CHAINREACTION
THINKING ACROSS EUROPE
Intellectuals across Europe pose questions and offer their perspectives on the future of Freedom and Democracy.
Does it make sense to restrict freedom?
Freedom in Europe
By Harry Liivrand
When the protagonists of the Enlightenment proclaimed the slogan "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" during the period of the French Revolution, they infected every intellectual in Europe (and the newly-formed USA) of that time - the educated citizens of the "republic of letters". These three words are still relevant in today's Europe; in particular the treatment of freedom as an ethical category and the understanding of freedom have gained extraordinary importance in the face of Islamistic terrorists, manipulative fake news and the so called post-factual age. To me, freedom means recognising responsibility and the ability to grasp that freedom is not anarchy. The realisation of freedom presupposes logical thinking and requires the respect to listen to one's opponents, to argue with them in a worthy manner and frequently to reach compromises. By the same token, freedom is always linked to democracy and liberalism, but this also has its limits.
In this sense, freedom is a paradox. Freedom does not mean murdering the opposite party - as if the incident of 1819 - when a German student killed the famous playwright August von Kotzebue, who had made fun of the students' national romanticism - were a solution. The notion that freedom permits everything is therefore nonsense. Does a universal principle of freedom exist, or should each state base its definition of freedom on directives from Brussels or its own traditions?
Next question: "Does a universal principle of freedom exist, or should each state base its definition of freedom on directives from Brussels or its own traditions?"
About the author: Harry Liivrand is an art historian and former cultural attaché
Born 1961 in Tallinn, Estonia, Harry Liivrand graduated from Tartu University with a degree in art history and history in 1984. In 1992 he continued his studies in the department of culture at the Institute of Foreign Relations of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. He has served as senior curator at the Estonian State Art Museum, as cultural editor and art critic at the Estonian weekly "Eesti Ekspress", from 1998 to 2001 as correspondent of "Radio Free Europe/Voice of America" in Amsterdam, from 2008 to 2011 as director of the Tallinn Kunsthalle and from 2011 to 2016 as cultural attache at the Estonian Embassy in Berlin. Since 2016 he has been working as a chief expert in science and communication at the Academic Library of Tallinn University and as a lecturer at Estonian Music and Theatre Academy. He has researched and published over 1000 articles on painting, performance art, jewellery, design and cultural history in Estonia and abroad, notably in Finland, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, The Netherlands and Latvia. In 2007 and 2010 he was a grant-recipient scholar at the Goethe-Institutes in Munich and Hamburg respectively. He has been honoured with numerous distinctions from Estonia and Finland, including a state decoration from the president of Estonia.
Translated from German by Edith C. Watts
In this sense, freedom is a paradox. Freedom does not mean murdering the opposite party - as if the incident of 1819 - when a German student killed the famous playwright August von Kotzebue, who had made fun of the students' national romanticism - were a solution. The notion that freedom permits everything is therefore nonsense. Does a universal principle of freedom exist, or should each state base its definition of freedom on directives from Brussels or its own traditions?
Next question: "Does a universal principle of freedom exist, or should each state base its definition of freedom on directives from Brussels or its own traditions?"
About the author: Harry Liivrand is an art historian and former cultural attaché
Born 1961 in Tallinn, Estonia, Harry Liivrand graduated from Tartu University with a degree in art history and history in 1984. In 1992 he continued his studies in the department of culture at the Institute of Foreign Relations of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. He has served as senior curator at the Estonian State Art Museum, as cultural editor and art critic at the Estonian weekly "Eesti Ekspress", from 1998 to 2001 as correspondent of "Radio Free Europe/Voice of America" in Amsterdam, from 2008 to 2011 as director of the Tallinn Kunsthalle and from 2011 to 2016 as cultural attache at the Estonian Embassy in Berlin. Since 2016 he has been working as a chief expert in science and communication at the Academic Library of Tallinn University and as a lecturer at Estonian Music and Theatre Academy. He has researched and published over 1000 articles on painting, performance art, jewellery, design and cultural history in Estonia and abroad, notably in Finland, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, The Netherlands and Latvia. In 2007 and 2010 he was a grant-recipient scholar at the Goethe-Institutes in Munich and Hamburg respectively. He has been honoured with numerous distinctions from Estonia and Finland, including a state decoration from the president of Estonia.
Translated from German by Edith C. Watts
Does a universal principle of freedom exist?
Europe's Way Out into the Open
By Maxi Obexer
An animal taken into captivity first seeks its way out into the open. The distress is so great that every piece of cheese, no matter how large, is irrelevant. Food becomes secondary; being free is more than surviving, being free is to be alive. Life itself is a struggle for freedom. Are distressed and vulnerable where we are constrained, where free space, whether public or personal, becomes narrower. And like animals, we usually do not react until it has already happened, when we notice that we have been robbed of free space in our thinking and acting. The greatest skill seems to be to react in a timely fashion and first of all to find out from where, through which powers freedom is imperilled.
With each decade and its revolutionary new technologies, new possibilities for the deprivation of liberty are revealed to us. Swiftly put to use by both old and new despotic accesses. After Trump’s election, it became clear to the world's public how rapidly methods multiply and with what virulence they had already been deployed. Even before any prohibition of freedom of expression, they manipulate where thought arises authentically. And even freedom of expression undergoes a perversion in the face of the vilification and abuse by others, and thus itself becomes an instrument of curtailment.
From here I would like to describe why we urgently need to find a common position on freedom - or return to it. I'll start with thinking and perception, where decisions are made as to how freedom is at home in our minds, or how much it is being obscured. The concepts that have been drifting down on us for years now, such as fear and crisis, the boundaries against - and the blunt hatred of - 'the others', including the open or hidden assertion of separate worlds, have cut deeply into the human community like incessant sawing. Political, media and linguistic narratives are pursuing an open policy of separation and differentiation, the bureaucracies follow suit with corresponding concepts, categories and typologies. Thinking in terms of differences imposes itself upon us before even a single common moment could flash into awareness; and differences themselves are treated as insurmountable barriers. We no longer perceive people, but rather their classification into groups, affiliations, national or cultural identities. But there’s no such thing as immigrants, there are no refugees, no foreigners. And an identity does not reveal anything about its counterpart, nothing about how and where it is connected, how life and being human are constantly undergoing change and transformation. Instead, it excludes all that.
But we are linked, connected, interwoven, in love with people all over the world more than ever before. With the awareness of how precious and unique it is - in view of the spatial and temporal expanse of the universe - to profoundly encounter one another physically and spiritually for the brief span of a human life. And our friends, who today are being threatened in their writing, thinking and acting, are not only friends in the figurative sense. We share life, thoughts, hope and love. More connects us than separates us. Freedom today is the common space to be filled. Of all who live and breathe and tell about it, throughout Europe, and the world.
Next question: "What connects us?"
About the author
Maxi Obexer, playwright and author, grew up in South Tyrol / Italy; she lives in Berlin. She has been awarded the Robert Geisendörfer Prize, the Eurodram Prize 2017 for her radio play and theater play "Illegale Helfer" ("Illegal Helpers"), as well as the Potsdam Theatre Prize 2017 for "Gehen und Bleiben“ ("Going and Staying"). Long before the tragedies in the Mediterranean were noticed, Obexer raised the question of the value and significance of Europe, resulting in her radio play and stage play "Das Geisterschiff" ("The Ghost Ship", 2006), and her debut novel "Wenn Gefährliche Hunde lachen" ("When Dangerous Dogs Laugh", 2011). In autumn 2017, her novelistic essay "Europas längster Sommer" ("Europe's Longest Summer") was published, for which she was nominated for the Bachmann Prize. Maxi Obexer has taught as a visiting professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC, Dartmouth College NH, University of the Arts, Berlin, and at the German Literature Institute Leipzig. In 2014 she founded the New Institute for Dramatic Writing, NIDS.
With each decade and its revolutionary new technologies, new possibilities for the deprivation of liberty are revealed to us. Swiftly put to use by both old and new despotic accesses. After Trump’s election, it became clear to the world's public how rapidly methods multiply and with what virulence they had already been deployed. Even before any prohibition of freedom of expression, they manipulate where thought arises authentically. And even freedom of expression undergoes a perversion in the face of the vilification and abuse by others, and thus itself becomes an instrument of curtailment.
From here I would like to describe why we urgently need to find a common position on freedom - or return to it. I'll start with thinking and perception, where decisions are made as to how freedom is at home in our minds, or how much it is being obscured. The concepts that have been drifting down on us for years now, such as fear and crisis, the boundaries against - and the blunt hatred of - 'the others', including the open or hidden assertion of separate worlds, have cut deeply into the human community like incessant sawing. Political, media and linguistic narratives are pursuing an open policy of separation and differentiation, the bureaucracies follow suit with corresponding concepts, categories and typologies. Thinking in terms of differences imposes itself upon us before even a single common moment could flash into awareness; and differences themselves are treated as insurmountable barriers. We no longer perceive people, but rather their classification into groups, affiliations, national or cultural identities. But there’s no such thing as immigrants, there are no refugees, no foreigners. And an identity does not reveal anything about its counterpart, nothing about how and where it is connected, how life and being human are constantly undergoing change and transformation. Instead, it excludes all that.
But we are linked, connected, interwoven, in love with people all over the world more than ever before. With the awareness of how precious and unique it is - in view of the spatial and temporal expanse of the universe - to profoundly encounter one another physically and spiritually for the brief span of a human life. And our friends, who today are being threatened in their writing, thinking and acting, are not only friends in the figurative sense. We share life, thoughts, hope and love. More connects us than separates us. Freedom today is the common space to be filled. Of all who live and breathe and tell about it, throughout Europe, and the world.
Next question: "What connects us?"
About the author
Maxi Obexer, playwright and author, grew up in South Tyrol / Italy; she lives in Berlin. She has been awarded the Robert Geisendörfer Prize, the Eurodram Prize 2017 for her radio play and theater play "Illegale Helfer" ("Illegal Helpers"), as well as the Potsdam Theatre Prize 2017 for "Gehen und Bleiben“ ("Going and Staying"). Long before the tragedies in the Mediterranean were noticed, Obexer raised the question of the value and significance of Europe, resulting in her radio play and stage play "Das Geisterschiff" ("The Ghost Ship", 2006), and her debut novel "Wenn Gefährliche Hunde lachen" ("When Dangerous Dogs Laugh", 2011). In autumn 2017, her novelistic essay "Europas längster Sommer" ("Europe's Longest Summer") was published, for which she was nominated for the Bachmann Prize. Maxi Obexer has taught as a visiting professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC, Dartmouth College NH, University of the Arts, Berlin, and at the German Literature Institute Leipzig. In 2014 she founded the New Institute for Dramatic Writing, NIDS.
