Panel IV: Change

Photo: Peter Župník

In a session chaired by Hungarian journalist Esther Babarczy, Zygmunt Bauman, Leonidas Donskis, Juraj Buzalka, Aitor Tinoco i Girona and Peter Pomerantsev discussed the causes and effects of the worldwide street protests of the past two years as well as  the impact of technology  and economy on politics.

Esther Babarczy. Photo: Peter Župník

Anglo-Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman opened the discussion by looking back at the revolutionary movements of his youth, when people had different views on what was to be done but never felt the need to discuss who would do it since the faith in the nation state remained unshakeable until the late 1960s early 1970s, when the state “suddenly no longer seemed able to deliver on its promises. This was followed by a 30-year consumerist orgy introduced by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, instructed by Hayek and his invisible hand of the market, in which we spent not only money we didn’t have but also money our grandchildren didn’t have.” The collapse of the banking system in 2007 has brought about a new wave of protest but unlike all previous crises, when we believed there was an alternative, we now feel hopeless. “The question of what is to be done now plays second fiddle – the key question is who will do it.  The previous union of power and politics at the level of the nation state is not there anymore, much of it has evaporated into cyberspace, beyond the control of states. However, politics remains local, limited by the boundaries of nation states.”  Zygmunt Bauman sees the current mass rallies as a symptom of a desperate search of means of solving the problem. While these movements have proved to be a very effective means of getting rid of the old (e.g. in Libya and Egypt) they have yet to furnish proof of their ability to build a future. “Yes, they can clear the building site but can they build something new?”

Zygmunt Bauman. Photo: Peter Župník

Lithuanian philosopher and Euro-MP Leonidas Donskis recalled the post-Soviet euphoria in the Baltic states, in particular the 70-kilometre human chain linking Vilnius and Tallinn. It was a time when people passionately believed in the state but the past twenty years of “accelerated history and changes have brought about an acceleration of frustration and disappointments.” Many Lithuanians have become disenchanted in their state although “in fact, no state can respond adequately and throughout Eastern Europe there is no alternative vision”. Leonidas Donskis believes we have reached the end of the age of utopias: once a utopia is implemented it becomes an ideology.  “Now we don’t live in a utopia but in a world of resentment, a strange time when responsibility has become a rare commodity.” Lithuania is no longer a territorial nation since so many people live abroad; this calls for new approaches: “we have to be adequate globally and plausible locally, which is very difficult to reconcile.”

Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis. Photo: Peter Župník

“We are not against the system, it’s the system that is against us”, said Spanish activist Aitor Tinoco i Girona introducing his country’s protest movement, which started in 2011 and arose from the dire economic situation, with 53% youth unemployment and 22% general unemployment. His movement, Real Democracy NOW! has three main mottos: the radicalization of democracy, cutting across issues and generation; the refusal to be goods in the hands of politicians and markets and the fight against the kidnapping of democracy by the Troika;  and reclaiming the streets, creating a new imagery of body politic.  “The utopia of representation is dead. We represent a new way of thinking and doing politics.”

Aitor Tinoco i Girona. Photo: Peter Župník

Russian-British journalist Peter Pomerantsev described the struggle of the Russian opposition to reframe their protests in the strange situation of a “post-modern dictatorship that does not allow them to act using usual opposition strategies”. As a case study, he introduced Putin’s chief ideologue Vladislav Surkov, who “owns all ideologies instead of suppressing them – wherever you want to stand or oppose him he is already there, owning the space and the language”.  Russian opposition responded by making politics more concrete and focusing on tiny issues, i.e. specific roads or forests threatened by developers, and by introducing the concept of public space that had not existed in Russia before.

Peter Pomerantsev. Photo: Peter Župník

Slovak social anthropologist Juraj Buzalka outlined the relationship between the markets and social protests and quoted Martin M. Šimečka’s essay introducing Central European Forum, in which he said that “the essence of this world is located outside political regimes”.  He pointed out that, as Stephen Gudeman has said, our everyday life had never before been so profoundly penetrated by the markets and we have willy-nilly adapted to the penetration of market principles.

Juraj Buzalka. Photo: Peter Župník

The discussion then moved on to the impact of the protest movement. Aitor Tinoco i Girona sees the change of political culture and enhanced participation thanks to the Internet and social media as the movement’s greatest achievement. “The Internet is a common space and its open character is important since by overcoming fragmentation and atomization it facilitates the emergence of a net consciousness.”  However, Zygmunt Bauman pointed out that all social movements fall into the trap of institutionalization, which saps their power, and Leonidas Donskis suggested that social movements may be segments of future political parties. He praised international human rights organizations as more effective than national governments.  Juraj Buzalka commented on the adequacy of institutions in a world where the nation state has changed profoundly and Peter Pomerantsev bemoaned the fact that his generation suffered from the belief that all change was necessarily good. “Luckily, Russia is exhausted with the word change – there is a healthy skepticism toward change and Russia is growing out of revolution.” The opposition has only become effective after a distinct change of consciousness – they have succeeded in reframing the discourse, which a huge shift that has pushed Putin’s regime into a corner.

Zygmunt Bauman characterized our present-date situation as that one of “ignorance (we are unable to assess the future), impotence (we are unable to do anything about it) and a resulting humiliation.” Paraphrasing Sigmund Freud’s adage that all civilization is a trade-off between security and freedom, he noted that in the past too much freedom had been sacrificed for the sake of security, whereas today the pendulum has swung to the other extreme: “We have surrendered too much of our security for an unprecedented degree of freedom”. Although we are starting to feel kind of a freedom fatigue, people are not yet ready to sacrifice freedom for more tranquility.”