Debate on Europe in Skopje
Since gaining its independence in the 1990s, Macedonia has had to confront multiple political, social, and cultural challenges. Currently a new political direction is giving rise to hope and reflection. In an open exchange of ideas, “Debate on Europe” in Skopje will pose and explore questions about the possible impact of “Art and Culture in Changing Times” and the wealth of cultural diversity – also here in Southeast Europe. The latest developments in Macedonia – with an eye on the regional and European context – will be at the heart of the debate. Authors and academics from several European countries will come together in Skopje to discuss the exceptional as well as the exemplary in today’s Macedonia. The event forms part of the series “Debates on Europe”, organised by the S. Fischer Foundation, the Allianz Cultural Foundation, and the German Academy for Language and Literature in different cities across the continent since 2012. Debates were already hosted in Budapest, Bucharest, Athens, Belgrade, Berlin, Narva, Minsk, Kharkiv, St. Petersburg, and Sarajevo. We are immensely grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this “Debate on Europe” alongside the Skopje-based NGO Kontrapunkt, with Iskra Geshoska at its helm, and the European Network for Literature TRADUKI.
S. Fischer Foundation
Allianz Cultural Foundation
German Academy for Language and Literature
Since gaining its independence in the 1990s, Macedonia has had to confront multiple political, social, and cultural challenges. Currently a new political direction is giving rise to hope and reflection. In an open exchange of ideas, “Debate on Europe” in Skopje will pose and explore questions about the possible impact of “Art and Culture in Changing Times” and the wealth of cultural diversity – also here in Southeast Europe. The latest developments in Macedonia – with an eye on the regional and European context – will be at the heart of the debate. Authors and academics from several European countries will come together in Skopje to discuss the exceptional as well as the exemplary in today’s Macedonia. The event forms part of the series “Debates on Europe”, organised by the S. Fischer Foundation, the Allianz Cultural Foundation, and the German Academy for Language and Literature in different cities across the continent since 2012. Debates were already hosted in Budapest, Bucharest, Athens, Belgrade, Berlin, Narva, Minsk, Kharkiv, St. Petersburg, and Sarajevo. We are immensely grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this “Debate on Europe” alongside the Skopje-based NGO Kontrapunkt, with Iskra Geshoska at its helm, and the European Network for Literature TRADUKI.
S. Fischer Foundation
Allianz Cultural Foundation
German Academy for Language and Literature
"Searching for the utopia – between experiment and commons" -
Introduction by Iskra Geshoska
As Jean-Luc Nancy and Phillippe Lacoue-Labarthe claim in their Retreating the Political, the corruption of all certainty, with the weakening of its foundations and obliteration of its horizon, made it possible – and even urgent and necessary – to re- examine again all that was believed to be ‘essentially political’.
This is a time of radical confusion between the long- established left and right ideologies, now situating themselves porously and paradoxically within politics, like an avers and obverse, like the other of the same. This is a time when freedom, identities, solidarity and equality operate discursively through all constitutions and parliaments, while at the same time, ever so great class, cultural and ethno-national walls are erected. This is a time that announces the end of utopia and with it the end of the political in politics. The captivity of the camp is the emergency in which we live continually and which tests and tempts all paradigms of modern democracy.
We are now in a middle of an experiment. Nothing else is left to us but to ask ourselves whether in this world that appears to be sliding towards destruction, that crumbles without noticing, there is a core of people that can allow for a critical redefinition of the ‘dogmas’ in which we have stopped believing. We live in a time when culture and politics constitute themselves through elimination (which is also inclusion at the same time).
Politics, as noted by Paul Ricœur, exists only during ‘the great moments’, ‘the crises’, at ‘turning points’ and crossroads of history. But when we discuss the community and what makes us political beings or when we deliberate about the commons, the key question is the ‘political’, not the politics. And this question is in fact a question about how to be together, beyond the class conflicts, beyond the ethno-national camps, beyond the shackles of our identities that capture us into a crowd. Within the socio-cultural contexts like the Macedonian that exists and lives the paradox of their geo-strategic position as part of the European continent, but outside the economic, fiscal and security formation called the European Union, a very common topic of interest is this very autonomy, not of politics, but of the political. When yearning for autonomy of the political in these societies trapped in confusing, exhausting and endless transition, we actually yearn for the political, understood as a right to a free society, consisting of differences, but able to enjoy the moment of commonality. The common, from this point of view, we would like to read as a critical space where the quotidian individual and collective experiences and representations of contemporaneity can mutate and reorganize.