What connects us?
Europe for citizens
By Diego Fernandez
From a historical-cultural point of view, what connects us Europeans are the great civilizations that we have built together, which have left a very important identity heritage to all of us. In this regard, the greatest European contribution from a juridical-political perspective is the creation of the social and democratic state of law. The achievement of freedom and equality as complementary values must be understood in the first quarter of the twenty- first century. We are free because we are equal, and we are equal because we are free.
Democracy has evolved from the Greek civilization to the French revolution, and from this to the creation of the European Union. Democracy, like freedom, is a value in continuous evolution. Freedom is always one step further and must be perfected every spring. New rights arise when new needs arise, and equality is not conceived in the same way as just a few decades ago. We minorities, for example, fight for a society where we are equal when the difference discriminates us, and we are diverse when equality makes us lose our identity. Many states do not incorporate the so-called third-generation rights into their constitutional corpus. It is true that Europe is part of globalization and a good part of the objectives must be focused on strengthening our industrial fabric to be more competitive, and on establishing a common economic policy with the consequent macroeconomic adjustments. It is true that Europe is part of globalization and a substantial amount of our objectives must be focused on strengthening our industrial fabric to be more competitive, and on establishing a common economic policy with the consequent macroeconomic adjustments. But it is also true that Europe must be as close to the eyes of Europeans as the window of our house, and as close to the hearts of Europeans as the veins that irrigate it. Therefore, Europe still has a long way to achieve a political union in a way that allows Europeans the direct election of their European President, and a single European constituency instead of a state-based constituency.
Thus, we are connected by our past. But above all, we are connected by the future we still have to build, an exciting future where there are positive signs, such as the single market and the free movement of people and capital, but also negative signals, such as populism or religious and nationalist fundamentalisms which can ruin the common project. Europe, then, has advanced in an evident easing of national borders, which broadens the concept of the freedom of citizens. But in this sense, I would like to mention that this modern contribution to European law was historically defended by the European Roma people, who always considered that the internal borders between the different European states were an artificial barrier for citizens in a common space that made the permeability of European culture more difficult. That is why Europe is also Roma. Europe is heir to the music of Falla, Béla Bartók and Glinka; the poetry of Lorca; the novels of Víctor Hugo and Günter Grass; the painting of Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet and the cinema of Buñuel, Tony Gatlif and Emir Kusturica. Europe's roots themselves have Romani inspiration because our most important European artists have been inspired by the Romani culture. Therefore, I ask the following question: Do Roma people represent the free spirit of a Europe without borders?
Further reading:
Angus Fraser, The Gypsies (The Peoples of Europe) (John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 1995).
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford University Press, 2000).
Next question: “Do Roma people represent the free spirit of a Europe without borders?”
About the author
Diego Fernández Jiménez, was born in Aguilar de la Frontera (Córdoba) in 1961 within a gypsy family dedicated to street vending. He has a Law degree and is a practicing lawyer since 1985. He has completed Doctorate courses in the Administration, Finance, Market and Business Department of the University of Córdoba and courses at the School of Legal Practice. He has carried out several researches on the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman in Comparative Law and is the author of Freedom of Residence and the Right of Freedom, a small manual on the rights of the detainee in police stations, and numerous articles in Roma publications. He has been Vice President of the Spanish Romani Union and has participated in different international congresses held within the framework of the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and European Cooperation in Warsaw, Bucharest, Ploiesti, Paris, London, Skopje, Turin, Milan, Budapest, Brussels, and Vienna. He has also been a member of the legal board of the European Roma Rights Center based in Budapest, lawyer for numerous organizations related to human rights and has held various institutional positions such as councilor and Deputy Mayor of the City of Aguilar de la Frontera (Córdoba). In 2005 he was elected as one of the Spanish representatives in the ERTF (European Roma and Travelers Forum) of the Council of Europe based in Strasbourg. Since 2007, Diego Fernández Jiménez is the director of the Roma Culture Institute, a public foundation of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain.
Democracy has evolved from the Greek civilization to the French revolution, and from this to the creation of the European Union. Democracy, like freedom, is a value in continuous evolution. Freedom is always one step further and must be perfected every spring. New rights arise when new needs arise, and equality is not conceived in the same way as just a few decades ago. We minorities, for example, fight for a society where we are equal when the difference discriminates us, and we are diverse when equality makes us lose our identity. Many states do not incorporate the so-called third-generation rights into their constitutional corpus. It is true that Europe is part of globalization and a good part of the objectives must be focused on strengthening our industrial fabric to be more competitive, and on establishing a common economic policy with the consequent macroeconomic adjustments. It is true that Europe is part of globalization and a substantial amount of our objectives must be focused on strengthening our industrial fabric to be more competitive, and on establishing a common economic policy with the consequent macroeconomic adjustments. But it is also true that Europe must be as close to the eyes of Europeans as the window of our house, and as close to the hearts of Europeans as the veins that irrigate it. Therefore, Europe still has a long way to achieve a political union in a way that allows Europeans the direct election of their European President, and a single European constituency instead of a state-based constituency.
Thus, we are connected by our past. But above all, we are connected by the future we still have to build, an exciting future where there are positive signs, such as the single market and the free movement of people and capital, but also negative signals, such as populism or religious and nationalist fundamentalisms which can ruin the common project. Europe, then, has advanced in an evident easing of national borders, which broadens the concept of the freedom of citizens. But in this sense, I would like to mention that this modern contribution to European law was historically defended by the European Roma people, who always considered that the internal borders between the different European states were an artificial barrier for citizens in a common space that made the permeability of European culture more difficult. That is why Europe is also Roma. Europe is heir to the music of Falla, Béla Bartók and Glinka; the poetry of Lorca; the novels of Víctor Hugo and Günter Grass; the painting of Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet and the cinema of Buñuel, Tony Gatlif and Emir Kusturica. Europe's roots themselves have Romani inspiration because our most important European artists have been inspired by the Romani culture. Therefore, I ask the following question: Do Roma people represent the free spirit of a Europe without borders?
Further reading:
Angus Fraser, The Gypsies (The Peoples of Europe) (John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 1995).
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford University Press, 2000).
Next question: “Do Roma people represent the free spirit of a Europe without borders?”
About the author
Diego Fernández Jiménez, was born in Aguilar de la Frontera (Córdoba) in 1961 within a gypsy family dedicated to street vending. He has a Law degree and is a practicing lawyer since 1985. He has completed Doctorate courses in the Administration, Finance, Market and Business Department of the University of Córdoba and courses at the School of Legal Practice. He has carried out several researches on the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman in Comparative Law and is the author of Freedom of Residence and the Right of Freedom, a small manual on the rights of the detainee in police stations, and numerous articles in Roma publications. He has been Vice President of the Spanish Romani Union and has participated in different international congresses held within the framework of the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and European Cooperation in Warsaw, Bucharest, Ploiesti, Paris, London, Skopje, Turin, Milan, Budapest, Brussels, and Vienna. He has also been a member of the legal board of the European Roma Rights Center based in Budapest, lawyer for numerous organizations related to human rights and has held various institutional positions such as councilor and Deputy Mayor of the City of Aguilar de la Frontera (Córdoba). In 2005 he was elected as one of the Spanish representatives in the ERTF (European Roma and Travelers Forum) of the Council of Europe based in Strasbourg. Since 2007, Diego Fernández Jiménez is the director of the Roma Culture Institute, a public foundation of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain.
Do Roma people represent the free spirit of a Europe without borders?
I have a dream... On the need for a European utopia
By Beata Kowalska
What is happiness? To live quietly, work honestly. And to be free.
Free from very tempestuous life circumstances.
They gave me a nice apartment, but if you put a nightingale in a cage, she loses everything. However beautifully she sings, she feels sad. And these walls weigh heavily on me.
Bronisława Wajs (“Papusza”)
To be free, work honestly and live in a place where we are not separated from each other by walls and borders - Let the words of the Polish Roma poet Papusza inspire us to a political utopia. To a utopia that could lay the foundation stone of a common European house. Europe currently finds itself in a dead-end. Caught between the iron logic of capital and resurgent nationalisms, it has lost its political vision. And a lack of alternatives is often the first step towards lack of freedom - a lack of alternatives which, translated into the language of politics, nourish the hope for a fairer society. Without equality there is no genuine individual freedom. The unilateral dependence of the individual on the market has led to the fact that nowadays people at the
bottom of society have only the freedom to suffer defeats. They are themselves to blame, because formally speaking they have the freedom to do anything they like.
Let us ask ourselves for once how we can transform our economy so that it no longer produces so many losers and so few - but powerful - winners. Let us dream of a Europe of working people and not of capital. A democratic, social and solidarity-based Europe. A Europe of citizens and not of banks. Let us dream of a Europe of free people and nations not in competition with each other. Let us finally demand the return of our European values, which are being drowned every day in the Mediterranean or crushed in the mud of the Balkan route. Maybe when we wake up it'll show that it's no longer just a dream...
Further reading:
Ulrike Guérot: Warum Europa eine Republik werden muss! Eine politische Utopie (i.e. why Europe must become a republic), Bonn: Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. 2016.
Amartya Sen: Development as Freedom, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1999.
Next question: "Can freedom and equality in Europe be reconciled once more?"
About the author
Beata Kowalska – feminist sociologist and political activist, co-founder of the refugee initiative “Welcome to Kraków”. Beata Kowalska is a professor at the Jagiellonian University Kraków. In recent years, she has focused on women's rights movements in the countries of the Middle East. This topic has allowed her to combine her academic interests with her experience working for equality initiatives in Poland and abroad. She was awarded the Pro Arte Docendi Prize of the Jagiellonian University of Krakow for outstanding achievements in teaching. She has received numerous scholarships and guest lectureships, among others at the University of Cambridge, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the American Centre of Oriental Research in Amman, the New School for Social Research in New York City, Rutgers University and the University at Buffalo.
Translated from German by Edith C. Watts
Free from very tempestuous life circumstances.
They gave me a nice apartment, but if you put a nightingale in a cage, she loses everything. However beautifully she sings, she feels sad. And these walls weigh heavily on me.
Bronisława Wajs (“Papusza”)
To be free, work honestly and live in a place where we are not separated from each other by walls and borders - Let the words of the Polish Roma poet Papusza inspire us to a political utopia. To a utopia that could lay the foundation stone of a common European house. Europe currently finds itself in a dead-end. Caught between the iron logic of capital and resurgent nationalisms, it has lost its political vision. And a lack of alternatives is often the first step towards lack of freedom - a lack of alternatives which, translated into the language of politics, nourish the hope for a fairer society. Without equality there is no genuine individual freedom. The unilateral dependence of the individual on the market has led to the fact that nowadays people at the
bottom of society have only the freedom to suffer defeats. They are themselves to blame, because formally speaking they have the freedom to do anything they like.
