Dan's story.a dossier on Tvind, Planet Aid and IICD.

by Dan Lindbergh.  translated from Swedish

THE UFF - THE TVIND EMPIRE - THE TEACHERS GROUP

"The Tvind Empire is one of the press stamped name of a large amount of associations, foundations, companies, schools etc who are seemed in different kind of relations.  They appear to have something in common. The most common are UFF  (Country aid from People to People), DRH (The Travelling Folk High School)  and Tvind.

The Teachers Group

The real name is the teachers group (TG).   TG is a top-down managed cult which consists of idealistic members who are ruling the whole Tvind Empire.   They've got several collectives spread out over the whole world. You can be a member on trial for a couple of years, or write a contract for lifetime.   As a teacher in Denmark you get your salary from the State, but 95% of the salary is put into an account that you haven't  access to.   But the money isn't important, it's that they want you to sign a contract for lifetime, both on your money and your time.   You won't have any leisure time, but the collective will decide what you should do.

When you've signed in to the TG they exhort you to burn pictures and address books.   It's motivated by the risk of pursuit against both the TG and the private.    When you've chosen to sign the contract for lifetime all your assets are given to the TG, as well as all your future incomes.

The Teachers Group gets a lot of its ideology from Mao Tse-Tung and communist North Korea. They understand the meaning of money and often talk about combating capital with capital, i.e. one needs a lot of money to spread one's ideas.

Work for Africa

When I came into contact with the movement I had never heard of it before.    I was sitting one day and looking for a job in the papers when I got to see an ad with the headline "Work for Africa".    I would not get a salary, but my expenses for accomodation and food were covered, it said.    First I would go to a school, then go down to Angola as a solidarity worker and finally home again for a period of "after work".   It seemed great, something meaningful to put some effort into and furthermore adventurous.   When I after some days got in contact with the contact person of the movement in Gothenburg, it became clear that the work was not just unpaid.   I would also pay a fee of approx. 20,000 crowns.   It came first as kind of a shock, but if you saw it as a payment for a 16 months adventure and a contribution to the Third World, it was not so expensive, I thought.

The Travelling Folk High School

The Travelling Folk High School exists on several places, all obediant to the TG.  The one I would go to is in Norway on a mountain.   When we arrived there was a big party with candles and raisins [grapes?] on the table.   Everybody was enthusiastic and expectant.   The headmaster was speaking, he inspired respect but was still friendly, and I thought that this seemed to be my thing.   People were caring about each other. Fairly soon we got our responsibility areas. The school lies in the old part of the Hornsj.

It was a mountain hotel, by Swedish standards a fairly shabby hotel.    It's owned and runs by the TG.  The school's maintenance and drifting [?], plus the hotel's swimming pool, is run by the pupils.   It also happens that a group of pupils receives in assignment to handle the entire maintenance of the hotel during some weeks. This in order to learn oneself how it's to handle unexpected tasks.

This procedure is very typical for the school's / TGs methods. These practical lessons became sometimes fairly absurd, for example when an 18-years old without economic experience would handle and be liable for the schools reduce food budget.   I myself became responsible for the school's maintenance.    It involved organising one building weekend per month, plus an entertainment afternoon per week.  Then I would have prepared so that 30 - 40 persons could occupy themselves effectively a whole weekend respective an afternoon.   How would I be able to know which tools, and how many persons that were needed in order to change a rotten window?    Or fix a ragged tumbler?    Or put a new clinker floor in the hall?   And all should take place at the same time. There was time for it in the schedule, but it wasn't enough.    We had also to work during breaks, evenings and sometimes nights.

Failure - guiding

At first I really did my very best to make it work.   But after a while I realised that it actually wasn't meant to succeed.   If you succeeded against all the odds, there was always something that wasn't perfect.  The "acknowledgement" that one had succeeded came with another task, just to make sure that we definitely wouldn't make it next time.

Why weren't we allowed to succeed?   The TG use problems and reverses in order to control its members and pupils / volunteers.  If you failed, this could be brought up at a general meeting where you first were ground down in a mill of accusations.  Then they went further on by analysing why one was so completely incompetent.   Maybe it would be due to the bourgeois growth one has had?   That one had never had to take responsibility for anything?   That one had never had  to feel the useful and solidarity group pressure within a collective?

