2024

The Mouth of the Gods

Usually this blog ends the year with a post looking back over Border Crossings' work across the last twelve months. For us, the main focus of 2024 has been THE MOUTH OF THE GODS, and I do very much want to write a post about that project, which has taught us so much about how our work can evolve to suit its rapidly changing context, within the framework of The Sligo Manifesto. But at the moment it feels as if that post needs to wait, perhaps until we release the film version in the new year. As I look back on the year that is ending, it feels incredibly urgent to talk about the project we concentrated on back in January, and which has kept coming back to remind us of its own significance throughout the year. SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA. We've not yet been able to present the theatre piece, but the film has been shown in Turkey and in Tunisia. What's been happening in Syria itself over the last few weeks makes it feel immediate and necessary. But that's not the only thing.

Back in June, I went to a LIFT event called Democracy From Where I Stand. Unusually for LIFT (less so for us), this wasn't really a performance as such, but a direct engagement by artists and thinkers with the idea of democracy. The accompanying book starts with the assertion that "2024 will be remembered as the year of elections: over half of the global adult population will exercise the right to vote in dozens of states." That much is, of course, undeniable; but the year of elections has done little to ensure the future of "democracy", never mind advance the course of justice. Trump's return to the White House is the most obvious example of an election bringing into power a figure whose stated aims include the overthrow of constitutional structures, but it is far from the only one. Russia re-elected Putin, of course, but there were also surprising lurches towards populism and authoritarianism in Romania, Georgia, even France. In the early summer, the consensus in liberal social media wanted us to believe that India had expressed a powerful reaction against the pernicious rule of the BJP, but the reality is that Narendra Modi won a third term as Prime Minister: other parties were prepared to join his coalition, and his programme shows no sign of reversal. The international observational organisation V-Dem has dubbed the Indian example an "electoral autocracy". Even the UK's election in July, while putting an end to the hegemony of a Tory party that was (and is) drawing ever closer to the global model of populist extremism, was hardly the heralded democratic landslide that Starmer and his team pretended. Labour’s two-thirds majority in Parliament came from just over a third of the vote - the least proportional election result in modern UK history. The 2024 Labour "landslide" actually came from 600,000 fewer votes than the same party had won in its "disastrous defeat" of 2019, under the much maligned Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer sells himself as a competent manager, and there's no doubt that these statistics demonstrate managerial skill in relation to elections. In the UK as in the USA, it's not how many votes you get that matters so much as precisely where you get them. So the way to win elections is not to appeal broadly to the electorate through policy stances that might benefit them as a whole, but to target very specific interest groups through a process of advertisement, particularly online. 

Suppliants of Syria

SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA is based on Aeschylus' great play Suppliants, which includes the first ever use of the word "democracy". It was written at a time when Athens was making its first experiments in this radical form of government, and the Syrian refugee Chorus asks, as the Greek citizens debate their fate, "What is this thing they call democracy?"  Well - one thing the Greeks were absolutely sure about was that democracy was not about elections. We just assume that the two are synonymous, but the Greeks were far wiser than we are. For them, elections were understood not to be part of the democratic government of the people by the people, but to be a manifestation of oligarchy - the rule of the rich. As they well understood, a system of elected government leads to wealthy people retaining power because they have the resources to persuade voters through whatever form of advertisement may suit them. Including the overt bribery recently practised by Elon Musk, who paid out $1 million every day to buy votes for a convicted felon. This immensely dangerous megalomaniac is now contemplating a huge donation to the UK's Reform (which claims to be a political party but is actually a private company), and is wading into the German electoral process on the basis of his "investments" there.

So the lesson of 2024 is not that we need "better elections" but that we need to overhaul the entire system by which we delegate power from a sovereign people. (It doesn't help that in the UK the people aren't currently even held to be sovereign, but that's another issue.) Political office needs to be perceived less in terms of status and power (and certainly less in terms of wealth), much more in terms of responsibility. It needs to be exercised not as a means to appease established supporters and potential voters, but in relation to what is considered most likely to be beneficial to the populace as a whole in the long term. And that "populace" needs to include people beyond the immediate "nation" (whatever that's supposed to be).  So many of the problems we face are global, and so the response must be global also. We need to consider other countries when we consider migration and asylum. We need to consider other cultures when we consider foreign policy. We need to consider other species when we consider the environment. 