Let us ask ourselves for once how we can transform our economy so that it no longer produces so many losers and so few - but powerful - winners. Let us dream of a Europe of working people and not of capital. A democratic, social and solidarity-based Europe. A Europe of citizens and not of banks. Let us dream of a Europe of free people and nations not in competition with each other. Let us finally demand the return of our European values, which are being drowned every day in the Mediterranean or crushed in the mud of the Balkan route. Maybe when we wake up it'll show that it's no longer just a dream...
Further reading:
Ulrike Guérot: Warum Europa eine Republik werden muss! Eine politische Utopie (i.e. why Europe must become a republic), Bonn: Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. 2016.
Amartya Sen: Development as Freedom, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1999.
Next question: "Can freedom and equality in Europe be reconciled once more?"
About the author
Beata Kowalska – feminist sociologist and political activist, co-founder of the refugee initiative “Welcome to Kraków”. Beata Kowalska is a professor at the Jagiellonian University Kraków. In recent years, she has focused on women's rights movements in the countries of the Middle East. This topic has allowed her to combine her academic interests with her experience working for equality initiatives in Poland and abroad. She was awarded the Pro Arte Docendi Prize of the Jagiellonian University of Krakow for outstanding achievements in teaching. She has received numerous scholarships and guest lectureships, among others at the University of Cambridge, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the American Centre of Oriental Research in Amman, the New School for Social Research in New York City, Rutgers University and the University at Buffalo.
Translated from German by Edith C. Watts
Can freedom and equality in Europe be reconciled once more?
By Michalis Attalides
This is a very important question for Europeans today. Equality and the degree to which it can be attained is a crucial question once more. Not of course in an absolute way, because as Aristotle has pointed out, something which is more unjust than equal performance being rewarded unequally is unequal performance being rewarded equally.
However there are crucial questions to be answered. Firstly, how we can avoid extremes of inequality which may distort both the functioning of democracy and also the economy? But more immediately, how can we guarantee people the basic social benefits to which they are entitled as European citizens - the right to work, the right to a dignified life and a minimum income, the right to education and the right to medical treatment? In some parts of Europe some people are deprived of these self-evident rights due to current economic issues. And it seems that there is a reason for this problematic situation, which is globalization of the economies and the competition which accompanies globalization. Global competition means that it is becoming increasingly difficult for governments to follow policies which require a level of taxation which can assure minimum social services, and put an end to extreme inequality.
It would be wrong to reject globalization which has many positive aspects, including the possibility it has given to previously impoverished parts of the world to develop. Answers have been proposed for this dilemma. And it is the development of areas of creative activity in which Europe could have comparative advantages: education, science, research and culture. These are the means by which Europeans can assure their successful participation in the global economy and the successful running of their economies to encompass dimensions which are additional to economic growth indicators. In any event in order to safeguard a technologically advanced economy we also need to maintain high levels of cultural life, environmental protection and quality of education and social cohesion. But these issues need to become a more prominent part of national and European political dialogue, along with the issues of economic growth.
Recommended Reading:
Axel Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, Princeton University Press, 2001. Jurgen Habermas, Europe: The Faltering Project, Polity, 2008.
Next question: "How can we make social, cultural and environmental issues a more prominent part of national and European policy making?"
About the author:
Michalis Attalides was until 2016 the Rector of the University of Nicosia and the chair of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in European Politics and Policies at the University. He has been a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leicester, a counterpart to the UNESCO Expert at the Cyprus Social Research Centre and a Guest Lecturer at the Free University of Berlin. He has represented the Republic of Cyprus as its Ambassador in a number of capitals, including Paris, London, and European Union in Brussels, before being appointed Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has also represented the Cyprus government in the European Convention. He held a Jean Monnet Chair ad personam at the University of Nicosia between 2011 and 2014. He has published a number of books and articles on society and politics in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, and on the European Union.
However there are crucial questions to be answered. Firstly, how we can avoid extremes of inequality which may distort both the functioning of democracy and also the economy? But more immediately, how can we guarantee people the basic social benefits to which they are entitled as European citizens - the right to work, the right to a dignified life and a minimum income, the right to education and the right to medical treatment? In some parts of Europe some people are deprived of these self-evident rights due to current economic issues. And it seems that there is a reason for this problematic situation, which is globalization of the economies and the competition which accompanies globalization. Global competition means that it is becoming increasingly difficult for governments to follow policies which require a level of taxation which can assure minimum social services, and put an end to extreme inequality.
It would be wrong to reject globalization which has many positive aspects, including the possibility it has given to previously impoverished parts of the world to develop. Answers have been proposed for this dilemma. And it is the development of areas of creative activity in which Europe could have comparative advantages: education, science, research and culture. These are the means by which Europeans can assure their successful participation in the global economy and the successful running of their economies to encompass dimensions which are additional to economic growth indicators. In any event in order to safeguard a technologically advanced economy we also need to maintain high levels of cultural life, environmental protection and quality of education and social cohesion. But these issues need to become a more prominent part of national and European political dialogue, along with the issues of economic growth.
Recommended Reading:
Axel Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom, Princeton University Press, 2001. Jurgen Habermas, Europe: The Faltering Project, Polity, 2008.
Next question: "How can we make social, cultural and environmental issues a more prominent part of national and European policy making?"
About the author:
Michalis Attalides was until 2016 the Rector of the University of Nicosia and the chair of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in European Politics and Policies at the University. He has been a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leicester, a counterpart to the UNESCO Expert at the Cyprus Social Research Centre and a Guest Lecturer at the Free University of Berlin. He has represented the Republic of Cyprus as its Ambassador in a number of capitals, including Paris, London, and European Union in Brussels, before being appointed Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has also represented the Cyprus government in the European Convention. He held a Jean Monnet Chair ad personam at the University of Nicosia between 2011 and 2014. He has published a number of books and articles on society and politics in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, and on the European Union.
How can social and cultural issues determine national and European policy?
By Cecilia Hansson
In these times, when in large parts of Europe all reason and level-headedness in the political sphere have been flooded and the continent is about to capsize, it is time to listen seriously to the knowledge and truth to be found in art and literature. Because they still exist, the liberal arts, and they are a very special bulwark against the totalitarian undercurrents that threaten Europe today.
Art and literature convey experiences that go beyond the purely rational and the purely emotional. When Herta Müller describes the society of informers in Communist Romania or Elfriede Jelinek the helplessness of refugees, viewers and readers are gripped by what Aristotle calls “fear and compassion”. Together they create catharsis, purification, which it is to hoped leads us to deeper knowledge, empathy and understanding. To humanity. We should therefore listen when Herta Müller compares a power-hungry statesman in Eastern Europe with the dictator she recalls from her time in Romania. Or when Elfriede Jelinek displays the affairs of the small Alpine republic before the eyes of the general public in the most incisive descriptions of Austrian society that were ever to have been read. Here it should be mentioned that in 2016 in Vienna a performance of Jelinek’s play Die Schutzbefohlenen (The Suppliants), in which all the roles were played by refugees, was stormed and berated by members of the "Identitarian Movement".
And there are even more reasons today to pay attention to the experiences of writers and artists. In Hungary and Poland, independent artists and journalists are losing their jobs, which benefits party-loyal colleagues. The policy is called “national conservatism”, but it more resembles totalitarian times. Or what else can one say when a free university like the Central European University in Budapest must leave the country, when the authoritarian government views education and global perspectives as a threat? And in Austria, the ORF, the public television and radio station, is currently being attacked by right-wing populists, an attack that is particularly serious since these right-wing populists, whose ideas are unworthy of discussion and shall not sully this text, form the government with the Conservatives. Do we really have the post-Communist Europe many of us dreamed of? The Europe of the EU? Yes, do we live in a really post-fascist Europe? A Europe as we want it to be?
Recommended reading:
Herta Müller (2007/2010), Herztier, Frankfurt a.M.: (Fischer).
Herta Müller (2008/2010), Der König verneigt sich und tötet, Frankfurt a.M.: (Fischer).
Elfriede Jelinek (forthcoming in October 2018) Die Schutzbefohlenen. Wut. Unseres. Theaterstücke, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Also available as an audio book from belleville.
Péter Nádas (2013), Parallelgeschichten, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.
Next question: Are we living in a really post-fascist Europe, a Europe as we want it to be?
About the author
Cecilia Hansson (born 1973) is a writer, translator and freelance author living in Stockholm. She holds an MA degree in German Studies, is a member of the board of the Swedish Writers Association and writes regularly for the daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet about Central and Eastern Europe. In 2002 she made her debut as a poet with the lyrical story Revbensdagar, morgnar. Her fourth collection of poems, Loveprosjekt, arose as a collaboration with the Norwegian writer Inger Bråtveit. In 2017, she published her book of interviews Hopplöst, men inte universell – konst och politik in Centraleuropa (Hopeless, but Not Serious - Art and Politics in Central Europe). In this book Hansson talks to some of the most important European intellectuals, ranging from Herta Müller and Péter Nádas to Marina Abramović and Michael Haneke, to name only a few. The interviews are about the specific conditions of artistic work, but also about larger issues such as the importance of art and the possibilities of artists to influence social debates. The result is a book about survival, resistance, censorship and freedom in a region where there is currently much going on politically that is of great importance to the rest of the world.
Translated from German by Jonathan Uhlaner
Art and literature convey experiences that go beyond the purely rational and the purely emotional. When Herta Müller describes the society of informers in Communist Romania or Elfriede Jelinek the helplessness of refugees, viewers and readers are gripped by what Aristotle calls “fear and compassion”. Together they create catharsis, purification, which it is to hoped leads us to deeper knowledge, empathy and understanding. To humanity. We should therefore listen when Herta Müller compares a power-hungry statesman in Eastern Europe with the dictator she recalls from her time in Romania. Or when Elfriede Jelinek displays the affairs of the small Alpine republic before the eyes of the general public in the most incisive descriptions of Austrian society that were ever to have been read. Here it should be mentioned that in 2016 in Vienna a performance of Jelinek’s play Die Schutzbefohlenen (The Suppliants), in which all the roles were played by refugees, was stormed and berated by members of the "Identitarian Movement".
And there are even more reasons today to pay attention to the experiences of writers and artists. In Hungary and Poland, independent artists and journalists are losing their jobs, which benefits party-loyal colleagues. The policy is called “national conservatism”, but it more resembles totalitarian times. Or what else can one say when a free university like the Central European University in Budapest must leave the country, when the authoritarian government views education and global perspectives as a threat? And in Austria, the ORF, the public television and radio station, is currently being attacked by right-wing populists, an attack that is particularly serious since these right-wing populists, whose ideas are unworthy of discussion and shall not sully this text, form the government with the Conservatives. Do we really have the post-Communist Europe many of us dreamed of? The Europe of the EU? Yes, do we live in a really post-fascist Europe? A Europe as we want it to be?
