Answering every totality

Andrea Lexová sewed the burkas for our festival live shows in Boston and New York. We wanted to perform in the streets there. In Boston it was supposed to have been a sort of triptych encompassing the downtown area, Kendal and Harvard Squares. I wanted to deliver a paragon of Afghanistan to Americans but they didn’t give us the permission to perform in the streets blaming 9/11. Eventually we ended up improvising in a warehouse but the local sound guy wrecked it. In New York we wanted to play in Times Square but they also prevented us from doing so.

Subconscioussly, burkas embody Islam’s growing influence in Europe as well as its moral maturity in contrast to the European „civilisation“ mess and ingorance. I really like Andrea’s burkas and I feel good in them. Aside from America, I also performed in them in Hradec Králové, Prague, Ostrava, Olomouc, Jablonec nad Nisou and Brno.

Wherein rests that moral maturity in your opinion?

I probably understand it ingenuously but from having talked to various Muslims, it became apparent that there’s no way they’d accept the Western civilisation model with its underlying pseudo-culture, emphasis on porn, promiscuity, loss of values and so forth. They defend themselves through liberal anarchy and are adamant about the rootedness in tradition, which is most apparent in their contemporary architecture. They consider Al-Kaida and other para-military groups an indispensable defense mechanism, as partisans or guerilla fighters. The emphasis on morality is eminent not only in Koran but also in day-to-day Arab life. I would omit all those horrific practices like stoning and whipping of women, which educated Muslims try to distance themselves from. I think that unless there’ll be a miracle, the value-deficient Europe will adopt certain elements of Islam and adapt them to its conditions. But these are only mere speculations and reality might be completely different.

Do your current opinions stem from the dismissal of the underground in 1970s and the admiration of the contemporary Left? What were your expectations from it?

The Left behind the Iron Curtain was represented by the official parties who would attend Brezhnev’s lavish ceremonies during Mayday celebrations in Moscow.  This kind of Left didn’t interest me at all – it was an office establishment. I was interested in radicals because apart from criticizing capitalism alongside numerous predictions of its development, they despised all bureaucratic models of the so-called Eastern European socialism accusing it of deception and rigidity.

Even though they often utilized the East German Stasi for identity swaps and relegation into the background, they weren’t fond of Stalinists or the East German mainstream. At the same time – especially in Germany and Italy – through their practices they accused their avant garde artists of impotence and dependence on official structures and prostituting themselves – which is the case in the arts here right now. They were somehow inconvenient and dangerous to the system as well as to the majority of the art scene there. I have a problem with interpretations of their opinions here that show total ignorance and a lack of critical thinking. And anyway, the traditional concept of the revolting youth has been replaced by the anomaly of young career-minded right-wing idiots.

The seventies radical Left was a consequence of the violent suppression of the sixties pacifist euphoria. Hippies and other alternative groups didn’t suit political and economic bosses. They dismantled parts of it from the inside through their agents, the rest was suppressed violently. People from West German communes would say: OK, you don’t want peace, you’ll get war then. And they got it.

The period we’re talking about was marked by full-on Normalization here. The underground was no alternative for you?

Czech underground at that time was mostly happening in music, a few people wrote and painted. Whereas German, Italian or American underground would go out in the streets anticipating confrontation, the Czech one was relegated to pubs. This didn’t appeal to me. I read different books and had different beliefs. You could get hold of the translations of Herbert Marcuse, Theodor W. Adorno, Erich Fromm and other philosophers and sociologists here, but also translations and statements of RAF and other groups.

They stood for direct action, while the Prague underground championed passive resistance. Bolshevism was stupid because it suppressed music. If it hadn’t done so, it wouldn’t have had to face the growing opposition, or have it so soon.  Upper political echelons have always been occupied by idiots, which is still the case. While progressive art had been blossoming in the West, here it faced many impediments. Here time stood still and today it's happening again but in light-blue.

The thing that bothered me about the Prague underground was its Catholicism. I grappled between all sorts of things but I didn’t want to get stuck in any dogmas. This was largely caused by my reluctance to adapt and respect the hierarchy of its protagonists because I don’t accept any hierarchy. A hierarchy excludes freedom and stinks of elitism. A much more diverse and free underground could be found outside of Prague – in Karlovy Vary, Olomouc, Teplice or Brno. Subsequently it merged into one universal cultural and frontline mass and lost its urgency. I think that by entering dissent, the underground stopped being underground, even though everyone asserts the opposite. Freedom cannot be organized and it isn’t hierarchical. Even though it’s risky and often suicidal, it remains very simple, unambitious and humble.

By Svatava Antošová

Published in the literary bi-weekly magazine Tvar no. 16/2010

Photographed by Adéla Vosičková (Komunistická strana Vatikánu je tu pro vás!, The Vatican Communist Party is here for you! Performance in front of the Chapel of St. Cross in Prague on Na Příkopě Street as part of 2010 Next Wave festival.)

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