Video on the Origins of International Women's Day...

Well worth watching for the origins of International Women's Day, and for some Danish history of the building where it all began....



Videoed and narrated by Bent Lorentzen, uploaded on March 8, 2012. Direct link: A Danish House United, Divided, then Destroyed.

"This short documentary captures US street-artist, Frank Shepard Fairey (famous for the Obama icon), working on a mural in the hot Copenhagen sun in August, 2011.

Shepard Fairey attempted to evoke "transformative" healing upon a 3-story facade overlooking the rubble of the historic 69 Jagtvej (Hunter's Road) property in Copenhagen's Nørrebro borough. He certainly did not expect the "extreme left" violent response to his kind, generous and "repeated" artistic efforts, including graffiti that stated, "Go home Yankee," and later being assaulted near a Copenhagen night club. Through interviews, the video also brings in a bit of the extreme left POV, as to why some found it offensive.

Sadly, what seems to have gotten lost in that drama, except through Shepard Farley's efforts last summer, includes how the demolished building holds a history far deeper than the recent decades it served as Ungdomshuset (The Youth House).

Towards the end of the 19th century, the building was called Folkets Hus (The People's House), and functioned to coordinate Denmark's emerging labor movement. And in 1910, 130 women from 16 nations met to to plan Women's Suffrage and demand their natural right to vote, and to establish March 8 as "International Women's Day."

In 2001, the building was purchased from the city by a corporation that sold it to a fundamentalist Christian sect, called "Faderhuset" (Our Father's House), and in 2007, following an exhaustive legal battle, the mayor of Copenhagen demanded that the remaining youth squatting there leave.

Though mostly peaceful, the protests then escalated, especially after the police used lethal-level tear gas to storm and evict the remaining youth. Riots then broke out on the city streets of Copenhagen, and the police arbitrarily arrested anyone without cause other than a guess that they could potentially disturb the peace. The Supreme Court later called ruled many of those police tactics illegal.

A follow-up video will focus more of the women's deeper perspective on the subject.

More about Bent Lorentzen, his books and work:
http://www.amazon.com/Bent-Lorentzen/e/B001JOZZAQ

http://www.facebook.com/people/Bent-Lorentzen/1198146266
Musical score by Aborada, traditional/interpretive native Inca music from Peru, is with their permission.

This work is dedicated to all the women in my life who've made me a better human being, including Mette, Ginger, Danusa, Kali, Anjani, Maureen, Joanie, Judy S, Susan, Sharon (thanks for your brilliant critique), Brenda (Happy Birthday!), and most significantly my Ma."