Recommended reading:
Herta Müller (2007/2010), Herztier, Frankfurt a.M.: (Fischer).
Herta Müller (2008/2010), Der König verneigt sich und tötet, Frankfurt a.M.: (Fischer).
Elfriede Jelinek (forthcoming in October 2018) Die Schutzbefohlenen. Wut. Unseres. Theaterstücke, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Also available as an audio book from belleville.
Péter Nádas (2013), Parallelgeschichten, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.
Next question: Are we living in a really post-fascist Europe, a Europe as we want it to be?
About the author
Cecilia Hansson (born 1973) is a writer, translator and freelance author living in Stockholm. She holds an MA degree in German Studies, is a member of the board of the Swedish Writers Association and writes regularly for the daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet about Central and Eastern Europe. In 2002 she made her debut as a poet with the lyrical story Revbensdagar, morgnar. Her fourth collection of poems, Loveprosjekt, arose as a collaboration with the Norwegian writer Inger Bråtveit. In 2017, she published her book of interviews Hopplöst, men inte universell – konst och politik in Centraleuropa (Hopeless, but Not Serious - Art and Politics in Central Europe). In this book Hansson talks to some of the most important European intellectuals, ranging from Herta Müller and Péter Nádas to Marina Abramović and Michael Haneke, to name only a few. The interviews are about the specific conditions of artistic work, but also about larger issues such as the importance of art and the possibilities of artists to influence social debates. The result is a book about survival, resistance, censorship and freedom in a region where there is currently much going on politically that is of great importance to the rest of the world.
Translated from German by Jonathan Uhlaner
Do we really live in a post-fascist Europe, a Europe as we want it to be?
By Nikita Dhawan
European claims to global leadership are based on the assertion of moral, technological and military superiority. This conviction is accompanied by a pronounced sense of mission that Europeans have the responsibility to dispense freedom, rights and justice worldwide. Europe as guarantor of world peace and democracy marks a continuity of the “white man’s burden”, namely, the responsibility and obligation of the Europeans to “save” and “enlighten” the rest of the world. The paradox of Europe’s self-perception as a “civilizing force” is that this positive self-assessment is only possible through historical amnesia about the costs of this mission in the form of slavery, exploitation, plunder, genocide and crimes against humanity as well as repeated betrayal of Enlightenment principles of equality, fraternity and humanity. Both scholars of Postcolonial Studies as well as Holocaust Studies question the hollow myth of Europe’s long march to freedom and emancipation and outline a certain “disenchantment” with the idea of Europe. They mistrust Europe’s self-representation as guardians of the Enlightenment. This self-congratulatory stance is contested by bringing to light Europe’s self-barbarization in the form of colonialism and fascism, the legacies of which have enduring consequences for Europe.
The democratizing forces at work in Europe seem to be constantly haunted by brutal nationalisms, racisms, and exclusions. Europe's others, including postcolonial migrants, Roma and Sinti, ethnic, racial, sexual and religious minorities, pose a challenge to Europe as a reminder and remainder of colonialism and fascism. Europe must face up to the choice between continuing its former trajectory of claiming moral, economic and military superiority or it can rise to the challenge of developing another Europe by being responsible and respectful to difference and alterity. If Europe is able and willing to learn from its historical crimes of colonialism and fascism, the forging of a post-imperial Europe would be a chance and opportunity for a democratic iteration of Europe. Europeans would do well to heed Gandhi’s suggestion: On being asked by a journalist, “What do you think of Western civilization?” Gandhi was reported to have responded, “I think it would be a good idea”.
Recommended reading:
Chakrabarty, D. (2000). Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Derrida, J. (1992). The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fanon, F (1963). The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.
Spivak, G.C. (1999). A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge, Mass: Havard University Press.
Next question: "How can one fight gender and economic injustice worldwide without reinforcing European hegemony and supremacy in the fields of development politics, international cooperation and (women's) human rights?"
About the author
Nikita Dhawan is Professor of Political Science (Political Theory and Gender Studies) and Director of the Research Platform Gender Studies: "Identities – Discourses – Transformations" at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her research and teaching focus on transnational justice, democracy and human rights. She received the Käthe Leichter Award in 2017 for outstanding achievements in the pursuit of women’s and gender studies and in support of the women’s movement and the achievement of gender equality.
The democratizing forces at work in Europe seem to be constantly haunted by brutal nationalisms, racisms, and exclusions. Europe's others, including postcolonial migrants, Roma and Sinti, ethnic, racial, sexual and religious minorities, pose a challenge to Europe as a reminder and remainder of colonialism and fascism. Europe must face up to the choice between continuing its former trajectory of claiming moral, economic and military superiority or it can rise to the challenge of developing another Europe by being responsible and respectful to difference and alterity. If Europe is able and willing to learn from its historical crimes of colonialism and fascism, the forging of a post-imperial Europe would be a chance and opportunity for a democratic iteration of Europe. Europeans would do well to heed Gandhi’s suggestion: On being asked by a journalist, “What do you think of Western civilization?” Gandhi was reported to have responded, “I think it would be a good idea”.
Recommended reading:
Chakrabarty, D. (2000). Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Derrida, J. (1992). The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fanon, F (1963). The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.
Spivak, G.C. (1999). A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge, Mass: Havard University Press.
Next question: "How can one fight gender and economic injustice worldwide without reinforcing European hegemony and supremacy in the fields of development politics, international cooperation and (women's) human rights?"
About the author
Nikita Dhawan is Professor of Political Science (Political Theory and Gender Studies) and Director of the Research Platform Gender Studies: "Identities – Discourses – Transformations" at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her research and teaching focus on transnational justice, democracy and human rights. She received the Käthe Leichter Award in 2017 for outstanding achievements in the pursuit of women’s and gender studies and in support of the women’s movement and the achievement of gender equality.
How can one fight for gender and economic justice worldwide?
By Iskra Geshoska
The struggle for economic, political, cultural and gender equality and liberty must be consistent, constant, adequate to each context individually, and needs to create a sense of belonging, unity and emancipation, whose policies are to be created in concourse between the accrued practices from abroad and the experiences specific to the organism of the context from within.
Critical Dilemmas Towards Emancipatory Struggle
Every struggle is pointless if it is not inherent to the specificity of each community individually. A struggle can be qualified as emancipatory and successful if it is derived from the specific context as an urgent need for joint action in the discovery of the experiences of freedom. But we must not neglect the fact that the resistance, which results in struggle and advocacy of transgression of the retrograde policies and experiences, operates with the domain of power, with the hierarchies, with the establishment of a new power domain. For this very reason, and especially when issues related to liberty, equality and justice (political, economic, cultural, gender…) are concerned, we must be careful in our discursive, but also tactical and operative practices, since the opportunities for abuse of the expected change lurk behind each corner, and this is mostly due to the inadequate transfer of knowledge and tools from one cultural context to another. Each intelligent and verified experience should be embraced, but also critically adapted, so that the thing that was supposed to be progressive does not fall into the trap of the repressive. The exposure to any kind of domination redefines and transforms the subject. It is our habit, however enlightening, to understand domination as something that oppresses from the outside that subjugates or delegates some lower order. But if, following Foucault, we understand domination for higher and more noble purposes as something shaping the subject and securing the preconditions for his existence, as well as leaving the trace of his existence, then the imposed political narratives would end up being not only something that we opposed, but also something on which our own very existence depended. We must not forget that the domain of domination/power and the domain of resistance share the same space. The acceptance of the concepts that are to provide a stronger emancipatory context is often based on our thorough dependence on a discourse we have never chosen ourselves but which, in fact, bestirs and supports our progressive action. Therefore, I believe that the struggle for justice and deconstruction of the power domain is a process of establishing a subject unburdened by the idea of hegemonic oppression, but open to accept and redefine every good concept that might take him a step closer to freedom.
Recommended reading:
Power: The essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954 – 1984 v. 3, by Michel Foucault and James D. Faubion.
Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence, by Judith Butler.
The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, by Guy Standing.
Next question: "Has freedom become only discursive, empty of semantic value in a world which is imprisoned by economical, ideological and political injustice?"
About the author:
Iskra Geshoska is founder and a president of Kontrapunkt. Since 1994 she has been active in the building of the Independent cultural sector and the contemporary, self-organized formats of action in the socio-cultural space. She contributes to the local, national and international affirmation of the independent cultural sector and its political relevance. Her key focus is the development of critical thinking and critical theories, as well as the relationship of cultural and artistic practices and the political. She was Director of the independent Cultural center "Tocka" (Skopje) from its founding until its closing (2002-2010). Within the framework of Tocka’s programme, as well as before and after, she developed and led over 15 projects in the field of cultural policies, critical theory, critical debate, visual and performative arts; examining the relationship of art and politics. In the period 1998 - 2008, she was an editor at the publishing house Templum and the magazine Margin. From 2003 to 2005 she was an adviser at the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia. From 2012 until 2017 she was President of JADRO - an association of the independent cultural scene, a national platform for advocacy in Macedonia. Additionally, she is a Member of Parliament of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and she has a second mandate as a member of the Advisory Board of the regional platform of the Independent cultural sector KOOPERATIVA.
Critical Dilemmas Towards Emancipatory Struggle
Every struggle is pointless if it is not inherent to the specificity of each community individually. A struggle can be qualified as emancipatory and successful if it is derived from the specific context as an urgent need for joint action in the discovery of the experiences of freedom. But we must not neglect the fact that the resistance, which results in struggle and advocacy of transgression of the retrograde policies and experiences, operates with the domain of power, with the hierarchies, with the establishment of a new power domain. For this very reason, and especially when issues related to liberty, equality and justice (political, economic, cultural, gender…) are concerned, we must be careful in our discursive, but also tactical and operative practices, since the opportunities for abuse of the expected change lurk behind each corner, and this is mostly due to the inadequate transfer of knowledge and tools from one cultural context to another. Each intelligent and verified experience should be embraced, but also critically adapted, so that the thing that was supposed to be progressive does not fall into the trap of the repressive. The exposure to any kind of domination redefines and transforms the subject. It is our habit, however enlightening, to understand domination as something that oppresses from the outside that subjugates or delegates some lower order. But if, following Foucault, we understand domination for higher and more noble purposes as something shaping the subject and securing the preconditions for his existence, as well as leaving the trace of his existence, then the imposed political narratives would end up being not only something that we opposed, but also something on which our own very existence depended. We must not forget that the domain of domination/power and the domain of resistance share the same space. The acceptance of the concepts that are to provide a stronger emancipatory context is often based on our thorough dependence on a discourse we have never chosen ourselves but which, in fact, bestirs and supports our progressive action. Therefore, I believe that the struggle for justice and deconstruction of the power domain is a process of establishing a subject unburdened by the idea of hegemonic oppression, but open to accept and redefine every good concept that might take him a step closer to freedom.
