Nils Christie is a norwegian criminologist,
who lives and workes now partly in Oslo, teaching at the crminology
departement. But sometimes, when he has some time off, he lives
the city of Oslo and moves to a little village, called Vidarasen.
There a two ways of describing this place. First you can look
at it with the eyes of a bureocrat, or manager, who would probably
describe Vidarasen as one of five alternative housing project
for disabled persons, which were founded in the 80th by the antroposophic
Camp Hill movement. But if you look at it with the eyes of Nils,
you discover a place, where a bunch of fools tries to live outside
the "normal society". In Vidarasen live 150 people,
12 cows, one horse, 30 hens, 20 sheep and several cats. It has
a bakery, a carpender's shop, a pottery, one workshop for making
dolls, other workshops and a farm with two greenhouses. Insteed
of a TV room, which is almost typicall for any kind of institutionalized
storrige of diagnosed disabled people, Vidarasen has a huge hall,
where the people celebrate feasts, have concerts and a couple
of theater performances during the year. It has also a chapel
and a cafeteria. Now, after these short introduction to Vidarasen,
I would like first of all clearify, why I have invited Nils to
come to Oakland. The reason why I think that Nils contribution
our conversation is crucial is that the exploration of Vidarasen
allows as to from a concrete, not to say real place at the certainties
of what we might call, modern certainties. Vidarasen is a place
which is at least in some aspects subsistence. The farm with
the greenhouses together with the bakery provides them with food
It is also a place, which has almost no hierachy, at least not
in the bureaucratic way we are used to.
Nevertheless it is neither an utopia nor a result of romanticism.
It is real, because, Nils states; some people like it and others
hate it. |
