Overcoming Opposition: How cultural projects can help to create an alternative life-world

To my wild cats.

Any kind of civic engagement – be it in democratic or non-democratic countries – primarily deals with questions and problems of political culture. Politics, and the role authorities play in it, dominates the picture in authoritarian systems, of course; nevertheless activists should never forget that it is (usually) society which develops a certain type of government. These thoughts are inspired by understanding the case of Belarus as a contemporary sequel to the “normalized” societies of late Czechoslovak and East German real socialism. Its economic development – so far quite smartly – shadows the revived Russian ressource-based global aspirations, and the bureaucratic regulation of life may be taken as an answer to the wide-spread popular fear of change in an era of seemingly universal transformation.

It is important to understand that freedom can have very different meanings for people. Activists are political animals who want to reach freedom by politics. People who belong to the mainstream of a society more or less try to reach freedom from politics in order to live their life. Therefore activist should rather focus on changing social procedures and communication than try to enter the realm of the political. They cannot win in open battle anyway. If the state really is the political enemy, as it is the case in non-democratic systems, it is much too strong an opponent. Beating it would mean recklessly and mercilessly using its own means; a process which will subsequently transform “liberators” into “perpetrators”. It is of much higher importance, and a value in itself, to focus on the people, to take them serious. To be successful in the long run, activists even need to prevent battle. They need to convince and activate individuals. Culture can help them to achieve this aim. Its biggest advantage is the “as-if” concept (Timothy Garton Ash): Culture, in contrast to political opposition, can already create in an nutshell the more civilized practice and sophisticated forms of human exchange it envisages for the future of society as a whole. In politics you may lose a battle, but you certainly have to win the war; in culture you may even lose the war and still decisively reshape the social environment, which will some time later bring about the change you are craving for so much.

If I use the term “culture” here, I refer to a broad context of cultural techniques and genres, comprising the classical forms of literature, art, music and film as well as any creative appropriation and adaptation of the human life-world which goes beyond scientific, economic or political approaches. Culture has three benign features: (1) it makes visible objects and social structures somehow hidden from the human senses by materializing them in a different form, which fosters their understanding; (2) it creates something new out of existing material; and (3) once a new start is made, its development is uncontrollable. This is especially true for arts and literature. With the help of these genres existing boundaries of any social system may be pushed and extended, often touching the unsayable or taboo. Such exercise may be the starting point for establishing new spaces of freedom and self-realization. The crucial point here is that it refers to multiperspectivity, intersubjectivity and plurality as prerequisites not only of human understanding, but of existence as such. A linear phrase of ideology may haunt the people it is directed on; yet the reception of a theatre play on, let’s say, the historical side-effects of the French revolution (like Heiner Müller’s “The Mission”) or the sight of an artwork like Sándor Pinczehelyi’s “Weapon of the Proletariat” – which is a compilation of cobblestones – will stay creatively and subversively with the audience for a much longer time: it opens access to people’s minds and provides multidimensionality. By doing so, problematic collective identity formations can be overcome in the long run, and the building of more appropriate ones may be fostered by offering common points of reference for a community, be it real or still virtual.

There is just one rule to follow, which also demarcates the decisive difference to politics: the cultural being does not claim to represent anyone except her-/himself and refrains from any bids for power in the name of anyone. Nevertheless self-representation in cultural activities can be a powerful tool, because it offers the activist a chance to mediate between power and people; one can thereby follow one’s civilizational creed in practice. Culture is not about benchmarking or representation. By nurturing the meaningful exchange through adaptation and (re)creation it sets in motion a dialog, which may in turn provide the platform to start a common struggle. What Belarusian activists need to win is authenticity and authority – like the literary and cultural-philosophical dissidents around Václav Havel gained and preserved it over the decades. Their simple but difficult task is to (still) be there, and to be creatively and dedicatively active, on the day of Lukashenka’s disappearance. Cultural beings, on the other hand, should never forget that it’s all about the commitment to the other. Art for art’s sake will never give any nightmares to political and economic power. Cultural intervention is possible from a superior individual perspective, in the sense that it is a personally consolidated one. The colonial trap so much talked about in the academic world is just a matter of instrumental communication, which is to be overcome. No action means no results, for good and for bad. If we want to activate individuals, it is not necessary to represent and lead, but to invite them. When cultural beings and activists come together to reach and communicate with the people, another life-world is possible.