How cultural projects can help to create an alternative life-world

Any kind of civic engagement – be it in democratic or non-democratic countries – primarily deals with questions and problems of political culture. Politics, and the role authorities play in it, dominates the picture in authoritarian systems, of course; nevertheless activists should never forget that it is (usually) society which develops a certain type of government.

It is important to understand that freedom can have very different meanings for people. Activists are political animals who want to reach freedom by politics. People who belong to the mainstream of a society more or less try to reach freedom from politics in order to live their life. Therefore activist should rather focus on changing social procedures and communication than try to enter the realm of the political. They cannot win in open battle anyway.

Culture, in contrast to political opposition, can already create in an nutshell the more civilized practice and sophisticated forms of human exchange it envisages for the future of society as a whole. In politics you may lose a battle, but you certainly have to win the war; in culture you may even lose the war and still decisively reshape the social environment, which will some time later bring about the change you are craving for so much. For people in marginal regions of Europe - like Serbia and Kosova or Belarus, with whom I have recently worked with - it is therefore important reap the fruits of cultural exchange in order to facilitate the development of civil society. See the full article on point.e.