After Berlin
I travelled to Copenhagen where the COP15 climate conference was taking place.
In front of the Folketshus on a freezing cold December evening I was greeted by a friend-of-a-friend David. He arrived with open arms and a big smile, and probably the wildest hair I've ever seen... It was like meeting an old friend. Soon after eating a delicious meal from the people's kitchen, I was put on a Christiania bike (it's a bicycle with a large "basket" in the front where you can sit) and given a ride all the way through windy dark Copenhagen night to Ragnhildsgade, a massive group of buildings where hundreds of activists were already sleeping in.
Carefully walking through the mattresses, legs and arms spread all over the floors, I made my way into the warmest room I could find and put my slightly smelly sleeping bag next to David's sort-of-a-bed. It was the warmest room of all but still I had to reach for my winter coat during the night.
The morning came with sunbeams striking through the tiny gray windows. A strange voice proclaimed cheerfully "What a lovely day for a riot!"
- But there was no riot.
Tens of thousands of people marching through the city streets, for six hours in total, hundreds of them arrested.
Police cars everywhere. NGO's proudly carrying their flags, samba bands banging their drums, children sitting on their parents' shoulders trying to get a better view over the chaotic mass of shouts, screams, smiles, uncertain moves and bursts of frustrated messages that no one had listened to.
Inside all this, so far the biggest demonstration I had taken part in, I was led by friendly hands and greeted with warm hugs.
There was Kyle, the crazy american, and Martin, a danish guy in a red overall, Candela the Spanish revolution queen and Sofie, the sweetest and most beautiful young woman, who welcomed me to stay at her place despite the fact that I was a complete stranger.
Tobias, the other Martin, Faith, Radu, Dominico, and a bunch of other names that I have already forgotten, but it doesn't really matter because what will not be forgotten is the impact these people had on me.
I have never experienced such solidarity. These guys were probably, without exaggerating, the friendliest, bravest people I've ever met.
They were deeply dedicated to fighting for justice, standing up for their ideals. Never with an aim to hurt, but to save and to change.
Not that my own lifestyle wouldn't be quite radical compared to the standards, but still I was amazed by how these guys were exactly the ones who were at the same time shown on the news and media as the aggressive hooligans who only want chaos and destruction.
Moreover, I was shocked by the fact that I might have been in Finland, reading the news and having my opinions based on the facts given from the media perspective. I might have made some different choices several years ago and ended up on the other side of the TV, just following the world through the screen, not knowing whom to trust and therefore accepting the mainstream image without a question.
What the TV screen showed was angry activists attacking the police, throwing stones at windows, disturbing the peace in the Democratic heaven of Denmark. What I saw was hundreds of cops, raising their arms and batons against anybody, groups of people silenced before they could speak, numbers of banderols torn before they could be read.
Now, if I may ask, what is the point of democracy if people then unsatisfied are forced to apply for permits to complain? We are given rules for how we can express our concerns, and even when following these rules, we are represented to the masses as a violent minority, just to make sure no more people would get off their couches, turn off their televisions and go out to see the world with their own eyes.
Citizens thinking too much, too critically, is dangerous to the leaders, that is easy to understand. What is not easy to understand, is how most of us think this is called freedom.