This is the point in the argument when "realists" tend to wade in and say that it's never going to happen, so there's no point even trying. To which I reply that, only a few years ago, nobody would have believed that a person like Donald Trump could ever become President, let alone twice. Nobody would have believed India, "the world's largest democracy", would come to be dominated by the fanatics of Hindutva, who are seemingly free to murder critical thinkers, journalists, artists and activists, and to target the Muslim population just as they please. Nobody would have imagined that a genocidal campaign could be waged for more than a year against a helpless people, with the clear backing of the Western "democracies" who supply the weapons with which the oppressor wreaks such havoc. None of this seemed imaginable. None of it was "realistic". So, if these appalling, unimaginable things have come to be, we should and must allow ourselves to imagine the alternatives. That is the only way we can begin to take the practical steps through which this "unrealistic", "unimaginable" opposite of our unthinkable reality can begin to become realistic and imaginable. 

There are two places where the work has to begin. One of them is education, and the other is culture. 

And so, just briefly, I find that I do want to think again about THE MOUTH OF THE GODS. I'm not for one moment pretending that six performances of a baroque opera can change the world, but I do want to point out that this was a cultural and educational work that told a true history, a people's history, of colonisation and dispossession. In the process, it became an act of resistance, and an expression of resilience. It demonstrated all too clearly the economic basis of the global political system. It shared these things with the communities who had worked to make it, including no fewer than seven schools, and it celebrated that educational and cultural action. It was able to share in this way because it was not itself a commodity - nobody paid to see it, and so a new audience came who engaged with this performance in a different, more equal way.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this is our role as cultural workers. We have to imagine the world otherwise, and then offer up that possibility as something to be shared.

Wishing you all the very best for 2025. 

Election Eve

Caught on camera: Noor Alhuda Hajali and Keir Starmer

For anyone who happens to have missed it, tomorrow is Election Day in the UK. It's the culmination of what has been a very predictable and frankly dull campaign, sparked by the Prime Minister's "surprise" announcement six weeks ago: an announcement that seems to have been motivated as much as anything by fatigue. Sunak and the Tories knew that the game was up, and didn't have the energy to carry on. On the radio this morning a Cabinet Minister acknowledged that Labour was about to win a landslide, and in the Telegraph a former Home Secretary fired a starting pistol for the Conservative leadership race that will inevitably follow their defeat. 

"Change" has been Starmer's buzz word throughout the campaign, but it isn't very easy to ascertain precisely what this much-heralded change will actually be. He says he has changed his party, and that much is certainly true. Labour is now a small-c conservative party. Its main priority, he tells us, is the creation of wealth. He has dropped the Green Investment Plan that had seemed to offer some ecological slant to policy. He has back-pedalled on the abolition of University tuition fees. He has also abandoned the entire (Corbynist) manifesto on which he stood to be Labour leader. He has purged the party of dissenting voices, following the example of Boris Johnson's withdrawal of the whip from all Remainer Conservative MPs before the 2019 election. He has supported Israel's genocidal attacks on the Palestinian Territories. He makes "tough" noises about immigration. When asked if he was a socialist, he replied that he was one because he "always puts the country first and party second." I had always thought socialism had something to do with the common ownership of the means of production. So in truth there is remarkably little policy difference between the two main parties in tomorrow's election. Both say they want to "grow the economy" with no acknowledgement of the environmental devastation and global injustice that involves. Both say they will not increase taxes, although at the same time they want to cut NHS waiting lists, recruit more police and more teachers etc.. Both want to "stop the boats". Labour's opposition has not been based on differences in policy but criticism of execution and management. Our "democratic choice" is reduced to whether we prefer corrupt people who line their mates' pockets and turn Downing Street into an illegal drinking den, or a dull and conventional team of management consultants. What they are actually attempting to achieve, however, is identical. And it shows no vision whatsoever.

Of course, in some ways this is reassuring at a moment when politicians who undoubtedly have a vision of sorts, the populist parties of the radical right, are making such headway elsewhere. The European elections were shocking, and the consequences of Emmanuel Macron's petulant response are likely to be even worse. Ireland may also see a snap election, called opportunistically because Sinn Féin has lost popularity over (you've guessed it) immigration. Indian friends have been relieved that Modi and the BJP no longer have an overall majority, but the murderous and deluded messiah of Hindutva remains in power. Never mind what looks almost certain to happen in America in November. 2024 is the year when nearly half the world goes to the polls, but that does not make it a year in which we can celebrate democracy.  It makes it the moment when we have to question if we even have democracy at all.

Anyone visiting us from 5th century Athens would have no doubt on that score. We do not have democracy, we have elections; and elections, the Athenians believed, are the antithesis of democracy. They are oligarchic, or aristocratic. A wealthy "political class" parades itself before the public to be elected, but that public has no real power or participation. In Aeschylus's Suppliants, which offers the frame for our current project SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA, the Chorus of refugees makes the first recorded reference to democracy. As the citizens decide whether to admit them, they ask "What is this thing they call democracy?" Within the play, and within Athenian society, it is a process of debate between the citizenry that leads to a jointly agreed policy decision. An humane decision, as it happens. This approach to democracy was genuinely participatory, as well as being intimately linked to theatre, the space where the different arguments could be rehearsed prior to decision-making processes.

