(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Orientering 14. December 1968
Stop the war and stop Christmas – should such slogans have the same meaning? – Well, not literally. It is the forgery of Christmas our advanced brothers in the East have looked crazy on. The whole commercialization that is precisely the idea of Christmas. The forgery, the fake, the poisoning, Christmas and more. Symbolic and purely literal.
Looking back at the beginning of the provocation movement, we find both meanings. The word originated in the Netherlands, and the first demonstrations were aimed at all the humbug about a marriage within the royal house. At the same time, it expanded into the "literal" field. Measurements of the air in the big cities showed an alarming degree of poisoning. At least for some it was attributed to the many cars. Not least the many cars that stood still with the engine on. The young Dutch provost broke into the cars and switched off the engine. In the same breath came the offer of the white bikes. A lot of bicycles were provided, painted with white and placed around the center and the outskirts. So please – they were available to anyone who would use them.
In such matters the pervasive provocation movement was an absolutely serious movement – you could well call it the scouting movement of our time. A lot of helpfulness was also unfolded. Faced with the old and the weak and those who were mostly knocked out by technical progress. The bicycle measure was launched in Copenhagen, but the authorities intervened. Since that time it has probably died out in the home country as well. The police and thus the much-talked-about Existence did not look with such gentle eyes on such striking human friendliness. It was not taken as a symptom of lawlessness in general.
And in general, the movement became the coming years. The student revolution all over the western and a bit of the eastern world was a continuation of the first meager measures. As different grounds for such a revolt – in Paris, Berlin, London, Copenhagen ... right from lack of space to alleged indoctrination by the various faculties and underpaid workers – naturally in favor of the Existing – the operation itself looks pretty much the same. Occupation of auditoriums and institutes, marching and – in the worst case – bloodshed and violence. Part of what one calls young people in the world is the permanent revolution. Which in itself does not involve the use of violence, but the willingness to face violence with violence.
Stop the war and stop Christmas – should such slogans have the same meaning?
At the university's annual party in Copenhagen on Thursday 21 November, an episode occurred that has been described in the Norwegian press as "embarrassing". When the hall was full of dignitaries and royal houses with gold on white shirt breasts, psychology student Finn Einar Madsen ran to the pulpit and took the floor. The guards employed on their feet got up, but Rector Professor Mogens Fog – himself an old revolutionary and leader in the resistance during the occupation – got ahead of them and gave the young man three minutes to say what was on his mind. «I am enrolled at the University of Copenhagen. Why are students not allowed to speak at the university's annual party? Why invite only people from the highest class of society? We will not follow in their footsteps. We ourselves have been oppressed and incapacitated. " Etc. It was not a bad speech. It took 4 minutes and 48 seconds. Whereupon student Madsen and the protesters who had placed themselves in the hall took the train out.
A happening is what Danish Politiken calls the episode. You touch it cheerfully, but not just cheerfully. In an interview with student Madsen, the newspaper lets the young man explain himself. He proves to be of economic upper class from the mundane Rungsted. But he has broken up with his family and earns his living by body work. Married into the working class, where he believes he has found a more authentic environment. A coquettish social romantic? Not at all. "There will never again be a university party in that sense," he promises in the end. He and his associates must make sure of that.
Storm in a glass of water? I do not think so. There will be a lot of water glasses eventually, strong storms. Then, of course, the readers' letters come in a row. Like that of an older academic who mocks the young man by consistently calling him "young Mr. Madsen". And look at the day before when Mr. Madsen himself sits as a dignitary and smiles at the young brushheads.
Exactly the reaction that keeps the quarrel going. The barren quarrel: The young are rebels, the old know best.
Did it?
The preliminary "settlement" of the currency crisis in the world – who gets a long nose? Good People. They incapacitated. Those who are incapacitated by an alleged democracy.
And what does that have to do with some young destroyers storming a Christmas street in Stockholm?
It has everything to do with it. The protest strikes blindly. But strangely logical nonetheless.
By the way: Did you know that spruce-poor Denmark exports Christmas trees for many hundreds of thousands to Canada and Sweden? And Germany. West. Skilled people. So and so far between the branches of Sweden, space for decoration. The German buyers want denser trees. Realities on both sides.
Today a Savior is born to us.