At this day and age, in this area, the citizen is being evicted from the community. In this time-space the citizen has been revoked the right to exist organically as a political being and participate in the building of policies, although all political speeches would pretend to indicate the opposite. The citizens are just numbers, with no right to make decisions. Behind the mirage of democracy, there unmistakeably proceed the processes that lead to partocracy and autocracy. Therefore, we fight against the illusion of the political. We are not just decorative props, we are creators of contents, of dreams, without which both the society and the political would not exist, would have no meaning. Our duty is to jump over fences and criss- cross the social fields. We must, not unlike Marko Polo in Calvino’s Invisible Cities, draw different toponyms that will build different worlds.
Our language, here and now, is a language of muteness, disgrace and fear. This language does not take any steps forward but remains cramped and contracted. We are trapped inside the language offear and narrowmindedness, a language that does not recognize the ‘policies of friendship’, but the policies of a velvet and permanent war and state of emergency. This language cannot ‘produce’ free thought, free images – it only produces pits filled with the quicksand of the senseless policies in which we drown. This is a language that determines our existence only in opposition to the ‘enemy’, and not against the background of organic thinking and critical community. Now that we have already been numbed, it is highly unlikely that anyone will be able to claim Hamlet’s famous ‘I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space’ as the complete opposite to the idea of openness of communities, of culture. No one likes the infinite because it demands a sense of responsibility. While the captive spirit avoids responsibility. Within our semi-articulated political systems, the terror of the pseudo-democratic is lobotomizing, zombifying and instrumentalizing us all.
That is why we write our stories on the edges of history. We do not want the life on offer – created in advance. We want to create it ourselves. To surf the edges of our dreams. We tattoo the society, just as it tattoos us. It is a mutual artistic act. The political imagination is an artistic creation. We would like to change, to discover new texts, linking past experiences and visions of future actions. The citizen is an active traveler. And we have to bear in mind that, when the train leaves, it is possible that it will take only a few passengers – only those who have not missed the moment. It is also possible that most of the passengers would actually prefer not to take the train because the station seems more comfortable, more pleasant and more familiar than the journey. We need to care for and articulate our thinking processes through the capillarity of the critically observed society. We do not need a zombified survival. We wish to participate with our own civil and political imagination. Because it is a kind of an artistic creation. What we are trapped in is an aesthetic of disappearance. But nonetheless – we will return.
Introduction by Iskra Geshoska
As Jean-Luc Nancy and Phillippe Lacoue-Labarthe claim in their Retreating the Political, the corruption of all certainty, with the weakening of its foundations and obliteration of its horizon, made it possible – and even urgent and necessary – to re- examine again all that was believed to be ‘essentially political’.
This is a time of radical confusion between the long- established left and right ideologies, now situating themselves porously and paradoxically within politics, like an avers and obverse, like the other of the same. This is a time when freedom, identities, solidarity and equality operate discursively through all constitutions and parliaments, while at the same time, ever so great class, cultural and ethno-national walls are erected. This is a time that announces the end of utopia and with it the end of the political in politics. The captivity of the camp is the emergency in which we live continually and which tests and tempts all paradigms of modern democracy.
We are now in a middle of an experiment. Nothing else is left to us but to ask ourselves whether in this world that appears to be sliding towards destruction, that crumbles without noticing, there is a core of people that can allow for a critical redefinition of the ‘dogmas’ in which we have stopped believing. We live in a time when culture and politics constitute themselves through elimination (which is also inclusion at the same time).
Politics, as noted by Paul Ricœur, exists only during ‘the great moments’, ‘the crises’, at ‘turning points’ and crossroads of history. But when we discuss the community and what makes us political beings or when we deliberate about the commons, the key question is the ‘political’, not the politics. And this question is in fact a question about how to be together, beyond the class conflicts, beyond the ethno-national camps, beyond the shackles of our identities that capture us into a crowd. Within the socio-cultural contexts like the Macedonian that exists and lives the paradox of their geo-strategic position as part of the European continent, but outside the economic, fiscal and security formation called the European Union, a very common topic of interest is this very autonomy, not of politics, but of the political. When yearning for autonomy of the political in these societies trapped in confusing, exhausting and endless transition, we actually yearn for the political, understood as a right to a free society, consisting of differences, but able to enjoy the moment of commonality. The common, from this point of view, we would like to read as a critical space where the quotidian individual and collective experiences and representations of contemporaneity can mutate and reorganize.
