The Name of the Rose
To create a collective author under the name Rose Hammer is something we thought of because we did want to go against the inertia of individual artistic authorship, CV, photo, style, expectations…
The name Rose Hammer partly stems from the curious change in iconography among European socialist and social democratic parties in the years following 1968. From what we can tell, the Parti Socialiste in France was the first left wing group to adopt the rose as a symbol with its well-known “fist and rose” emblem designed in 1969. Shortly thereafter the rose was more or less universally embraced as the visual identity of socialism, at the expense of more “militant” imagery of labor struggle like hammers, torches, three arrows etc. Thus, the rose and the hammer encapsulate both the triumph and the subsequent failures of the socialist project in Europe. Besides it is a versatile and rather international name, as the words are the same in English, German and several Scandinavian languages.
Rose Hammer is an exercise in working together, by employing tools from the workers’ theater movement of the 1920s and ’30s such as the speech choir. There will surely be conflicts along the way, and our attempts may fail miserably (as tends to be the case with these types of idealistic undertakings). But if our predecessors were able to speak in unison and rally around a common cause, why can’t we succeed in doing the same? While some of us have played a bigger role in the initial stages of this project, it is our hope that Rose Hammer will grow into a flat-structure unit where everyone’s voice carries the same weight. As such Rose Hammer is also an experiment in relinquishing individual ownership. By joining Rose Hammer, every member will receive an equal part of the credit (or blame) for the works of art produced by the collective.
Rose Hammer is the author of the work: a collective persona made of a variable group of individuals. The name “Rose Hammer” may, though not exclusively, refer to a) the hammer inscribed on Henrik Ibsen’s grave monument in Oslo b) the former emblem of the Norwegian labour movement c) the famous quote attributed to Brecht “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” d) the rose symbol (see above). So, we are socialists, we are agit prop, we are Brechtians, we go for the dialectical, didactic, and collective turn. We go for formal experimentation meeting radicalism in thought.
Our group is now between 15 and 20 persons, transgenerational, and while some of us continue research on the events at Grini, the group is busy building itself as a group: exercises, songs, camaraderie, working on a webpage that allow us to control the information about us. There are a lot of challenges in group authorship – many members need and are looking for leadership, it is hard to distribute tasks without sounding authoritarian, decisions go slower. One can say: we are aware of the difficulties of group dynamics, we observe a mood that is both nostalgic and end-time, and unavoidably, everyone is turning to what each does best: and so a labour division is beginning.
The Grini Compromise
National Episodes is something slightly different from a Biennial project: it wants to be a place of conversation about history and stories, narratives and narrative. Our idea originates in an analysis made of the novel The Plague by Camus, and the corresponding opera by Roberto Gerhard. From that, a narrative structure was deduced, a narrative structure that could potentially be applied to a different historical, social, political situations and events – different as they were, they could be told using an identical narrative structure. And from that, the idea came that such a narrative/ dramaturgical structure could be applied to some key events of Norwegian history. So came the idea of National Episodes: to write and perform a series of short theatrical pieces, that would, in the Brechtian Lehrstücke tradition, speak to a wide audience about some key, pivotal moments of the history of Norway. The idea of course is not to go for some epic treatment, but rather on the contrary, to construct these pivotal moments, again following traditions such as Brecht and even Genet, through very domestic, indoor scenes, easy to play and stage.
We will construct our first episode from an anecdote told by Johan Galtung on a radio show. Galtung mentions Griniforliket (“The Grini compromise”), a meeting between WWII POW representatives of the Labour party and the conservative party, that allegedly took place in barrack number 12 in the spring of 1945, at the Grini detention camp. Here, shortly before the German capitulation, the political future of Norway was mapped out.
We have conducted an interview with the aforementioned Johan Galtung, an expert on Norwegian cold-war history, whose father August was interned in the Grini prison camp during WWII. He is the source behind the story of the informal meetings that took place at Grini the spring of 1945. Galtung emphasizes the spirit of collaboration among the prisoners who, sharing the same fate and facing a common enemy, were able to make friendships across class divides. He claims that Socialists and Conservatives struck a deal where the left would agree to a westward orientation in the field of foreign policy, rather than strengthening ties with the Soviet Union (it’s worth noting that the Norwegian Labour Party had been a member of the Communist International until 1924, and that at the time Grini meetings were held, the Red Army had just liberated the northern part of Norway). In return for this concession, the Conservatives pledged not to block the implementation of the Norwegian welfare state. As a result, Norway accepted US aid via the Marshall Plan, joined NATO in 1949 and has been in the American sphere of influence ever since. On the other hand, the compromise at Grini gave the country free education and health care, powerful labour unions and heavy taxation of the wealthy. When North Sea oil – the source of Norway’s current riches – was discovered in 1969 (with the help of American companies), the oil industry was quickly nationalized so the proceeds would benefit all of the country’s citizens.