Recommended reading:
Power: The essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954 – 1984 v. 3, by Michel Foucault and James D. Faubion.
Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence, by Judith Butler.
The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, by Guy Standing.
Next question: "Has freedom become only discursive, empty of semantic value in a world which is imprisoned by economical, ideological and political injustice?"
About the author:
Iskra Geshoska is founder and a president of Kontrapunkt. Since 1994 she has been active in the building of the Independent cultural sector and the contemporary, self-organized formats of action in the socio-cultural space. She contributes to the local, national and international affirmation of the independent cultural sector and its political relevance. Her key focus is the development of critical thinking and critical theories, as well as the relationship of cultural and artistic practices and the political. She was Director of the independent Cultural center "Tocka" (Skopje) from its founding until its closing (2002-2010). Within the framework of Tocka’s programme, as well as before and after, she developed and led over 15 projects in the field of cultural policies, critical theory, critical debate, visual and performative arts; examining the relationship of art and politics. In the period 1998 - 2008, she was an editor at the publishing house Templum and the magazine Margin. From 2003 to 2005 she was an adviser at the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia. From 2012 until 2017 she was President of JADRO - an association of the independent cultural scene, a national platform for advocacy in Macedonia. Additionally, she is a Member of Parliament of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and she has a second mandate as a member of the Advisory Board of the regional platform of the Independent cultural sector KOOPERATIVA.
Has the concept of freedom lost its true semantic value?
By Nora Gomringer
The concept of peace has not been lost so long as people who carry it in their minds, on their lips and on their flags and helmets understand it as a hope for a possible, binding and uniting co-existence.
Peace
This question was posed to a poet, a religious believer and a woman. The word “peace” (Friede) can be found in the German language since ancient Germanic times, when tribes contested against or pacted together with each other to secure “unity, harmony”. In times of peace stability grew; from stability came prosperity, affluence and respect for the individual; and yet war has also furthered all the mentioned benefits, albeit often erratically and guided by the law of the jungle. If a dove is the emblem of peace, a boar with huge tusks is emblazoned on the flags of war. Peace is gentle, war is rough. An old meaning of the word connects conciliatory peace (Friede) with what is still proverbially associated with good neighbourly relations: fences, enclosure (Umfrieden).
The question posed by my esteemed predecessor is based on the assumption that the world is no longer in the hands of human beings, but in those of various tyrannical, tactical “players” who have turned away from human and planetary well-being. A religious believer cannot endorse that. She prays, she hopes, she sticks to the small things, the manageable and feasible within the frame immediately pertaining to her. She calls for help and assistance from those who seem to her to be responsive to values that are also dear to her: consideration, respect, equality, reason and resolution. The small number becomes a large one. The believer trusts that the world cannot be fully ruled by human beings, and that a higher power guides destiny. This trust is for her, however, a challenge and a task, and she is resolved to defend its privilege in her thoughts again and again. The concept of peace has not been lost so long as people who carry it in their minds, on their lips and on their flags and helmets understand it as a hope for a possible, binding and uniting co-existence.
Further reading:
György Konrád 2013). Europa und die Nationalstaaten. Suhrkamp
Lila Prap (2006). Das tierische Wörterbuch. NordSüd Verlag
Next question: "Who is responsible for the future of freedom in Europe?"
About the author
Nora Gomringer, born in 1980, is Swiss and German. She lives in Bamberg, where she is director of the International Artist House Villa Concordia on behalf of the Free State of Bavaria. She has held poetry lectureships in Koblenz / Landau, Kiel, Sheffield and Vienna and, together with Philipp Scholz, was honoured with the Professorship of Poetry at the University of Klagenfurt for the year 2018. Since 2000, she has published eight volumes of poetry, two volumes of essays, numerous short stories, radio plays, narrative texts and (opera) librettos. Recently she has published the Trilogie der Oberflächen und Unsichtbarkeiten (Trilogy of Surfaces and Invisibilities), comprising Monster Poems (2013), Morbus (2015) and MODEN (2017) (Verlag Voland & Quist), illustrated and designed by Reimar Limmer, and the speaking text Achduje (2015) (Verlag für Gesunden Menschenversand, Lucerne). She has also written the text for Andreas Herzau’s photo book Bamberg Symphony (Hatje Cantz, 2016). And in 2015 she edited her Lockbuch, including her own digital photographs, for the Maximilian Society in Stuttgart. Gomringer’s writings include collaborations with musicians such as the jazz drummers Philipp Scholz and Günter (Baby) Sommer, and the pianist and composer Ulrike Haage. Numerous of her individual texts have been set to music by Philipp Scholz, the Wortart Ensemble, Julia Mihaly, Paul Engel, Iris ter Schiphorst, Helga Pogatschar and others.
Translated from German by Jonathan Uhlaner
Peace
This question was posed to a poet, a religious believer and a woman. The word “peace” (Friede) can be found in the German language since ancient Germanic times, when tribes contested against or pacted together with each other to secure “unity, harmony”. In times of peace stability grew; from stability came prosperity, affluence and respect for the individual; and yet war has also furthered all the mentioned benefits, albeit often erratically and guided by the law of the jungle. If a dove is the emblem of peace, a boar with huge tusks is emblazoned on the flags of war. Peace is gentle, war is rough. An old meaning of the word connects conciliatory peace (Friede) with what is still proverbially associated with good neighbourly relations: fences, enclosure (Umfrieden).
The question posed by my esteemed predecessor is based on the assumption that the world is no longer in the hands of human beings, but in those of various tyrannical, tactical “players” who have turned away from human and planetary well-being. A religious believer cannot endorse that. She prays, she hopes, she sticks to the small things, the manageable and feasible within the frame immediately pertaining to her. She calls for help and assistance from those who seem to her to be responsive to values that are also dear to her: consideration, respect, equality, reason and resolution. The small number becomes a large one. The believer trusts that the world cannot be fully ruled by human beings, and that a higher power guides destiny. This trust is for her, however, a challenge and a task, and she is resolved to defend its privilege in her thoughts again and again. The concept of peace has not been lost so long as people who carry it in their minds, on their lips and on their flags and helmets understand it as a hope for a possible, binding and uniting co-existence.
Further reading:
György Konrád 2013). Europa und die Nationalstaaten. Suhrkamp
Lila Prap (2006). Das tierische Wörterbuch. NordSüd Verlag
Next question: "Who is responsible for the future of freedom in Europe?"
About the author
Nora Gomringer, born in 1980, is Swiss and German. She lives in Bamberg, where she is director of the International Artist House Villa Concordia on behalf of the Free State of Bavaria. She has held poetry lectureships in Koblenz / Landau, Kiel, Sheffield and Vienna and, together with Philipp Scholz, was honoured with the Professorship of Poetry at the University of Klagenfurt for the year 2018. Since 2000, she has published eight volumes of poetry, two volumes of essays, numerous short stories, radio plays, narrative texts and (opera) librettos. Recently she has published the Trilogie der Oberflächen und Unsichtbarkeiten (Trilogy of Surfaces and Invisibilities), comprising Monster Poems (2013), Morbus (2015) and MODEN (2017) (Verlag Voland & Quist), illustrated and designed by Reimar Limmer, and the speaking text Achduje (2015) (Verlag für Gesunden Menschenversand, Lucerne). She has also written the text for Andreas Herzau’s photo book Bamberg Symphony (Hatje Cantz, 2016). And in 2015 she edited her Lockbuch, including her own digital photographs, for the Maximilian Society in Stuttgart. Gomringer’s writings include collaborations with musicians such as the jazz drummers Philipp Scholz and Günter (Baby) Sommer, and the pianist and composer Ulrike Haage. Numerous of her individual texts have been set to music by Philipp Scholz, the Wortart Ensemble, Julia Mihaly, Paul Engel, Iris ter Schiphorst, Helga Pogatschar and others.
Translated from German by Jonathan Uhlaner
Who is responsible for the future of freedom in Europe?
By Ainhoa Achutegui
It is above all civil society that is qualified to ensure, and indeed responsible for, the future of freedom in Europe. This responsibility cannot and must not be delegated blindly.
Freedom to resist
Freedom means that we respect each other, that we ensure the rights of minorities and secure peaceful coexistence. Freedom means that we treat each other respectfully and understand that our personal freedom ends where the freedom of the other begins.
That is why in our democratic system we choose people whom we (would like to) see as guarantors of freedom(s) in Europe. Politicians should accordingly make decisions that lay further building blocks for the future of freedom. Giving them the privilege of decision-making, however, certainly does not mean giving them a carte blanche and handing over responsibility for our future.
That is why in our democratic system we choose people whom we (would like to) see as guarantors of freedom(s) in Europe. Politicians should accordingly make decisions that lay further building blocks for the future of freedom. Giving them the privilege of decision-making, however, certainly does not mean giving them a carte blanche and handing over responsibility for our future.
Freedom also means that we rebel and resist. We have the freedom to demonstrate, protest and criticize. That is why freedom of the press and freedom of expression are among the most important pillars of our democracies. But these are currently being increasingly restricted throughout Europe. Funds for public service broadcasting are being cut, the work of critical associations no longer supported, and meaningful projects no longer subsidized. Right-wing ideas are spreading across Europe, not only on social networks but also on voting ballots, and rightists have even entered governments. And what do we do? We just watch.
Freedom, as we know it, is in danger if civil society does not rise up. We must all become engaged in the political process.
Further reading:
Stefanie Sargnagel, Statusmeldungen (Rowohlt, 2017)
Laurie Penny, Bitch Doktrin (Nautilus, 2017)
Next question: “Is the liberal principle of “my body, my choice” still guaranteed in today’s Europe?”
About the author
Ainhoa Achutegui, born in Caracas in 1978, has been head of the Luxembourg cultural institute neimënster - Centre Culturel de Rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster since 2014. Before that, she was artistic director of the CAPE – Centre des Arts Pluriels d'Ettelbruck in the north of the country for several years. Before moving to Luxembourg, she was artistic director in dance and theatre at WUK – Werkstätten- und Kulturhaus in Vienna. A graduate of the University of Vienna in philosophy and theatre studies, and a trained project manager, Achutegui works for the feminist cause in honorary positions, tweets and writes a column in a daily newspaper. Since 2015, she has also been President of the family planning centre Planning Familial in Luxembourg.
Translated from German by Jonathan Uhlaner
Freedom to resist
Freedom means that we respect each other, that we ensure the rights of minorities and secure peaceful coexistence. Freedom means that we treat each other respectfully and understand that our personal freedom ends where the freedom of the other begins.