At this day and age, in this area, the citizen is being evicted from the community. In this time-space the citizen has been revoked the right to exist organically as a political being and participate in the building of policies, although all political speeches would pretend to indicate the opposite. The citizens are just numbers, with no right to make decisions. Behind the mirage of democracy, there unmistakeably proceed the processes that lead to partocracy and autocracy. Therefore, we fight against the illusion of the political. We are not just decorative props, we are creators of contents, of dreams, without which both the society and the political would not exist, would have no meaning. Our duty is to jump over fences and criss- cross the social fields. We must, not unlike Marko Polo in Calvino’s Invisible Cities, draw different toponyms that will build different worlds.
Our language, here and now, is a language of muteness, disgrace and fear. This language does not take any steps forward but remains cramped and contracted. We are trapped inside the language offear and narrowmindedness, a language that does not recognize the ‘policies of friendship’, but the policies of a velvet and permanent war and state of emergency. This language cannot ‘produce’ free thought, free images – it only produces pits filled with the quicksand of the senseless policies in which we drown. This is a language that determines our existence only in opposition to the ‘enemy’, and not against the background of organic thinking and critical community. Now that we have already been numbed, it is highly unlikely that anyone will be able to claim Hamlet’s famous ‘I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space’ as the complete opposite to the idea of openness of communities, of culture. No one likes the infinite because it demands a sense of responsibility. While the captive spirit avoids responsibility. Within our semi-articulated political systems, the terror of the pseudo-democratic is lobotomizing, zombifying and instrumentalizing us all.
That is why we write our stories on the edges of history. We do not want the life on offer – created in advance. We want to create it ourselves. To surf the edges of our dreams. We tattoo the society, just as it tattoos us. It is a mutual artistic act. The political imagination is an artistic creation. We would like to change, to discover new texts, linking past experiences and visions of future actions. The citizen is an active traveler. And we have to bear in mind that, when the train leaves, it is possible that it will take only a few passengers – only those who have not missed the moment. It is also possible that most of the passengers would actually prefer not to take the train because the station seems more comfortable, more pleasant and more familiar than the journey. We need to care for and articulate our thinking processes through the capillarity of the critically observed society. We do not need a zombified survival. We wish to participate with our own civil and political imagination. Because it is a kind of an artistic creation. What we are trapped in is an aesthetic of disappearance. But nonetheless – we will return.
7 JUNE |
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18:00-18:15
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18:00-18:15
ОТВОРАЊЕ Антjе Контиус, Фондација С. Фишер, за иницијаторите и мрежата ТРАДУКИ Н.Е. Томас Герберих, Амбасадор на Република Германија во Македонија МГ. Ренате Коблер, Конзул на Република Австрија во Македонија |
18:00-18:15
HAPJE Antje Contius, S. Fischer Stiftung/Traduki H.E. Thomas Gerberich, Ambasador i Republikës Gjermane në Maqedoni Mag. Gabriele Janeziç, Konsull, Ambasada e Republikës së Austrisë në Maqedoni |
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18:15-19:15
In between: Art and Culture in Changing Times Artan Sadiku, Robert Alagjozovski, Sreten Ugričić Moderator: Carl Hendrik Fredriksson 19:30-19:45 Talk between Nenad Šebek and Vlatko Stefanovski 19:45-20:30 Musical intervention - a short concert by Vlatko Stefanovski |
18:15-19:15
„Помеѓу: Уметноста и културата во времиња на промена“ Артан Садику, Сретен Угричиќ, Роберт Алаѓозовски Модератор: Карл Хендрих Фредриксон 19:30 - 19:45 Разговор помеѓу Ненад Шебек и Влатко Стефановски 19:45 - 20:30 „Музичка интервенција“– краток концерт на Влатко Стефановски |