The Grini compromise is a fascinating story of how personal relationships between a small number of individuals had far-reaching consequences for the nation of Norway, well worthy of a theatrical adaptation. But what are we to make of it exactly? Is it a happy tale of consensus-building and fraternity (in stark contrast to the polarized climate of today), or a dark story of political horsetrading and selling out of ideals? Was the Grini compromise Norway’s salvation from Soviet totalitarianism, or the early infection of an American-style individualism that is slowly eating away at the nation’s soul? Norway is one of the world’s most equal countries, but one of Europe’s toughest on immigration. How do we reconcile this contradiction?
History behind Closed Doors
Camus’s The Plague (written during WWII and published in 1947) and The Grini Compromise are contemporaneous. We are working at identifying pivotal moments of the history of Norway which shaped what Norway is today, taking into account practicalities such as that Rose Hammer is made of about fifteen amateur dramaturges and actors and that our resources are limited; that we must stay flexible and light in order to present our productions anywhere with very short preparations. We are aiming at huis clos productions, feasible, flexible, cheap, and efficient. Next to that, an important element of all this is that we believe we are at the end of the world order that was built after WWII, built on the legitimacy given by the defeat of Fascism, “built over millions of corpses”, as the Commune Eins in Berlin used to say. This is over now; and Fascism is showing shamelessly its ugly face again. We try to understand the kind of world we are heading to, by re-analysing the classics that shaped our vision of the world, so post WWII, so post 68.
I hope Rose Hammer can create a space for thinking about the history and possible futures of Norwegian social democracy. As a nation, Norway has experienced an extraordinary rise in living standards within a relatively short period of time. Our generation, born into prosperity and equality, are in many ways the “spoiled brats” of the welfare state, oblivious to the struggles that laid the foundation of this model less than a century ago. As artists we enjoy free education and grant schemes that – at least in theory – makes it possible for anyone to pursue an artistic vocation, regardless of economical background. Many of these systems of support came into being as a result of unionized efforts, such as Kunstneraksjonen-74 (the Artists’ Action of 1974). Norwegian artists still reap the benefits of the victories won by the activism of that time. However, there is little gratitude to be found, neither in the art field nor in society at large, and there is little interest in exploring modes of collectivity. In the national political debate, “socialist” is increasingly used as a derogatory term, and attacks on “Cultural Marxism” are becoming more and more frequent.
Avant-Garde Folklore
In organizing the collective we have taken some cues from the labour movements’ amateur theater groups of the interwar years. The so-called Tramgjenger/”TRAM-gangs” originated in the Soviet Union and became widespread in Norway in the 1930s (TRAM being an acronym for Teatr Rabotschej Molodjoshi or “The Workers’ Youth Theater”). The TRAM-gangs were viewed as a vital tool in election campaigns and educational outreach at that time. These amateur ensembles were championed for their mobility and versatility of repertoire, ranging from singing and sketches to speech- and movement choirs. With simple means and limited props the TRAM-gangs (described in the handbook as “combat groups”) could perform just as easily on a sidewalk as on a stage.
Needless to say, there are obvious pitfalls in leaning so heavily on dated formats such as 1930s agitprop. We may easily end up romanticizing a past that has little to do with the current social and political conditions. On the other hand, I think it’s worthwhile to reconnect with the folklore of Socialism in order to gain a better understanding of our own recent history. Or to put it differently: to get a feel for the chains our grandparents’ generation were able to shed, in a time when new, less tangible shackles are being forged through temp-work, disruptive technologies, rising inequality and an unraveling of the social safety net. Perhaps these collective measures can strengthen our own defenses against the mechanisms that aim to isolate the individual from its fellow human beings.
Communal singing is as old as mankind, found in every culture, on every continent. It is a defining feature of our species for one very good reason: It brings people closer together. Allegedly, scientists studying choirs have discovered that within minutes of singing, the heartbeats of all the participants synchronize. It’s fair to assume that the secular song rituals of the workers’ movement (in particular the speech choir) were modeled after Christian liturgy, and that the rituals served to fill the void that was left after God was pronounced dead and the position of the Church was weakened. But choral singing also embodies a collective spirit that is very much in line with a Socialist ethos. At its best, the choir can function as an equalizer, making space for a multitude of voices, and doing away with the notion of the “Star”. Everyone’s contribution is the same, and everyone shares the same emotional reward. A good mixed choir is a unifying force, welcoming of all genders, ages and ethnicities, and thus a potential antidote to the toxic individualism that has reigned unchecked for the past few decades.
I’ll be the first to admit that this is all very dreamy and utopian. Can our “guerrilla troupe” be an efficient political weapon in the age of Trumpist social media? Probably not. But as the ghost of nationalism is once again rearing its ugly head in Europe, reviving the anti-fascist theater of the past is a small first step towards overcoming our own paralysis. As artists we can’t do much more than flap our butterfly wings and hope for the best. It’s not like Brecht’s plays and poems were much of an obstacle to the tanks rolling into Poland in 1939 either…
So yes, we fit into the pattern of what we were discussing about an increasing interest among artists in “the training camp as a form.” In my view, the exercise in thinking, acting and speaking together with one voice is of equal importance to whatever work we end up producing. At the very least, perhaps we can develop some survival skills while making our feeble contribution to the cultural resistance effort. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for everyone involved, and who knows, maybe some seeds will be planted among the participants that can grow into fruition in the future, even long after Rose Hammer has ceased to exist.
Pleasure among the Eternal Returns of the Worse
I hear Don Fabrizio Corbera say: “Everything must change so that everything can stay the same”. But even if we seem to live in a Groundhog Day, I fear things are spiraling to the worse. But it is a good experiment and I cannot help thinking that we are building a classical structure to survive, a training camp for the Apocalypse, only we are more occupied in building (or recognising) the imaginary of this Apocalypse than in any really effective way of survival. I always have very present the subtitle of “Dr Strangelove”: How I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb. We are both apocalyptic and integrated.
You could say that we want to become a secret society that is aiming not only at surviving, but at surviving while we smile. In Fahrenheit 451, people did not read books because they wanted to bring down the totalitarian system – they read them first and foremost for the pleasure to read. Pleasure, if anything, will bring down the system. We are working for pleasure. The pleasure to be together, the pleasure to appeal to those authors we love, the comfort of poetry, the pleasure of constructing a solid, believable, well structured, formally coherent, self-assured, beautiful, performance. That is our job, not to turn Fascists into Communists and not to propose an alternative to neoliberalism. We should bear always in mind that we are aiming first and foremost for a well-built form, for a form of intelligent poetry – the rest will come by itself, or not.
The Future Is Unwritten
In attempting to imagine a future that is better and brighter, I sense that the runaway train of economic growth is (to mix metaphors) the elephant in the room. Of course, any political project worth its salt should aim to secure a dignified existence for all, work against exploitation and guarantee food, shelter and other basic necessities. But in 2019 as standards of living are improving in many of the world’s “developing countries”, it’s painfully clear that the frenzied consumerism we have embraced in the West is not sustainable on a global level. Holding on to our own lavish way of life while denying others the same privileges is of course criminally unjust. To me it seems like we have no valid moral alternative other than to drastically cut back on our own consumption.
Besides, is fighting for the right of the middle-class to carry on the shopping spree really what we should be doing? Trump branded himself as the savior of American workers, promising that under his leadership they’d all get “rich”. Shouldn’t we instead be asking ourselves how everyone – and especially the Trumps of the world – can be content with having less? It goes without saying that a voluntary “austerity program” will never succeed as long as the top 1% keeps lining their pockets at the expense of the vast majority. No one would or should accept lower wages or less job security if the only effects of these measures—as is often the case today—is increased economic inequality. The sacrifices must be made willingly and be duly compensated for not in monetary value but in other, less quantifiable types of rewards.
I want to say that today’s youth – at least in Europe, in Brussels, in Spain – is actually very politically active and concerned and they demonstrate every Friday right now. They already know they will never be rich, so why bother. They are more afraid of being dead than of being poor. They are applying strategies of survival and they are profoundly anti fascists. Perhaps they are not in the majority, but we were not in the majority 20-30 years ago either.
The Name of the Rose
To create a collective author under the name Rose Hammer is something we thought of because we did want to go against the inertia of individual artistic authorship, CV, photo, style, expectations…
The name Rose Hammer partly stems from the curious change in iconography among European socialist and social democratic parties in the years following 1968. From what we can tell, the Parti Socialiste in France was the first left wing group to adopt the rose as a symbol with its well-known “fist and rose” emblem designed in 1969. Shortly thereafter the rose was more or less universally embraced as the visual identity of socialism, at the expense of more “militant” imagery of labor struggle like hammers, torches, three arrows etc. Thus, the rose and the hammer encapsulate both the triumph and the subsequent failures of the socialist project in Europe. Besides it is a versatile and rather international name, as the words are the same in English, German and several Scandinavian languages.
Rose Hammer is an exercise in working together, by employing tools from the workers’ theater movement of the 1920s and ’30s such as the speech choir. There will surely be conflicts along the way, and our attempts may fail miserably (as tends to be the case with these types of idealistic undertakings). But if our predecessors were able to speak in unison and rally around a common cause, why can’t we succeed in doing the same? While some of us have played a bigger role in the initial stages of this project, it is our hope that Rose Hammer will grow into a flat-structure unit where everyone’s voice carries the same weight. As such Rose Hammer is also an experiment in relinquishing individual ownership. By joining Rose Hammer, every member will receive an equal part of the credit (or blame) for the works of art produced by the collective.
Rose Hammer is the author of the work: a collective persona made of a variable group of individuals. The name “Rose Hammer” may, though not exclusively, refer to a) the hammer inscribed on Henrik Ibsen’s grave monument in Oslo b) the former emblem of the Norwegian labour movement c) the famous quote attributed to Brecht “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” d) the rose symbol (see above). So, we are socialists, we are agit prop, we are Brechtians, we go for the dialectical, didactic, and collective turn. We go for formal experimentation meeting radicalism in thought.
Our group is now between 15 and 20 persons, transgenerational, and while some of us continue research on the events at Grini, the group is busy building itself as a group: exercises, songs, camaraderie, working on a webpage that allow us to control the information about us. There are a lot of challenges in group authorship – many members need and are looking for leadership, it is hard to distribute tasks without sounding authoritarian, decisions go slower. One can say: we are aware of the difficulties of group dynamics, we observe a mood that is both nostalgic and end-time, and unavoidably, everyone is turning to what each does best: and so a labour division is beginning.
The Grini Compromise
National Episodes is something slightly different from a Biennial project: it wants to be a place of conversation about history and stories, narratives and narrative. Our idea originates in an analysis made of the novel The Plague by Camus, and the corresponding opera by Roberto Gerhard. From that, a narrative structure was deduced, a narrative structure that could potentially be applied to a different historical, social, political situations and events – different as they were, they could be told using an identical narrative structure. And from that, the idea came that such a narrative/ dramaturgical structure could be applied to some key events of Norwegian history. So came the idea of National Episodes: to write and perform a series of short theatrical pieces, that would, in the Brechtian Lehrstücke tradition, speak to a wide audience about some key, pivotal moments of the history of Norway. The idea of course is not to go for some epic treatment, but rather on the contrary, to construct these pivotal moments, again following traditions such as Brecht and even Genet, through very domestic, indoor scenes, easy to play and stage.
We will construct our first episode from an anecdote told by Johan Galtung on a radio show. Galtung mentions Griniforliket (“The Grini compromise”), a meeting between WWII POW representatives of the Labour party and the conservative party, that allegedly took place in barrack number 12 in the spring of 1945, at the Grini detention camp. Here, shortly before the German capitulation, the political future of Norway was mapped out.
We have conducted an interview with the aforementioned Johan Galtung, an expert on Norwegian cold-war history, whose father August was interned in the Grini prison camp during WWII. He is the source behind the story of the informal meetings that took place at Grini the spring of 1945. Galtung emphasizes the spirit of collaboration among the prisoners who, sharing the same fate and facing a common enemy, were able to make friendships across class divides. He claims that Socialists and Conservatives struck a deal where the left would agree to a westward orientation in the field of foreign policy, rather than strengthening ties with the Soviet Union (it’s worth noting that the Norwegian Labour Party had been a member of the Communist International until 1924, and that at the time Grini meetings were held, the Red Army had just liberated the northern part of Norway). In return for this concession, the Conservatives pledged not to block the implementation of the Norwegian welfare state. As a result, Norway accepted US aid via the Marshall Plan, joined NATO in 1949 and has been in the American sphere of influence ever since. On the other hand, the compromise at Grini gave the country free education and health care, powerful labour unions and heavy taxation of the wealthy. When North Sea oil – the source of Norway’s current riches – was discovered in 1969 (with the help of American companies), the oil industry was quickly nationalized so the proceeds would benefit all of the country’s citizens.
The Grini compromise is a fascinating story of how personal relationships between a small number of individuals had far-reaching consequences for the nation of Norway, well worthy of a theatrical adaptation. But what are we to make of it exactly? Is it a happy tale of consensus-building and fraternity (in stark contrast to the polarized climate of today), or a dark story of political horsetrading and selling out of ideals? Was the Grini compromise Norway’s salvation from Soviet totalitarianism, or the early infection of an American-style individualism that is slowly eating away at the nation’s soul? Norway is one of the world’s most equal countries, but one of Europe’s toughest on immigration. How do we reconcile this contradiction?
History behind Closed Doors
Camus’s The Plague (written during WWII and published in 1947) and The Grini Compromise are contemporaneous. We are working at identifying pivotal moments of the history of Norway which shaped what Norway is today, taking into account practicalities such as that Rose Hammer is made of about fifteen amateur dramaturges and actors and that our resources are limited; that we must stay flexible and light in order to present our productions anywhere with very short preparations. We are aiming at huis clos productions, feasible, flexible, cheap, and efficient. Next to that, an important element of all this is that we believe we are at the end of the world order that was built after WWII, built on the legitimacy given by the defeat of Fascism, “built over millions of corpses”, as the Commune Eins in Berlin used to say. This is over now; and Fascism is showing shamelessly its ugly face again. We try to understand the kind of world we are heading to, by re-analysing the classics that shaped our vision of the world, so post WWII, so post 68.
I hope Rose Hammer can create a space for thinking about the history and possible futures of Norwegian social democracy. As a nation, Norway has experienced an extraordinary rise in living standards within a relatively short period of time. Our generation, born into prosperity and equality, are in many ways the “spoiled brats” of the welfare state, oblivious to the struggles that laid the foundation of this model less than a century ago. As artists we enjoy free education and grant schemes that – at least in theory – makes it possible for anyone to pursue an artistic vocation, regardless of economical background. Many of these systems of support came into being as a result of unionized efforts, such as Kunstneraksjonen-74 (the Artists’ Action of 1974). Norwegian artists still reap the benefits of the victories won by the activism of that time. However, there is little gratitude to be found, neither in the art field nor in society at large, and there is little interest in exploring modes of collectivity. In the national political debate, “socialist” is increasingly used as a derogatory term, and attacks on “Cultural Marxism” are becoming more and more frequent.
Avant-Garde Folklore
In organizing the collective we have taken some cues from the labour movements’ amateur theater groups of the interwar years. The so-called Tramgjenger/”TRAM-gangs” originated in the Soviet Union and became widespread in Norway in the 1930s (TRAM being an acronym for Teatr Rabotschej Molodjoshi or “The Workers’ Youth Theater”). The TRAM-gangs were viewed as a vital tool in election campaigns and educational outreach at that time. These amateur ensembles were championed for their mobility and versatility of repertoire, ranging from singing and sketches to speech- and movement choirs. With simple means and limited props the TRAM-gangs (described in the handbook as “combat groups”) could perform just as easily on a sidewalk as on a stage.
Needless to say, there are obvious pitfalls in leaning so heavily on dated formats such as 1930s agitprop. We may easily end up romanticizing a past that has little to do with the current social and political conditions. On the other hand, I think it’s worthwhile to reconnect with the folklore of Socialism in order to gain a better understanding of our own recent history. Or to put it differently: to get a feel for the chains our grandparents’ generation were able to shed, in a time when new, less tangible shackles are being forged through temp-work, disruptive technologies, rising inequality and an unraveling of the social safety net. Perhaps these collective measures can strengthen our own defenses against the mechanisms that aim to isolate the individual from its fellow human beings.
Communal singing is as old as mankind, found in every culture, on every continent. It is a defining feature of our species for one very good reason: It brings people closer together. Allegedly, scientists studying choirs have discovered that within minutes of singing, the heartbeats of all the participants synchronize. It’s fair to assume that the secular song rituals of the workers’ movement (in particular the speech choir) were modeled after Christian liturgy, and that the rituals served to fill the void that was left after God was pronounced dead and the position of the Church was weakened. But choral singing also embodies a collective spirit that is very much in line with a Socialist ethos. At its best, the choir can function as an equalizer, making space for a multitude of voices, and doing away with the notion of the “Star”. Everyone’s contribution is the same, and everyone shares the same emotional reward. A good mixed choir is a unifying force, welcoming of all genders, ages and ethnicities, and thus a potential antidote to the toxic individualism that has reigned unchecked for the past few decades.
I’ll be the first to admit that this is all very dreamy and utopian. Can our “guerrilla troupe” be an efficient political weapon in the age of Trumpist social media? Probably not. But as the ghost of nationalism is once again rearing its ugly head in Europe, reviving the anti-fascist theater of the past is a small first step towards overcoming our own paralysis. As artists we can’t do much more than flap our butterfly wings and hope for the best. It’s not like Brecht’s plays and poems were much of an obstacle to the tanks rolling into Poland in 1939 either…
So yes, we fit into the pattern of what we were discussing about an increasing interest among artists in “the training camp as a form.” In my view, the exercise in thinking, acting and speaking together with one voice is of equal importance to whatever work we end up producing. At the very least, perhaps we can develop some survival skills while making our feeble contribution to the cultural resistance effort. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for everyone involved, and who knows, maybe some seeds will be planted among the participants that can grow into fruition in the future, even long after Rose Hammer has ceased to exist.
Pleasure among the Eternal Returns of the Worse
I hear Don Fabrizio Corbera say: “Everything must change so that everything can stay the same”. But even if we seem to live in a Groundhog Day, I fear things are spiraling to the worse. But it is a good experiment and I cannot help thinking that we are building a classical structure to survive, a training camp for the Apocalypse, only we are more occupied in building (or recognising) the imaginary of this Apocalypse than in any really effective way of survival. I always have very present the subtitle of “Dr Strangelove”: How I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb. We are both apocalyptic and integrated.
You could say that we want to become a secret society that is aiming not only at surviving, but at surviving while we smile. In Fahrenheit 451, people did not read books because they wanted to bring down the totalitarian system – they read them first and foremost for the pleasure to read. Pleasure, if anything, will bring down the system. We are working for pleasure. The pleasure to be together, the pleasure to appeal to those authors we love, the comfort of poetry, the pleasure of constructing a solid, believable, well structured, formally coherent, self-assured, beautiful, performance. That is our job, not to turn Fascists into Communists and not to propose an alternative to neoliberalism. We should bear always in mind that we are aiming first and foremost for a well-built form, for a form of intelligent poetry – the rest will come by itself, or not.
The Future Is Unwritten
In attempting to imagine a future that is better and brighter, I sense that the runaway train of economic growth is (to mix metaphors) the elephant in the room. Of course, any political project worth its salt should aim to secure a dignified existence for all, work against exploitation and guarantee food, shelter and other basic necessities. But in 2019 as standards of living are improving in many of the world’s “developing countries”, it’s painfully clear that the frenzied consumerism we have embraced in the West is not sustainable on a global level. Holding on to our own lavish way of life while denying others the same privileges is of course criminally unjust. To me it seems like we have no valid moral alternative other than to drastically cut back on our own consumption.
Besides, is fighting for the right of the middle-class to carry on the shopping spree really what we should be doing? Trump branded himself as the savior of American workers, promising that under his leadership they’d all get “rich”. Shouldn’t we instead be asking ourselves how everyone – and especially the Trumps of the world – can be content with having less? It goes without saying that a voluntary “austerity program” will never succeed as long as the top 1% keeps lining their pockets at the expense of the vast majority. No one would or should accept lower wages or less job security if the only effects of these measures—as is often the case today—is increased economic inequality. The sacrifices must be made willingly and be duly compensated for not in monetary value but in other, less quantifiable types of rewards.
I want to say that today’s youth – at least in Europe, in Brussels, in Spain – is actually very politically active and concerned and they demonstrate every Friday right now. They already know they will never be rich, so why bother. They are more afraid of being dead than of being poor. They are applying strategies of survival and they are profoundly anti fascists. Perhaps they are not in the majority, but we were not in the majority 20-30 years ago either.
Rose Hammer 