That is why in our democratic system we choose people whom we (would like to) see as guarantors of freedom(s) in Europe. Politicians should accordingly make decisions that lay further building blocks for the future of freedom. Giving them the privilege of decision-making, however, certainly does not mean giving them a carte blanche and handing over responsibility for our future.
That is why in our democratic system we choose people whom we (would like to) see as guarantors of freedom(s) in Europe. Politicians should accordingly make decisions that lay further building blocks for the future of freedom. Giving them the privilege of decision-making, however, certainly does not mean giving them a carte blanche and handing over responsibility for our future.
Freedom also means that we rebel and resist. We have the freedom to demonstrate, protest and criticize. That is why freedom of the press and freedom of expression are among the most important pillars of our democracies. But these are currently being increasingly restricted throughout Europe. Funds for public service broadcasting are being cut, the work of critical associations no longer supported, and meaningful projects no longer subsidized. Right-wing ideas are spreading across Europe, not only on social networks but also on voting ballots, and rightists have even entered governments. And what do we do? We just watch.
Freedom, as we know it, is in danger if civil society does not rise up. We must all become engaged in the political process.
Further reading:
Stefanie Sargnagel, Statusmeldungen (Rowohlt, 2017)
Laurie Penny, Bitch Doktrin (Nautilus, 2017)
Next question: “Is the liberal principle of “my body, my choice” still guaranteed in today’s Europe?”
About the author
Ainhoa Achutegui, born in Caracas in 1978, has been head of the Luxembourg cultural institute neimënster - Centre Culturel de Rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster since 2014. Before that, she was artistic director of the CAPE – Centre des Arts Pluriels d'Ettelbruck in the north of the country for several years. Before moving to Luxembourg, she was artistic director in dance and theatre at WUK – Werkstätten- und Kulturhaus in Vienna. A graduate of the University of Vienna in philosophy and theatre studies, and a trained project manager, Achutegui works for the feminist cause in honorary positions, tweets and writes a column in a daily newspaper. Since 2015, she has also been President of the family planning centre Planning Familial in Luxembourg.
Translated from German by Jonathan Uhlaner
Is the liberal principle “My body, my choice” still guaranteed today?
By Samuel Hamen
A guarantee of sovereign power over your own body has so far been more utopia than reality. A utopia that is much more in danger today.
Of things wished for
Basically, I would answer the question in the negative, even if the “No” scale varies greatly depending on the country and government and may even turn into a weak “Yes” here and there. My “No” is not about belittling the liberal achievements of the last decades, but rather about dismantling their false self-evidence. Ultimately, the liberal principle of sovereign disposition over your own body has never been guaranteed - and never will be as a precept of coexistence. Even if in this paper-thin moment, in this here and now in which I am living, it may seem as if we had to do with something irrevocable, "My body, my choice" is an arduously gained good guiding principle that can always fall victim to an archaic backlash. In this sense, the many emancipatory achievements – in Europe, too – are only still inscribed: for some they are still guaranteed and self-evident; for others they are still (or yet again) unreliable and reversible. I am also a bit scared and respectful of the many singulars in this question: Whose body? Which Europe? Are we talking about a pregnant woman who wants an abortion? Are we posing the question in Luxembourg? Or in Poland? Or are all bodies of all people in all European countries meant? It is quite possible that this singular harbours the grammatical utopia of a united, coordinated Europe, a wish construction somewhere between fulfilment, development and imperilment.
I could now speculate on the reasons for such a possible backlash; I could talk about countermeasures, perhaps even present one or the other, for instance in the form of a courageous diatribe against the reactionaries and the shift to the right. That is needed, yes, but in my opinion rather within the framework of a responsibly lived everyday life and less as a manifesto to whip up initiates. For such work I have neither the political nor sociological know-how, nor is are knee-jerk speeches really in my line. Actually, here I can do little more than deliver a (literary) self-analysis, reflect on how I live, think and write, and how the social dynamics of recent years has affected these activities.
If I do that, then I realize that I work too often in an automatic culturally pessimistic mode; I cultivate an ambiguous a kind of thrilling fear of proclaiming the advent of decadent transitions and end times; I meet this fatalism, which also characterizes many chain-reaction essays, with an often reflexive, short-sighted actionism; I realize that I (still) lack discursive certainty about those words with which we are currently constantly operating: nation, Europe, populism, freedom, future. And that, finally, resolute calm and strict composure would be in order.
Accordingly, I am a little afraid, and at the same time a little thrilled, to juggle in conclusion with these many high-quality terms; this can only be clumsy or funny in my case. There is really only one chain of questions that I would like to throw up in the air to see if it flies or falls: Will the next contributor also feel a kind of grievance that his / her world-view, including certain believed-in vocabulary, has faltered? Is this shock of having to talk about “freedom” no longer as a rhetorical blank but as a lived and precarious practice the reason for the (hyper-) activism of the perplexed people whose response we often encounter in editorials, essays and speeches? In short, have we perhaps never had any idea what freedom is?
Further reading:
Paul Nolte: Unbehagen in der behaglichen Welt.
Lukas Bärfuss: Stil und Moral (Wallstein, 2018)
Next question: "Have we perhaps never had any idea what freedom is?"
About the author
Samuel Hamen, born in 1988 in Luxembourg City, studied German literature and history at the University of Heidelberg. He is currently doing his doctorate there. As a freelance editor he works, among others, with Zeit Online, the programme Büchermarkt (Book Market) on Deutschlandfunk and the Luxembourg weekly newspaper d’Lëtzebuerger Land. He also works as external staff for the Luxembourg literature centre CNL – Centre national de littérature and writes essays for numerous German language newspapers. In 2018 he made his literary debut with the story V wéi vreckt, w wéi Vitess (Éditions Guy Binsfeld).
Translated from German by Jonathan Uhlaner
Of things wished for
Basically, I would answer the question in the negative, even if the “No” scale varies greatly depending on the country and government and may even turn into a weak “Yes” here and there. My “No” is not about belittling the liberal achievements of the last decades, but rather about dismantling their false self-evidence. Ultimately, the liberal principle of sovereign disposition over your own body has never been guaranteed - and never will be as a precept of coexistence. Even if in this paper-thin moment, in this here and now in which I am living, it may seem as if we had to do with something irrevocable, "My body, my choice" is an arduously gained good guiding principle that can always fall victim to an archaic backlash. In this sense, the many emancipatory achievements – in Europe, too – are only still inscribed: for some they are still guaranteed and self-evident; for others they are still (or yet again) unreliable and reversible. I am also a bit scared and respectful of the many singulars in this question: Whose body? Which Europe? Are we talking about a pregnant woman who wants an abortion? Are we posing the question in Luxembourg? Or in Poland? Or are all bodies of all people in all European countries meant? It is quite possible that this singular harbours the grammatical utopia of a united, coordinated Europe, a wish construction somewhere between fulfilment, development and imperilment.
I could now speculate on the reasons for such a possible backlash; I could talk about countermeasures, perhaps even present one or the other, for instance in the form of a courageous diatribe against the reactionaries and the shift to the right. That is needed, yes, but in my opinion rather within the framework of a responsibly lived everyday life and less as a manifesto to whip up initiates. For such work I have neither the political nor sociological know-how, nor is are knee-jerk speeches really in my line. Actually, here I can do little more than deliver a (literary) self-analysis, reflect on how I live, think and write, and how the social dynamics of recent years has affected these activities.
If I do that, then I realize that I work too often in an automatic culturally pessimistic mode; I cultivate an ambiguous a kind of thrilling fear of proclaiming the advent of decadent transitions and end times; I meet this fatalism, which also characterizes many chain-reaction essays, with an often reflexive, short-sighted actionism; I realize that I (still) lack discursive certainty about those words with which we are currently constantly operating: nation, Europe, populism, freedom, future. And that, finally, resolute calm and strict composure would be in order.
Accordingly, I am a little afraid, and at the same time a little thrilled, to juggle in conclusion with these many high-quality terms; this can only be clumsy or funny in my case. There is really only one chain of questions that I would like to throw up in the air to see if it flies or falls: Will the next contributor also feel a kind of grievance that his / her world-view, including certain believed-in vocabulary, has faltered? Is this shock of having to talk about “freedom” no longer as a rhetorical blank but as a lived and precarious practice the reason for the (hyper-) activism of the perplexed people whose response we often encounter in editorials, essays and speeches? In short, have we perhaps never had any idea what freedom is?
Further reading:
Paul Nolte: Unbehagen in der behaglichen Welt.
Lukas Bärfuss: Stil und Moral (Wallstein, 2018)
Next question: "Have we perhaps never had any idea what freedom is?"
About the author
Samuel Hamen, born in 1988 in Luxembourg City, studied German literature and history at the University of Heidelberg. He is currently doing his doctorate there. As a freelance editor he works, among others, with Zeit Online, the programme Büchermarkt (Book Market) on Deutschlandfunk and the Luxembourg weekly newspaper d’Lëtzebuerger Land. He also works as external staff for the Luxembourg literature centre CNL – Centre national de littérature and writes essays for numerous German language newspapers. In 2018 he made his literary debut with the story V wéi vreckt, w wéi Vitess (Éditions Guy Binsfeld).
Translated from German by Jonathan Uhlaner
Have we perhaps never had even a clue as to what freedom is?
By Andreas Degkwitz
Freedom and responsibility are directly related – but we often do not care to admit it. Those who desire freedom without assuming responsibility run the risk of restricting the freedom of others as much as they do their own. Freedom is therefore charged with preconditions.
“I’ll take the liberty of…”?
Freedom is rarely experienced as an ideal existing independently of one's own experience of reality. Therefore, the concept of freedom is always situated in a context that influences and legitimises the claim to and the need for freedom. If freedom of speech is limited, freedom of speech will be demanded. If the freedom to consume is restricted, this will be perceived as a deprivation of freedom. If freedom of speech has more to do with an ideal value, freedom of consumption revolves more around material values.
In this sense, freedom is based on both intangible and material values. What is usually underestimated is the responsibility associated with freedom. Freedom of speech and of consumption - to adhere to these examples - require responsible action in order to guarantee both the one and the other of these freedoms over the long term. Or put even more concretely: The right to assert claims is certainly one of the assets of freedom. But if one makes excessive demands, one is acting irresponsibly, since the freedom taken in doing so is at the expense of others and thus restricts the freedom of others. Those who recognise in the concept of 'freedom' only the freedom to satisfy acute needs, take the freedom to ignore the consequences of their own conduct at the same time.