18:15-19:15
„Mes: Artit dhe kulturës në kohëra të ndryshueshme” Sreten Ugriçiç, Artan Sadiku, Robert Allagjozoski Moderator: Karl Henkrih Fredrikson 19:30-19:45 Bisedë mes Nenad Shebek dhe Vllatko Stefanovski 19:45-20:30 “Ndërhyrje muzikore” – koncert i shkurtër i Vllatko Stefanovski-t |
8 JUNE |
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First part: Daut Pashin Hammam | Прв дел: Даут Пашин Амам | Pjesa e parë: Hamami i Daut Pashës
10:00 - 11:30
10:00 - 11:30
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„Multiculturalism as a chance“ Ramadan Ramadani, Ivan Dodovski, Cyrill Stieger Moderator: Nenad Šebek |
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“Multikulturalizmi si shans” Ramadan Ramadani, Ivan Dodovski, Kirill Stiger Moderator: Nenad Shebek |
Second part: Museum of Contemporary Art | Втор дел: Музеј на современа уметност | Pjesa e dytë: Muzeu i artit bashkëkohor
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18:00–-19:30
„The Colourful Revolution - Just the Beginning of an Evolutionary Process" Welcome speech: Katrin Tomanek, Cultural foundation Allianz Nebojša Vilić, Mariglen Demiri, Biljana Ginova Moderator: Volker Weichsel 20:00-21:30 „Literary Evening Event“ opening talk between Ernst Osterkamp and Luan Starova, Rumena Bužarovska, Arian Leka, Olivera Kjorveziroska , Marko Pogačar and Nikola Madžirov |
18:00 – 19:30
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18.00 – 19.30
"Revolucioni i Larmë - Fillimi i një Procesi Evolucionar” Fjalimi i mirëpritur: Katrin Tomanek, Allianz Kulturstiftung Nebojša Vilić, Mariglen Demiri, Biljana Ginova Moderator: Volker Weichsel 20:00-21:30 “Mbrëmje letrare” bisedë e shkurtër mes Ernst Osterkamp dhe Luan Starovës – Rumeno Buzharovska, Arian Leka dhe Olivera Qervezirovska, Marko Pogaçar dhe Nikolla Maxhirov. |
9 JUNE |
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10:00-11:30
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10:00-11:30
„За регионалниот контекст “ Десислава Гаврилова, Агрон Туфа, Елизабета Шелева Модератор: Ведран Џихиќ 12:00-13:30 „Кон ЕУ: перспективи или интеграција“ Јоанис Армаколас, Сенада Село Шабиќ, Сашо Орданоски, Беса Арифи Модератор: Мари-Жанин Калик |
10:00-11:30
“Mbi kontekstin rajonal” Desisllava Gavrillova, Agron Tufa, Elziabeta Sheleva Moderator: Vedran Cihiq 12:00-13:30 “Drejt BE-së: perspektiva dhe integrim” Joanis Armakolas, Senada Sela Shabiq, Sasho Ordanoski, Besa Arifi Moderator: Mari-Zhanin Kalik. |
Participants: Nebojsa Vilic, Mariglen Demiri, Robert Alagjozovski, Besa Arifi, Biljana Ginova, Ioannis Armakalas, Rumena Buzarovska, Mari-Janin Kalik, Ivan Dodovski, Vedran Jincic, Karl Henrik Fredrikson, Desislava Gavrilova, Arian Leka, Nikola Madzirov, Sasho Ordanoski, Ernst Osterkamp Marco Pogacar, László Ryc, Artan Sadiku, Elizabeta Šeleva, Vlatko Stefanovski, Luan Starova, Kiril Stiger, Senada Šelo Šabić, Nenad Šebek, Sreten Ugričić, Agron Tufa, Volker Weixel, Olivera Kjorveziroska, Ramadan Ramadani
Учесници: Небојша Вилиќ, Мариглен Демири, Роберт Алаѓозовски, Беса Арифи, Биљана Гинова, Јоанис Армаколас, Румена Бужаровска, Мари-Жанин Калик, Иван Додовски, Ведран Џинчиќ, Карл Хенрик Фредриксон, Десислава Гаврилова, Ариан Лека, Никола Маџиров, Сашо Орданоски, Ернст Остеркамп, Марко Погачар, Ласло Рајк, Артан Садику, Елизабета Шелева, Влатко Стефановски, Луан Старова, Кирил Штигер, Сенада Шело Шабиќ, Ненад Шебек, Сретен Угричиќ, Агрон Туфа, Волкер Ваијксел, Оливера Ќорвезироска, Рамадан Рамадани.
Pjesëmarrësit: Nebojsa Vilic, Mariglen Demiri, Robert Alagjozovski, Besa Arifi, Biljana Ginova, Ioannis Armakalas, Rumena Buzarovska, Mari-Janin Kalik, Ivan Dodovski, Vedran Jincic, Karl Henrik Fredrikson, Desislava Gavrilova, Arian Leka, Nikola Madzirov, Sasho Ordanoski, Ernst Osterkamp Marco Pogacar, László Ryc, Artan Sadiku, Elizabeta Šeleva, Vlatko Stefanovski, Luan Starova, Kiril Stiger, Senada Šelo Šabić, Nenad Šebek, Sreten Ugričić, Agron Tufa, Volker Weixel, Olivera Kjorveziroska, Ramadan Ramadani
The initiators: S. Fischer Stiftung, Allianz Kulturstiftung... for Europe, Deutsche Akademie fur Sprache und Dichtung
In co-operation with: Traduki, Kontrapunkt, 10 years Traduki
In co-operation with: Traduki, Kontrapunkt, 10 years Traduki
