatred of beggars somewhere. I see rich people, not being afraid of thieves, but disgusted with people poorer than themselves.

I don't intend to become a councillor of Prince Harry, but if he'll take an advice for once, don't do it. Don't "clean up the streets". There was a time when the cleaning up was done by throwing money to the beggars and letting them go off to enjoy themselves and to drink your health and bless you.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Eve of Epiphany
5.I.2018

PS, it is obviously not the oldfashioned "cleaning up" by alms I am against!/HGL