Teenage wasteland

In the latest step of the Britney Spears-ing of Denmark's international reputation, Copenhagen hosted some youth riots this weekend, turning two central neighborhoods into the last 20 minutes of 'Children of Men'.

The reason for the 'un-relaxedness', as they say in Danish, was that a bunch of semi-squatter kids were being kicked out of a house that the city gave them in the 1980s. A few years ago the house was sold to a nutty, possibly stress-testing Christian group who wanted to tear it down because, you know, that's what Jesus would do and everything.

So: The riots. The city politicians were inarguably being dicks by having everyone in the house arrested, but as soon as the anarchists came out of the woodwork and started setting shit on fire, you could practically hear the entire Danish middle class sighing and folding up their sympathy.

I have to admit that I have a special aversion to all things anarchy. What may have at one point been a legitimate political position is now just an excuse to set shit on fire, yell meaningless slogans, and spray-paint that tired logo (oh, I'm sorry, symbol) on any flat, non-flammable surface.

I remember being at the WTO riots in Seattle in 1999 and asking one of the anarchists about why they were throwing bottles and turning cars over. The answer was something like "Fucking cops, man!" No one could tell me anything about the WTO or what exactly they were protesting. It was just a bunch of idiots equipped with a restless throwing arm and an ideology that never graduated from middle school.

The definitive moment of the Seattle riots was seeing a guy wearing a hankerchief as a mask (and Nikes, as I recall) spray painting the anarchy symbol on a building and forgetting to cross the A. "Are you kidding me?!" my friend shouted. "Being an anarchist is the easiest thing to be! All you have to do is know that fucking symbol, and you can't even get that right!"

I think there's a reason that anarchy (and the whole Extra Value Meal of radical left politics that comes with it) is so popular with teenagers. It is easy. To be an anarchist you just have to be against everyone who tells you 'no'. It's the philosophical equivalent of a 'keep out' sign on your bedroom door.

Yes, it's a shame that the Youth House got torn down, and an even bigger shame that, this being Denmark, either a hair salon or a tanning-farm will most likely be built in its place. But it's also a shame that some accountant living in the funky part of town woke up on Sunday to find his Volvo turned into a hibachi just because Beavissen and Buttheadsdottir wanted to make a political point.