It isn't possible simply to reproduce Athenian democracy today, but it is certainly possible to learn from it, and to modify our own tired and broken system accordingly. The Athenian citizenry numbered about 30 to 40,000 - a body that excluded women, children, slaves and foreigners, so they weren't actually "the people" in any egalitarian way. We can be more inclusive, and still work with similar, manageable numbers, which means that on a local level it is possible to reach sound and informed decisions on the basis of full participation. That in turn can allow for more nuanced forms of representation, whereby power is delegated to representatives at national and international assemblies. 

In the coming years, we want to explore this model of civic engagement in our theatrical spaces, recognising the urgent need for democratic regeneration. SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA represents the beginning of this investigation, and will involve a process of exchange between very different people present at the performance, in the context of listening to the voices of others. Given the context of the current elections, it is only right that our first experiment with this approach to theatre engages with the question of migration. Allowing the voices of the refugees themselves into the theatrical space at once overturns the inanities about "smashing the smugglers' business model". If the politicians really wanted to "stop the boats", then they could just allow the refugees to get on planes. We need to change the culture so that it stops being about short-term personal gain and becomes about what is actually just and equitable. This the antithesis of the soundbite, the refutation of easy sloganeering and reductive advertisement. Who knows - it may even help us start to develop a vision for the world we might want to leave to our children.

*

I had better include a disclaimer on this post, though the fact that I have to do this is in itself is evidence of the very problem we are trying to address. When the election was called, for the first time ever, the Charity Commission emailed registered charities (including Border Crossings) to remind them of their "responsibilities when campaigning or engaging in political activity."  They were clear that "Charities have the legal right to campaign so long as doing so furthers the charity’s purposes and is in the best interests of the charity. Charities must also remain independent and must not give their support to a political party." I believe this blog post fits these legal criteria. 

Developing SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA - Guest post by Liam Rees

In the workshop room for SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA

For four weeks, director Michael Walling and three actors (Richard Adetunji, Vlad Gurdis and John Rogers) have been exploring response to The Suppliants by Aeschylus, in which the suppliant women flee forced marriage and seek asylum in Greece, but are met by a seemingly endless debate about the correct course of action. I'd been interested in Border Crossings' approach to devising for some time, and was delighted to join them for a week, acting as a dramaturgical outside eye. Here are some observations from the process.

“Democracy is a conversation.” We can agree on that, can’t we?

The oldest written record of the word “democracy” is in The Suppliants by Aeschylus, and this rehearsal room is obsessed with the idea of democracy. As one actor explains, it comes from the Greek ‘demos’ meaning people, and ‘kratos’ meaning power. So the power of the people. But how is that power expressed? In theatre, it’s through our voice, and there’s a constant back and forth of disagreements, compared experiences, and conflicting perspectives in the room. There’s a cacophony of voices in the rehearsal room: the actors, the director, Aeschylus, and the real life suppliants, a group of Syrian women seeking asylum in Turkey. Like Aeschylus, their words and voices have been recorded and interpreted but they can’t be in the room with us. There will always be some gap in our understanding…

“The worst thing that’s ever happened to you is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”

Each day in rehearsals is different but always centres around trying to understand the plight of the suppliant women. One day is spent exploring the classical text via mask work. It unlocks a more mythic aspect to the text, less reliant on a personal or psychological connection. In a way the mask protects the actor from any traumatic material. The next day we watch interviews with the Syrian women and everything is all too real. We dig into our own experiences and our own points of connection with the suppliants of Syria. There’s no mask to hide behind. These aren’t characters we’re playing. We’re five men trying to make sense of men at war and male violence against women. At one point we ask if we should have more women in the room; but is that then forcing them to take on more emotional labour? Surely men need to take responsibility for sorting the issues they cause? It’s “not all men” but it is almost always a man. There’s no simple answer and at the end of every day we take care to check in with each other and not take the heavy, personal, messy questions home with us. But the questions never go away throughout the process. Michael shares anecdotes about visiting Turkey and the ethical issues inherent in documenting and interviewing asylum seekers. Is this exploitation or genuine dialogue? Does paying them for their time turn suffering into a commodity to be consumed? Is there any “good” way to tell their story?

“It’s great that we’re having this conversation.”