Freedom is therefore always a challenge and not something to be taken for granted. Freedom requires insight and empathy if we are to be able to live responsibly. If we desire to exercise freedom without responsibility, we have forgotten what freedom is and what its preconditions are. But this in turn raises the question as to whether the complexity of our time in fact enables responsible action as a prerequisite for freedom. Are we aware of the responsibility we assume with freedom? Do we realise that insight and empathy are essential prerequisites for freedom and responsibility?
Mechanical methods for the evaluation of data and texts are increasingly in use today for the analysis and evaluation of complex interrelationships in the process of digitisation. These evaluation methods of "artificial intelligence" are based on algorithms that are used on computer clusters where extensive databases and text files are stored. The results of such evaluations are increasingly being used as a basis of information for assessing facts and making decisions. Against this background I would like to pose the following question: Can the decisions of "artificial intelligence" based on algorithms better guarantee freedom in the long run than human beings who are perhaps all too often overwhelmed by the preconditions for freedom?
Further reading:
Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, Section: “The Canon of Pure Reason” (1781 and 1787).
Yuval Noah Harari: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Harper, 2017).
Next question: Can the decisions of "artificial intelligence" based on algorithms better guarantee freedom in the long run than human beings who are perhaps all too often overwhelmed by the preconditions for freedom?
About the author:
Andreas Degkwitz, born in 1956 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, studied classical philology and literature in Freiburg, Basel and Vienna. He was previously professionally active as a librarian in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Bonn, Potsdam and Cottbus, and has been living and working in Berlin as a head librarian since 2011. He also writes short stories. His prose debut Magenta, Yella und Despina. Snapshots von Liebe und Tod (i.e. Magenta, Yella and Despina, snapshots of Love and Death, available only in German) was issued by the Berlin publishing house PalmArtPress in October 2018.
Translated from German by Edith C. Watts
“I’ll take the liberty of…”?
Freedom is rarely experienced as an ideal existing independently of one's own experience of reality. Therefore, the concept of freedom is always situated in a context that influences and legitimises the claim to and the need for freedom. If freedom of speech is limited, freedom of speech will be demanded. If the freedom to consume is restricted, this will be perceived as a deprivation of freedom. If freedom of speech has more to do with an ideal value, freedom of consumption revolves more around material values.
In this sense, freedom is based on both intangible and material values. What is usually underestimated is the responsibility associated with freedom. Freedom of speech and of consumption - to adhere to these examples - require responsible action in order to guarantee both the one and the other of these freedoms over the long term. Or put even more concretely: The right to assert claims is certainly one of the assets of freedom. But if one makes excessive demands, one is acting irresponsibly, since the freedom taken in doing so is at the expense of others and thus restricts the freedom of others. Those who recognise in the concept of 'freedom' only the freedom to satisfy acute needs, take the freedom to ignore the consequences of their own conduct at the same time.
Freedom is therefore always a challenge and not something to be taken for granted. Freedom requires insight and empathy if we are to be able to live responsibly. If we desire to exercise freedom without responsibility, we have forgotten what freedom is and what its preconditions are. But this in turn raises the question as to whether the complexity of our time in fact enables responsible action as a prerequisite for freedom. Are we aware of the responsibility we assume with freedom? Do we realise that insight and empathy are essential prerequisites for freedom and responsibility?
Mechanical methods for the evaluation of data and texts are increasingly in use today for the analysis and evaluation of complex interrelationships in the process of digitisation. These evaluation methods of "artificial intelligence" are based on algorithms that are used on computer clusters where extensive databases and text files are stored. The results of such evaluations are increasingly being used as a basis of information for assessing facts and making decisions. Against this background I would like to pose the following question: Can the decisions of "artificial intelligence" based on algorithms better guarantee freedom in the long run than human beings who are perhaps all too often overwhelmed by the preconditions for freedom?
Further reading:
Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, Section: “The Canon of Pure Reason” (1781 and 1787).
Yuval Noah Harari: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Harper, 2017).
Next question: Can the decisions of "artificial intelligence" based on algorithms better guarantee freedom in the long run than human beings who are perhaps all too often overwhelmed by the preconditions for freedom?
About the author:
Andreas Degkwitz, born in 1956 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, studied classical philology and literature in Freiburg, Basel and Vienna. He was previously professionally active as a librarian in Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Bonn, Potsdam and Cottbus, and has been living and working in Berlin as a head librarian since 2011. He also writes short stories. His prose debut Magenta, Yella und Despina. Snapshots von Liebe und Tod (i.e. Magenta, Yella and Despina, snapshots of Love and Death, available only in German) was issued by the Berlin publishing house PalmArtPress in October 2018.
Translated from German by Edith C. Watts
Can the decisions of "artificial intelligence" better guarantee freedom than human beings?
By Rasmus Øhlenschlæger
Nothing can guarantee freedom – not algorithms, artificial intelligence, or human beings. Freedom is something we negotiate with ourselves and our social and political surroundings on an everyday basis against a horizon of unlimited, but unattainable ideals. As such, artificial intelligence can inform our decisions, but by limiting the question of freedom to more or less precise decision-making based on algorithms it leaves out the human factor in the equation. Without human fallibility, moral responsibility, social organization, ethics, emotions and desire, there is no freedom.
Who Controls Facebook?
The question of freedom is often posed as a philosophical issue, but it is answered pragmatically by living life within the limits of mundane restrictions and everyday aspirations. This too applies to how we navigate the digital present and debate a future where data, algorithms and artificial intelligence will substantially infringe upon our choices in known and unknown ways.
Global conglomerates harvest, own, and sell our data to the highest paying advertisers. Their commodity is our attention. This is not a secret. We all know that now, and yet we spend countless hours on social media which are structured and curated by algorithms and designed for profit. The American cultural theorist Fredric Jameson has argued that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. When it comes to data it seems equally difficult to find a place outside the digitalized present or even, more narrowly viewed, outside social media from which to protest against the companies that administer our attention. Hence the irony of calling for boycotts of Facebook after the disclosure that Cambridge Analytica’s reselling of personal data harvested from Facebook were organized on …. Facebook.
Algorithms and artificial intelligence have an enormous potential to inform human decision-making. However, for them to support free human decision-making rather than promote political agendas or raise commercial profit margins, we need to know who holds what data and to what end. Who edits the content we are presented with on social media? Who is accountable for the use of our data? What are the checks and balances of an economy of attention?
Further reading:
David Runciman: How Democracy Ends, London 2018 (Profile Books).
Jan-Werner Müller: What is Populism?, Berlin 2016 (Suhrkamp).
Next question: If we assume that freedom of information and freedom of speech is a collective rather than an individual challenge, who or where is the collective that is going to push back against global conglomerates like Google and Facebook over issues such as privacy, fake news, data harvesting, etc.? The EU? New anti-trust legislation in the US? A single strong nation state? Coalitions of private consumers and users? Or something altogether different?
About the author:
Rasmus Øhlenschlæger, born in 1975, is the Director of Development at the Danish newspaper Information. He also heads the publishing house Informations Forlag. He has a PhD in Scandinavian literature from the University of Copenhagen. He also studied at New York University for his MA degree and was a Visiting Fellow at Columbia University as part of the work on his PhD. He has published the book "Vidner og dommere – dansk kritisk essayistic om krig og terror" ("Witness and judge – contemporary Danish critical essays on war and terrorism") and is a board member of the Danish cultural festival "Golden Days”.
Who Controls Facebook?
The question of freedom is often posed as a philosophical issue, but it is answered pragmatically by living life within the limits of mundane restrictions and everyday aspirations. This too applies to how we navigate the digital present and debate a future where data, algorithms and artificial intelligence will substantially infringe upon our choices in known and unknown ways.
Global conglomerates harvest, own, and sell our data to the highest paying advertisers. Their commodity is our attention. This is not a secret. We all know that now, and yet we spend countless hours on social media which are structured and curated by algorithms and designed for profit. The American cultural theorist Fredric Jameson has argued that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. When it comes to data it seems equally difficult to find a place outside the digitalized present or even, more narrowly viewed, outside social media from which to protest against the companies that administer our attention. Hence the irony of calling for boycotts of Facebook after the disclosure that Cambridge Analytica’s reselling of personal data harvested from Facebook were organized on …. Facebook.
Algorithms and artificial intelligence have an enormous potential to inform human decision-making. However, for them to support free human decision-making rather than promote political agendas or raise commercial profit margins, we need to know who holds what data and to what end. Who edits the content we are presented with on social media? Who is accountable for the use of our data? What are the checks and balances of an economy of attention?
Further reading:
David Runciman: How Democracy Ends, London 2018 (Profile Books).
Jan-Werner Müller: What is Populism?, Berlin 2016 (Suhrkamp).
Next question: If we assume that freedom of information and freedom of speech is a collective rather than an individual challenge, who or where is the collective that is going to push back against global conglomerates like Google and Facebook over issues such as privacy, fake news, data harvesting, etc.? The EU? New anti-trust legislation in the US? A single strong nation state? Coalitions of private consumers and users? Or something altogether different?
About the author:
Rasmus Øhlenschlæger, born in 1975, is the Director of Development at the Danish newspaper Information. He also heads the publishing house Informations Forlag. He has a PhD in Scandinavian literature from the University of Copenhagen. He also studied at New York University for his MA degree and was a Visiting Fellow at Columbia University as part of the work on his PhD. He has published the book "Vidner og dommere – dansk kritisk essayistic om krig og terror" ("Witness and judge – contemporary Danish critical essays on war and terrorism") and is a board member of the Danish cultural festival "Golden Days”.
If freedom of information and speech is a collective challenge, who or where is the collective?
By Despina Zefkili
By forming coalitions that combine social justice, economics, equality, cultural, ecological and technological aspects, we can reassert the possibilities of attaining more open and democratic digital societies. Coalitions. After networks.
In her work “Hardcore Digital Detox” internet artist and writer Ying Miao gives directions on how to confuse cookies adopting bipolar online behaviour, clicking on things we hate, trading our devices with those of friends or, better, with people we disagree with.
But there is more at stake in digital surveillance and capital’s exploitation of data, than bolstering individual privacy settings options. The discussion regarding fundamental rights in the internet ecosystem should be seen in relation to essential conflicts concerning the modus operandi between individuals, states, institutions and other structures. The “shadow constitution” that rules the internet is a new architecture of governance over our culture, principles, economy, a tissue of control systems. Maybe the battle for an internet constitution can activate ideological struggles, deconstruct the ideal of global civil society and expanded democracy. The provocation of assigned failed internet constitution can reveal the relativism, the reductionism and the harsh limitations of generic humanitarianism, global law system, human rights policies etc. The call for an internet constitution may be a call for political fights anew.
Working on the project “Freiraum”, the Temporary Academy of Arts (PAT) poses the question of artistic freedom in the times of cultural policies and points to possible coalitions of commitment which presuppose persistence and dedication to certain causes instead of networks that are based in an economy of friendship occasion and opportunity.
To think of coalitions that combine economic, social justice, equality, cultural, ecological and technological aspects, engaging and focusing with the ways in which data collection and analysis embodies historical institutionalised forms of discrimination and exclusion that limits opportunity and participation for certain subjects, may reassert the possibilities of other ways of organising more open and democratic digital societies.
Further reading:
Gene Ray, “Culture Industry and the Administration of Terror”. In Gerald Raunig, Ray, G. and Wuggenig, U., eds, Critique of Creativity: Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in the ‘Creative Industries’, London: MayFlyBooks, 2011.
Elpida Karaba, Glykeria Stathopoulou, Despina Zefkili, Temporary Academy of Arts, The limits of art as an economy of resistance. Was that a pat or a slap? in AB6 Athens Biennale 2018 ANTI exhibition catalogue, Athens, 2018.
Next question: What kind of new coalitions of commitment can we think to enhance the professional situation and freedom of art laborers?
About the author:
Despina Zefkili is art critic, member of the Temporary Academy of Arts (PAT) and senior editor of Athinorama, the city guide of Athens. She is interested in a critical understanding of art and its structures in a wider sociopolitical context as well as its educational aspects. As a member of PAT she has worked among others for “Soft Power Lectures” (as part of Actopolis programme, funded by the Goethe-Institut and the Urbane Künste Ruhr Institute) and “Towards a History of Contemporary Greek Art: An Agreement Without Principles”, Contemporary Greek Art Institute, 2017. She has published articles on the Athens art scene in various books and magazines including “On One Side of the Same Water” (Hatje Cantz), “The Way between Belgrade and Prishtina” (Stacion Center), Art Papers, Third Text, Ocula and has reviewed exhibitions for Frieze, artnet, Flash Art, Art info, and South Magazine. She has presented papers in conferences such as Humans of the Institution, Amsterdam and “Institutions, Politics, Performance” Green Park, Athens. She was a member of the curatorial team of the fourth Athens Biennale AGORA (The Non Serious Lectures). Together with Vangelis Vlahos she co-curated the exhibition “Archaeology of Today?” at Els Hanappe Underground and co-edited Local Folk from 2004 to 2008, a free press publication focusing on a critical view of local art production and a dialogue with other art scenes.
In her work “Hardcore Digital Detox” internet artist and writer Ying Miao gives directions on how to confuse cookies adopting bipolar online behaviour, clicking on things we hate, trading our devices with those of friends or, better, with people we disagree with.
But there is more at stake in digital surveillance and capital’s exploitation of data, than bolstering individual privacy settings options. The discussion regarding fundamental rights in the internet ecosystem should be seen in relation to essential conflicts concerning the modus operandi between individuals, states, institutions and other structures. The “shadow constitution” that rules the internet is a new architecture of governance over our culture, principles, economy, a tissue of control systems. Maybe the battle for an internet constitution can activate ideological struggles, deconstruct the ideal of global civil society and expanded democracy. The provocation of assigned failed internet constitution can reveal the relativism, the reductionism and the harsh limitations of generic humanitarianism, global law system, human rights policies etc. The call for an internet constitution may be a call for political fights anew.
Working on the project “Freiraum”, the Temporary Academy of Arts (PAT) poses the question of artistic freedom in the times of cultural policies and points to possible coalitions of commitment which presuppose persistence and dedication to certain causes instead of networks that are based in an economy of friendship occasion and opportunity.
To think of coalitions that combine economic, social justice, equality, cultural, ecological and technological aspects, engaging and focusing with the ways in which data collection and analysis embodies historical institutionalised forms of discrimination and exclusion that limits opportunity and participation for certain subjects, may reassert the possibilities of other ways of organising more open and democratic digital societies.
Further reading:
Gene Ray, “Culture Industry and the Administration of Terror”. In Gerald Raunig, Ray, G. and Wuggenig, U., eds, Critique of Creativity: Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in the ‘Creative Industries’, London: MayFlyBooks, 2011.
Elpida Karaba, Glykeria Stathopoulou, Despina Zefkili, Temporary Academy of Arts, The limits of art as an economy of resistance. Was that a pat or a slap? in AB6 Athens Biennale 2018 ANTI exhibition catalogue, Athens, 2018.
Next question: What kind of new coalitions of commitment can we think to enhance the professional situation and freedom of art laborers?
About the author:
Despina Zefkili is art critic, member of the Temporary Academy of Arts (PAT) and senior editor of Athinorama, the city guide of Athens. She is interested in a critical understanding of art and its structures in a wider sociopolitical context as well as its educational aspects. As a member of PAT she has worked among others for “Soft Power Lectures” (as part of Actopolis programme, funded by the Goethe-Institut and the Urbane Künste Ruhr Institute) and “Towards a History of Contemporary Greek Art: An Agreement Without Principles”, Contemporary Greek Art Institute, 2017. She has published articles on the Athens art scene in various books and magazines including “On One Side of the Same Water” (Hatje Cantz), “The Way between Belgrade and Prishtina” (Stacion Center), Art Papers, Third Text, Ocula and has reviewed exhibitions for Frieze, artnet, Flash Art, Art info, and South Magazine. She has presented papers in conferences such as Humans of the Institution, Amsterdam and “Institutions, Politics, Performance” Green Park, Athens. She was a member of the curatorial team of the fourth Athens Biennale AGORA (The Non Serious Lectures). Together with Vangelis Vlahos she co-curated the exhibition “Archaeology of Today?” at Els Hanappe Underground and co-edited Local Folk from 2004 to 2008, a free press publication focusing on a critical view of local art production and a dialogue with other art scenes.
How can we enhance the situation of art laborers?
By Elnathan John
Artists who enjoy the privilege of not having their art being questioned as labor can commit to improving the welfare of all artists by using their privilege to make a stand for fellow art laborers who have not attained this status.
FREEDOM FOR THE MANY AND NOT JUST THE FEW
One impediment to fully realizing art as labor — not for a privileged few, but as a matter of course — that lurks in capitalist spaces, is the skillful exploitation of our competitive nature by capitalist structures, to create hierarchies among artists, treating those at the top with dignity, while exploiting those below. This impacts freedom in a world where the gatekeepers within art professions act as enforcers of a culture of patriarchal respectability and order, and where breaking free from such conformity can lead to things like blacklisting. One way artists can commit to maintaining and enhancing the professional situation and freedom of art laborer’s is by refusing to be silent beneficiaries of arbitrary and selective systems that demean other professionals or refuse to acknowledge the art of others as labor.
Unions like the Society of Authors in the UK which supports professional behavior in bookselling and publishing and promotes creative expression and freedom of speech can help. This union, for example, gives members advice on contracts and fair rates for their labor, while promoting equality, dignity and respect. Unions help establish minimum standards and help fight exploitation especially in dealing with institutions.
On an individual level, artists who enjoy the privilege of not having their art being questioned as labor can commit to this by using their privilege to make a stand for fellow art laborers. In a project, festival, or event, headliners or lead-artists who get paid, can demand that there are no unpaid artists on their project. They can demand that artists are not exploited in the name of volunteerism, which is one of the more common ways of exploiting artists. Another way of achieving this is by simply telling fellow artists about their fees. This might seem simple, but it is revolutionary. One way that institutions get away with selectively disregarding art as labor is by secrecy. If they can get higher paid or paid artists to be silent about their fees, then they can convince others to be volunteers or enter other exploitative arrangements.
Further reading:
Solti, Gabriella, "From 'Means to Ends': Labour As Art Practice" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2086.
Krikortz, E., Triisberg, A., Henriksson, M. (eds), “Art Workers: Material Conditions and Labour Struggles in Contemporary Art Practice” (2015) Berlin/Helsinki/Stockholm/Tallinn.
About the author:
Elnathan John is a Nigerian lawyer, novelist and satirist. His short stories have been shortlisted twice for the Caine Prize for African Writing, in 2013 and 2015. His debut novel, Born on a Tuesday won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature. It has been translated into German and French. His most recent book — a satire collection Be(com)ing Nigerian, was published by Cassava Republic Press in February 2019. On Ajayi Crowther Street, his graphic novel will be published in November 2019. Elnathan is one of the judges of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. He is a 2019 recipient of a work stipend for Non-German literature from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. He lives in Berlin.
FREEDOM FOR THE MANY AND NOT JUST THE FEW
One impediment to fully realizing art as labor — not for a privileged few, but as a matter of course — that lurks in capitalist spaces, is the skillful exploitation of our competitive nature by capitalist structures, to create hierarchies among artists, treating those at the top with dignity, while exploiting those below. This impacts freedom in a world where the gatekeepers within art professions act as enforcers of a culture of patriarchal respectability and order, and where breaking free from such conformity can lead to things like blacklisting. One way artists can commit to maintaining and enhancing the professional situation and freedom of art laborer’s is by refusing to be silent beneficiaries of arbitrary and selective systems that demean other professionals or refuse to acknowledge the art of others as labor.
Unions like the Society of Authors in the UK which supports professional behavior in bookselling and publishing and promotes creative expression and freedom of speech can help. This union, for example, gives members advice on contracts and fair rates for their labor, while promoting equality, dignity and respect. Unions help establish minimum standards and help fight exploitation especially in dealing with institutions.
On an individual level, artists who enjoy the privilege of not having their art being questioned as labor can commit to this by using their privilege to make a stand for fellow art laborers. In a project, festival, or event, headliners or lead-artists who get paid, can demand that there are no unpaid artists on their project. They can demand that artists are not exploited in the name of volunteerism, which is one of the more common ways of exploiting artists. Another way of achieving this is by simply telling fellow artists about their fees. This might seem simple, but it is revolutionary. One way that institutions get away with selectively disregarding art as labor is by secrecy. If they can get higher paid or paid artists to be silent about their fees, then they can convince others to be volunteers or enter other exploitative arrangements.
Further reading:
Solti, Gabriella, "From 'Means to Ends': Labour As Art Practice" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2086.
Krikortz, E., Triisberg, A., Henriksson, M. (eds), “Art Workers: Material Conditions and Labour Struggles in Contemporary Art Practice” (2015) Berlin/Helsinki/Stockholm/Tallinn.
About the author:
Elnathan John is a Nigerian lawyer, novelist and satirist. His short stories have been shortlisted twice for the Caine Prize for African Writing, in 2013 and 2015. His debut novel, Born on a Tuesday won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature. It has been translated into German and French. His most recent book — a satire collection Be(com)ing Nigerian, was published by Cassava Republic Press in February 2019. On Ajayi Crowther Street, his graphic novel will be published in November 2019. Elnathan is one of the judges of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. He is a 2019 recipient of a work stipend for Non-German literature from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. He lives in Berlin.
