Syndicate: report fragment 1 from Stockholm

[Tapio Makela <tapio@projekt.net>]

Dear Syndicated,

I am writing this brief and partial report from Stockholm, "The Shaking
Hands & Making Conflicts" event; Andreas and others will continue. The
event itself was very problematic, but I think it will prove to be very
useful for thinking about  the future of Syndicate... and how to react to
neo-nationalist appropriations of specific cultural initiatives. (wow, that
languages sounds like a strategy of war almost).

Most of the event felt like a national performance of Sweden´s role in the
post Cold War Baltic-Belarus-Ukraine as the generous uncle Dala. (Replace
Uncle Sam with Uncle Dala, Dala as Dala horse, the national symbol for
Swedish traditional culture). Istead of having had interesting thoughts in
the main program, it was about shaking rhetorics.

To put it simply: looking at the surface, the event was a stage for old
fashioned politics and politicians to present rhetorics of change without
any concrete notions of what they mean by "power needs culture", or
"democracy", "diversity" etc. Whenever they would be caught of their
transparent and clumsy reasoning, they would say, like the Swedish Minister
of Culture, Marita Ulvskog that they said so to provocate, to make
conflict. She used a quote from Machiavelli to reason cultural diversity...
which was promptly criticized by Igor Markoviz.

A receipe: use democracy, to claim there exists a homogenous we, and
encourage coflict to create a ready place for dissent, a place which is not
discussed, but to which the dissent is dumped, sealed and packaged as a
medal that the politicians can wear on them as signs of "tolerance".

Backstage of the event is perhaps, not foremost cultural, as it is
economical, and political. Sweden wants to launch Partnership in Culture in
the Baltic region, Belarus and Ukraine. The event was to promote "freedom
of expression, cultural diversity, democracy and common security in the
Baltic region..." Why this combination of countries, this combination of
goals? Does this event have anything to do with the fact that these
countries are former Soviet areas that used to be "within the missile
range"? Or with the fact that Swedish companies, especially telecom
companies, are trying to gain big shares of markets in these countries? And
it is a proven fact that social and cultural work paves way for favourable
decisions in other fields?

This critique does not mean that setting up programs that support cultural
initiatives that rise from local needs and ideas, or collaboration across
borders would not be a high priority. THAT was what I thought this event
would promote. The "audience" or the "guests"... me included, were
wittnesses of this play,our names in the list of participants signs of our
assumed agreement with the given agenda. This event will be one point in
the curriculum vitae of the Swedish Nation.

After WW II, United States launched a program called Marshall plan, which
was to establish economical, educational and cultural activity into those
areas that were "insecure" or under communist influence. USIS (United
States Information Service) centers in Sofia, Helsinki are examples, as
well as the Fullbright programs (which btw have been decreased in areas
that are these days concerned stable). My question would be, whether this
kind of thinking is the basis for the Swedish Partnership of Culture? The
other Nordic Countries (Finland, Denmark, Norway, [Iceland less]) have
similar economical and political intrests in the Baltic region. On the
other hand... this is most likely recognized in the Baltic region, and
perhaps it is a good moment to utilize the willingness of the Nordic
countries to invest into cultural sector as well.

Partnership for culture is like a Dala plan for culture, and at the same
time a Troyan horse, a Dala horse, where a cultural carrier is not innocent
but bears in its belly the geopolitical and economical interests of Sweden.
Also Internet, the "IT" acts as such a Troyan horse. The organisers of the
conference are making the assumption that the Baltic region needs "A
mailing list for intellectuals". Either they imagine that there are only a
few people that qualify, or then they do not know anything of mailing
lists, how they are formed, and how they can become useless... But, I don´t
want to say that their initiative should not be reacted to also in a
positive way, Ando and Sirje from Tallinn are crafting a conference as a
follow up; and I think you can set different terms for the interaction.

Igor was the best vocal critic and commentator during the event, and I look
forward to reading his views of the event. We witnessed terribly badly
formulated speeches by the Swedish politicians, an institutional self
praise by David Elliott from the Moderna Museet Stockholm, badly prepared
sentences by the  *former* *curator* of Documenta Catherind David, ...
(Igor, others, please continue from here...) and in mind a dictatorial
moderation by a Swedish Journalist Mika Larsson. (btw, if she will work on
the future events in this series, I won´t even want to get further e-mails
about them!).

It was not only Larsson´s way of suppressing voices and differences of
opinion, but the way the event was staged that got to me. I felt that it
lacked respect for the visitors from Belarus and Ukraine and the Baltic
countries: if they were the matter to discuss, why then they were not the
center of the stage? In this, Fargfabriken bears responsibility for the
curator discourse, and for the perhaps too over produced tv talk show style
of the event. In order to establish a dialogic space, the first condition
is to respect the partners in this dialogue as equals, as subjects with
their own voice, and to provide the space to express it. I felt this was
deeply lacking and being so, the event cannot be a starting point for
forming a network based on trust or criss-crossing shared interests.

My fingers & wrists are in a poor shape for writing... and I need to take
care of Polar circuit applications (which have been really nice - thanks
everyone who has sent one!), so I end my reporting here... The main entry
point to understand Syndicate´s role in the Stockholm event can be read
from the manifesto that Andreas drafted based on the proposals of the whole
family present in Stockholm. Melentie performed this text in action with
brilliant style (he should be avarded with a viking helmet for carrying the
role so well). It gives several proposals for any country that wants to
reach cultural supremacy in the region of the Baltic-Belarus-Ukraine. The
text is in the next mail, and I hope that other Stockholm visitors will
take up from here and I will rest my case, or simply, fingers.

Thanks to syndicating during the weekend (meeting so many of you again!) it
was worth it. I had a great chat with Lisa Haskel yesterday, which will
result in some ideas about the list... that might be fruitful. But - -
later alligators.

best greetings,



Tapio

postscripts:
- is not PCP a toxic material? (related to the next e-mail)
- I hope Fargfabriken could post an edited transscript of the talk that
Martha Rosler gave, I wish the rest of the speeches had been as interesting
as hers.
- This text is also rhetorical... and not really a starting point for much
further constructive discourse; rather a reply to a rhetoric.

Tapio Mäkelä
writer, critic, researcher, producer, X
Projektnet Ab Senior Project Manager <tapio@projekt.net>
projektnet www: http://www.projekt.net
running the server: http://muu.autono.net.
Address: Lapinrinne 4 D 30, 00180 Helsinki, Finland
gsm +358-(0)40-5071965
fax +358-(0)10-2905004 (1 page at a time to my e-mail)



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