polip, Prishtina, 13 – 15 May 2016
6th edition
LITERATURE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL
How can we speak about the contemporary moment?
Although there is hardly a person on the European continent who can recall a period when there were no crises in Europe, and the citizens of the former Yugoslavia remembering also the horrors of their recent civil war, the refugee crisis over the last six months and the crisis of the European Union – with Grexit, Brexit, fear of a civil war in Poland (Lech Wałęsa has hinted at it recently), as well as questions over Dublin and Schengen agreements – create a painful impression that we are at the moment dealing with a very serious crisis.
Those full of hatred for Western Europe and its values, namely democracy and universal human rights, have started to emerge in abundance; those posing as defenders of Western values, who claim those values need protection from the rise of Islam, have emerged too and are pushing for the expulsion of all foreigners from the Fortress Europe or demanding an army on its borders. The countries of the former Eastern Bloc, which embraced the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall, are now turning their backs on the West and closing their borders because of the arrival of refugees, abandoning all Western democratic values and freedoms along the way. The rise of religion and the power of religious institutions, together with the rise of terrorism that uses religion as justification, are threatening secular society, which is the foundation of all modern states in Europe. Simultaneously, along with intellectuals and artists, many different groups in civic society are being mobilised. Without the work of numerous volunteers, the refugee crisis would have already escalated into an unimaginable catastrophe.
The region of the former Yugoslavia, with its so-called “Balkans refugees’ route“, is in a way a territory of intensive crises, which destabilise the whole of Europe these days. This region is interesting because we can observe here some of the phenomena of contemporary Europe in their most condensed form: the experience of exile and (re)integration of refugees; post-socialist transition; nationalism and populism as levers used by the political elites.
At the same time, the region of the former Yugoslavia is a geo-political sphere where at least two important imperialisms met (the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman Empires). Hence, when we talk about conflicts in the Middle East or crises in the Arab world, we often talk about the consequences of different colonial histories and imperialism, so it would be very interesting to compare existing narratives on these topics. However, whereas critical thinking takes place in the West when the imperialist and colonial past of various Western European states is discussed – even though it doesn’t influence their current policies and policy making – we could raise the question if intellectuals and public figures in Turkey and Russia, for example, are aware and critically orientated towards the imperial past of their own countries. It’s clear that certain patterns are been repeated, as we speak, both in the West and in the East.
On the other hand, in the former Yugoslavia, during its existence and its demise, everyone assumed the position of “victim“, but no one was the “guilty one”. To what extent is it happening again in the crisis zones where the refugees are coming from? And, generally, which esthetical, ethical and political values do refugees bring into the polyphony of European voices? And are we capable of understanding them?
There are no easy answers to complex issues. Therefore maybe art, in all its forms, is the most equipped to respond to the contemporary moment using the power of its expression. Given that every simplification undoubtedly leads to shallowness, which is – on the one hand – exceptionally useful for ideological manipulations, the question is whether literary responses to the crises are possible, and if the literary treatment of serious topics, spared of oversimplification but dealt with the necessary literary means, is possible? And, if it is possible, how likely is it that the literary voice, differentiated and distinct, could be heard and understood today?