Every day brings new questions and every new question leads to rewrites and reinterpretations of the source material. There’s Aeschylus’ original text, the interviews, and a meta-commentary performed by the actors as fictionalised versions of themselves.  At times it can feel overwhelming. Are there too many questions that we can’t answer? In the heat of one discussion we’re forced to ask what the point of this project is? Are we simply going in circles? If it’s impossible to understand someone else’s experience then what is the point in trying? Is this conversation actually intended to result in action? Or is it a distraction? A means for us to absolve ourselves of feelings of guilt?

There’s a repeated phrase in one section: It’s great that we’re having this conversation. 

Because silence doesn’t feel like an option.

Everything about this show invites disagreement.

For now, there’s still time for the cast and crew to decide what this show should be.

But that conversation can't go on forever, can it?

Liam Rees is a director who specialises in developing new work and new writing. He has a particular interest in international collaboration and enjoys making theatre that uses digital tech to put the internet onstage and facilitate more international conversations. 

Brexit and Democracy - A Reply to François Matarasso

Dear François

Thank you for taking the trouble to respond to my questions on Twitter in such depth and with such care.  We are, of course, in agreement on most of the key issues.  Like you, I am sure that the referendum was an appalling idea, and that the key to Parliamentary democracy is that complex questions have to be settled through complex processes of legislation - informed, nuanced processes - not reduced to a simple binary.  Like you, I find the persistence of the outmoded "First past the post" system absurd.  Like you, I am inclined to believe that the best chance of survival now is in the People's Vote campaign, although (like you) I do not feel that this second use of the referendum tool stands any chance of healing the wounds opened by the first, even if it does manage to halt the march over the cliff edge.  I would also be deeply concerned that such a Vote would confirm the creeping doctrine that a referendum is the highest form of democracy, trumping Parliamentary statute, rather than being subject to Parliamentary sovereignty.

Last week, my local MP wrote to her constituents about the People's Vote.  Her name is Joan Ryan, and she is a Labour MP, though significantly to the right of the current leader.  She asked us to return a form, in which we were asked to tick one of three boxes:

• Yes, there should be a public vote on the final Brexit deal, just in case.
• No, there shouldn't be a public vote and we should just get on with it, whether it's good or bad.
• It's an interesting idea.  I'd like to know more about it.

"I'd like to know more about it."  Now, there's an argument for Parliamentary sovereignty rather than plebiscite if ever there was one....

Aside of the disingenuous language, this "voter consultation", or market research, is in effect a mini-referendum on a referendum.  It suggests to me that the root of this whole crisis is in the focus-group approach to democracy that was pioneered by Tony Blair: the idea that policy is just another consumer product, and that in order to "sell" it, you must first find out whether it appeals.  Cameron's appeal to "the people" as a ploy to outflank UKIP in the competition for "market share" was a logical continuation of this. But policy is not a consumer product, and representatives are not delegates.  Joan Ryan's attempt to muster some statistics on public opinion to back the People's Vote smacks of desperation - surely the democratic thing would be to argue in Parliament that such a vote is inherently desirable?

You say that the most compelling point I made on Twitter related to the illegal actions of the Leave campaign, but that "electoral law is quite often broken but that rarely leads to results being overturned".  That is true - but it isn't an argument against overturning the result in this case.  Only today, Tom Watson has called for a "Mueller-style investigation" into possible Russian interference in the referendum. Carole Cadwalladr's reporting on the manipulation of data by Leave has made it clear that this was a deeply anti-democratic campaign, indeed a corrupt and criminal campaign, and that it shared its principal actors with the Trump election campaign, which has this last week been proven criminal.  At the very least, this would seem to make a cast-iron case for the suspension of the Article 50 process pending a proper investigation into whether the basis on which Brexit is being conducted has any validity at all.

You referred to something you wrote in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result - and I find myself doing the same.  This dates from July 5th 2016, and I stand by it today.  The key points about democracy are towards the end of the piece.  In particular, I want to emphasise again the importance to democratic processes of considering significant minorities and their needs.  The Northern Irish dimension, which was completely ignored by both sides in the campaign, is now the biggest obstacle to a "deal" (another commercial term contaminating democratic political discourse).  Is it really "democratic" to force the province to lose the integration with the Republic that has brought peace to the island of Ireland, when the citizens of the province decisively voted against such a decision?

I agree with pretty much everything you say, François; but I can't go with you to the conclusion that "As a democrat, I have to accept Brexit, despite misgivings".  For me, as a democrat, I simply cannot accept it.

your friend
Michael

PS  I've matched your Fountains Abbey with Glastonbury.  Both casualties of a previous occasion when England decided to cut off ties from the continent.

"Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."