General meetings

There was a rule at the school which said that all must have an opinion. All must take a position.   Gee, I thought,  that sounded good. This was a school where one took each other each other seriously.

Some of the pupils could sit quiet too long at a general meeting, maybe just because they hadn't really made up their mind, or maybe they didn't even get what the general meeting was all about.   Then the headmaster began to question him.  If he then came with the "wrong" answer i.e. had another opinion than what TG had, began an overwhelming arguing. When I before spoke about being laughed down in a mill, this arguing can be compared with pulverisation.

The attack from TG is always well planned and synchronised.   Above all the headmaster was a very doughty agitator.   We had frequent  general meetings.  They could be about everything, but often about more or less constructed problems.   I have always have had difficulty staying quiet, which did that I ended up in the loophole.

A general meeting could go on very long.    Afterwards one was entirely exhausted and all the words and arguments were going round in your head.   In some way, despite the enormous group pressure, I knew what I thought, but I couldn't argue for it.   The TG had eroded my arguments so that the words no longer were worth anything.   This happened at almost all the general meetings.

At first I really thought that I was wrong.   If I couldn't argue so that people understood, something had to be wrong with my opinions.   But on the evenings when I lay down and would fall asleep after a general meeting, I went through the entire meeting again, and I realised that it wasn't so.   I began slowly but certainly see that it wasn't possible to win against the TG.

The general meetings were not part of a democratic process.   It didn't matter if I was good or bad at arguing.   The outcome was determined in advance by  the TG, and they kept on until they reached where they wanted.    This meant that sometimes one could go on for days.   During my time it was never necessary, people were subdued in max 6 hours. But I know that in Tvind in Denmark and in the Red House schools in England, meetings has been going on for up to 2 days without sleep.

I remember especially one general meeting at the end of my time at the school, when it took a long time for me to understand what it was the headmaster really meant.  I sat hyper-concentrated and first after half an hour I realised his opinion on the question.   Then something strange happened.

When I at last grasped what he meant, I took it to me like a truth.    His opinion passed by my critical "opinion filter" and took place like as the truth in my head.

It was first in the evening, when I thought it all through, that I realised: "stop and proof", I don't think like that.     Then when I also then thought about the fear many of the others felt in order not to have the correct answer when the headmaster asked them out, the thing was clear.    This was as clear as noonday a case of brainwashing.    You could see pupils that were as white as a sheet of fear to end up in the loophole of the headmaster and the TG.   They were happy if they had got the TGs opinion at all when they got the question.   They neither had the time nor dared to critical judge if the TGs opinion was agreed with theirs.   They were just happy if they didn't have to be stoned.

Then I didn't really know anything about brainwashing, mind control or "thought reform", as it's called in Swedish.   I could just establish that this was a simple, but alas effective technique to get people to absorb a certain opinion.   I remember that I was ever so impressed that the teachers were such good judges of characters.   In some way they always knew what was going on at the school.

One evening we were a gang pf pupils, both new and old, who were sitting down talking.  The funny thing was that almost the same topic was brought up at the morning assembly the day after.   Not exactly, but it led first to the same thing, to the same problems.   I didn't reflect so much over it just then.

But it became current again one evening when someone knocked on my door.   It was one of the girls in a group who had been at the school a lot longer than I.   She was wanted to talk about a thing that had happened during the day.   She was afraid that I had misunderstood her and wanted for safety's sake to explain some things.

She began by assuring me, very seriously, that the headmaster didn't send her.    I laughed and said that I didn't think so either.   We talked and had a nice time for awhile.  But when she would go, she became serious again and protested, once again, that she wasn't sent by the headmaster.

That had me to very laboriously begin to open my eyes and see how things really were going on at the school.   The headmaster had after all a lot of spies among the faithful students, whom he sent out to get to know what was happening.    The headmaster and the TG knew all the time what the pupils discussed and which opinions they had.

Besides our responsibility areas and the studies, we were also supposed to sell postcards for average 8,200 crowns per month per person.

When we were in Oslo for the first time, we had to fundraise in total 66,000 crowns in five days.

It was completely impossible.   We were out in the streets from 09.00 o'clock in the morning until 21.00 o'clock in the evening.   After that we ate in some restaurant where we had begged for food.   At 19.00 o'clock we had to be out again to sell in our predestined areas.   At 21.00 o'clock we went to a gym where we lived.   We finished the day by studying for some hours.

When I for the first time went to Oslo to sell postcards I had never heard anything negative about the movement.   I had of course seen some things that where weird, but when I asked they had answers for everything.

After a day out on the streets of Oslo I was totally exhausted.   People almost spat at us, and told us one bad story after another about the school and the movement.   After three days I pulled on the handbrake and demanded an explanation from the headmaster and the teachers. When we started at the school, we had had to answer if we were doing drugs or not.    Now it was time for them to tell about their sins.

I was furious and asked why we had been thrown out in the streets, with no knowledge about the truth of the reputation of the movement. The headmaster was very upset and said that I didn't have the right to accuse them.

It took from 9.00 o'clock in the morning until 21.00 in the evening to outline for the bad reputation.   Partly on direct questions from us about things we had heard in the town, and partly as an answer to my request that they would put all the cards on the table.   We would overhear anyway sooner or later.    On the evening everybody was satisfied. I was enough pleased in order to once again feel convinced.

The time went and many strange things happened.    I was still strong and it could go very hot in the general meetings.   I was, despite all, still devoted - but also critical.    It came often-front pupils that wanted talk.   I knew that they were sent by the headmaster and played along in this absurd game.

After a while I observed that I was left more in peace, if I was walking around and looked as excessively happy as everybody else.    When I would go home for Christmas, I remember that I was difficult to accept the TGs mocking grin when they saw our joy about going home to our families to celebrate Christmas.   The TG would  be sure not go home to some ridiculously middle-class keeping of Christmas.   They would have a general meeting in Tvind and put up the strategy for the coming year. During the Christmas days I had got the time to think.   When I came back after the holiday a lot of new strange things happened, but then there was no longer time to think.

One day I demanded "time out" and said that I didn't want to take part in any lessons.    I wanted to get the time to think through what this school / movement stood for and what I wanted and could stand for myself.

It wasn't easy to think in peace, because the headmaster sent pupils who where suppose to talk me into being sensible every second minute.    I hid in the attic and got enough calm in order to part everything up, and  formulate in writing constructive criticism of the school and the TG.

I tried to convince myself that I wasn't insane.  I rang up a former pupil at the school, who I knew was very critical.   With her support I could establish that it wasn't me, but something wrong with the school.   I decided to quit.

Separation anguish

After have talked to the others I began laboriously to pack.   In my head all the memories passed by, and the painful thing was, that now it wasn't all the boring and heart-rending things I thought of, but just the nice and fun memories.

I had become very attached to the other pupils and didn't want to leave them.    It began to go around in my head, and I thought it was a shame if the TG would cause me to leave all these wonderful people.    If I stay, I do violence on myself.    But if I leave them, I do as much violence on my feelings.

Then I can equally be left together with my friends. I   had anyway found a lot of nice things here at the school.    If I just could ignore the headmaster and the TG, pretend that they don't exist, then it would be all right.   The other pupils were happy that I would try to stay.

But the TG wasn't happy and called  a general meeting the same evening.   Now would all the doubts come up on the table, not just mine, but everybody's doubts.   I was now on the limit to a breakdown.   I had neither eaten nor slept properly the last days. The psychological pressure was at the limit of what I could manage.   Sometimes everything became black around me and I just heard voices. The smallest emotional dissipation would be able to make me collapse, so I decided not to say a word.    Despite that the TG provoked it didn't appear any criticism.    The pupils knew what would happen if they opened their mouths.

I mumbled something about that just now I didn't care about which methods and which philosophy the TG had.    I just wanted to try to stay tuned along with the nice people that I had met at the school.   It went a swish of recognition among the pupils, because it was exactly the way most of them reasoned.

That night I didn't get a wink of sleep. The following day I didn't hear a word of what was said at the lessons.   In the evening I talked with the others, and said that now it's enough.   No more life under the TGs wings for me. I   was by the way not the smallest interested of going to Africa in their management any longer.

I slept at the station and in the morning I took the train to Oslo.  There I had made an appointment with some friends in the evening.   I would stay with them for a couple of days.

I felt all other than good when I came to Oslo.   I stumbled around during the day, afraid of myself and with a persecution complex that almost got me to hit a guy who was just asking for light.   Thoughts about suicide twisted around in my head.