Episode 23: A Life in the Commune with Tanja Fox

Not all revolutionaries wear bandoliers full of bullets. Some of them tend beautiful little gardens next to a wooden cottage they built in a neighborhood called Dandelion. That’s the kind of revolutionary that Tanja Fox is. Tanja has spent her entire life living a little bit differently, in one of the world’s most fascinating districts, the commune of Christiania in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a social experiment Christiania has been remarkably resilient, a bit of squatted military base turned hippie utopia that has lasted more or less independently almost 47 years now. As you’ll hear in this episode, is under threat like never before, from the twin menaces of a hardcore narcotics trade and, increasingly, mass tourism. Tanja and Nathan sat in Tanja’s house last spring, while birds plucked from a Disney film serenaded them, and talked about how to live your politics in one of the world’s great, complicated social experiments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices