Thanks, but no thanks.

It is not easy to read Ece Temelkuran’s book “How to lose a country: The seven steps from democracy to dictatorship”. The Turkish journalist’s incisive writing becomes frightening at times, her evidence weighs heavily on one’s heart. I had to pause now and then. All our questions, doubts, concerns, frustrations about what is happening around us, are in this book. What some of us are experiencing for the first time has happened before and the tactics were never different. Not only are Erdogan’s rise, the Brexit vote, Trump’s election put under the microscope, Temelkuran has a clear view of how far back we need to go in order to find the origins for both recent and current events and realise that we did/do nothing, although the way they developed is, by now, so predictable. As predictable as seven steps.

As we look in disbelief at the unwavering support for once-ridiculous-now-terrifying-autocrats, there are things we need to give think about. Temelkuran writes:

“For many of those who are privileged enough to be in a position to try to analyse the important matters of big politics, the ordinary man’s feeling of smallness and the rage it engenders are inaccessible, and so it is equally hard for them to comprehend how that smallness might desperately crave to be part of a we that promises greatness.” (p.27)

And this, tell us Temelkuran, is “an entirely different mass of people, one with a more limited vocabulary, smaller dreams for the world and less faith on the collective survival of humanity.” (p.24) This is a world where we have seen again and again “the humiliated greet[ing] the perpetrator as his saviour.” (p101)

Words that resonate with me as I am coming back from Berlin, from a conference on heritage museums and populism. Alice Millar (University College London) took us through the basis and effects of populist cultural wars: the emotionally charged discourse, prioritising feelings over facts; the binary dilemmas (Us and Them); the differing ideas about the use of heritage; the emotional impact these have on museum and heritage professionals: fear, anticipation of trouble, risk aversion, self-censorship, exhaustion. Julia Leser (Humboldt University) also told us about the quiet transformation taking place (the secret, quiet and intelligent removal of controversial material, in anticipation of trouble) and self-censorship, often the result of the fear of losing one’s job. She told us about the museum professionals she interviewed (not necessarily the directors of big museums everyone knows, but people working in small museums in smaller cities), receiving anonymous threats, being terrorised and having to deal with the great impact all this has on their mental health. Some have resigned. This in Germany, in the UK, Sweden (the three countries the project CHAPTER was developed, and not in countries we could immediately identify as illiberal.

Some people spoke about the need to resist emotional reactions and find better ways of letting people know about the facts. Going back to Ece Temelkuran, she reminds us that “Most of the time, politics is about bread and hope, not political concepts or depressing facts about malpractice.” (p.138) We´ve seen again and again that the facts don’t convince the people who are desperately looking for bread and hope; justice and hope; solidarity – which right-wing populism is an expert in destroying, at the same time it glorifies the perpetrator-saviour – and hope.

As I am writing about this, the film “No” constantly comes to mind. Do you remember Pablo Larrain’s film with Gael García Bernal, which tells the story of the Chilean referendum on whether ruthless dictator Augusto Pinochet should remain as president under civilian rule? Do you remember the heated discussions among people in the “No” campaign, some of them believing that society should be reminded of all the ways Pinochet’s cruelty came down on the country and its people? Things happened differently, though. The “No” campaign chose to ignore the grim realities of the recent past (because “it doesn’t sell”) and come up with a positive, hopeful message and… a jingle: “Chile, La alegría ya viene” (Chile, joy is coming).

The rise of the far-right, as well as right and left wind populism, are taking a toll on cultural professionals in different countries. It was expected, why are some of us still taken by surprise? And why are we still trying to relativise the first, small signs when we see them? Why don’t we immediately denounce them and close ranks, supporting each other and reaffirming our values and principles? Last summer, we read about Slovakia’s Minister of Culture dismissing the directors of the National Theatre and National Gallery, an attempt to crack down on artistic freedom of expression. Fortunately, it didn’t go uncontested: thousands of people took to the streets; Slovak cultural workers announced a strike in September, against ideologically motivated censorship; Czech maestro Robert Jindra resigned as chief conductor of the Košice State Philharmonic; and Opera Europa, an organisation representing European Opera Houses, publicly condemned “rightwing cultural vandalism”. As sign of hope, if we think about that similar situations in the recent past in Poland or Hungary were met with silence by most of us. In Portugal, acts of censorship and the disturbance of public events are multiplying, but, still, it doesn’t seem to be an issue (read my posts here and here). Last week, the European Theatre Convention (Europe’s largest network of publicly funded theatres, presided by Portuguese Cláudia Belchior), sent a warning that theatre makers are under attack from far-right political ideologues; “artists and plays not adhering to the nationalist mentality of rising far-right parties are being pushed out of the industry across Europe”. We can repeat as much as we want “No pasarán” (They shall not pass), but they have passed, they are here, they are conditioning our freedoms. And we need to deal with them. But how?

I talk to friends and colleagues and often among us there’s incredulity, sadness, numbness and a terrible feeling of hopelessness. At the conference in Berlin, I commented at a point that we are investing too much time discussing the bullies and their tactics, and how we could defeat them with dialogue and facts. We wouldn’t. We can’t continue being naïve, believing there can be dialogue with those that are faking to wish for one. We know it, it’s happened before. Temelkuran’s reminds us that, in these cases “Intellectual activity becomes a matter of reacting to fragments of populist discourse with sarcasm” (p.80) So, what’s the point? She describes an invitation she got from AKP women (Justice and Development Party, Turkey) to collaborate with “women like her”. She writes: “The call for empathy feels like a truce after an exhausting struggle. However, it is far from clear whether I’m being invited to enter into a peace deal on equal terms or being asked to surrender. So I say ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’” (p. 174).

In a country that hasn’t been lost to us, the bullies must be dealt with the arms of the Constitution and the laws. No more time thinking about dialogue and facts. This is the time for solidarity, first of all among us, as cultural professionals (as some are already the victims of the bullies) and then for the society we serve. We should concentrate on the people, their (our) need for bread (literally and metaphorically) and hope, for trust and justice, for a richer vocabulary and wider dreams. I’ll quote again Deborah Cullinan, who in 2017 (little after Donald Trump’s election) wrote that “The raw material of our democracy is individual creativity and collective imagination.” This is what we do, this is our part. Another reality is possible. We lost it, we can regain it. La alegría ya viene.