Faki 22: Inequality

Every year, with even regularity, I say "never again". And every year, I swear that’s true. And every time, the next year, somehow, I find myself back for another Faki Festival in Zagreb.

This year (the 5th for me) will be a little different from the normal – I am joined by Lithuania’s superstar critic Monika Jašinskaitė, and we will publish edited versions of dialogues every day of the festival. These will replace my normal review/diatribe format. Dialogues should probably be more popular than they are as a way to write criticism – I know for me, I’ve never pretended my view is authoritative, there is always a (visible or invisible) counterpoint. We hope to bring useful, provocative discussion to these pages over the next days.

Faki 22 takes the theme of ‘Inequality’ – a theme that, whilst it dominates people’s material wealth and life circumstances, rarely gets attention corresponding to its defining position. The reason why is up for debate. Too hard? Too negative? Too much chance that it might have a real effect on something? Take your pick. It’s a holding pattern that creates one of the paradoxes of our contemporary situation in developed countries, that as things get even more precarious, leadership creating the precarity grows in strength.

The view of the neighbouring Westin Hotel, from the courtyard of the former medical factory Medika - host of Faki Festival 22.

The big recent exception was, of course, the Occupy and related movements of 2011-12, where inequality came to the forefront of public discourse, and certain inalienable truths – like 26 humans holding over 50% of the world’s wealth – began to become widespread. Off the back of this, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2012) presented, not for the first time but perhaps in the right moment, the argument that inequality was reaching a point where it was becoming the major hurdle to the continuity of capitalism itself. Together with accumulated pressures, inequality, and our collective inability to address it, likely pushes us into territory where extreme choices must be made.

My reading preparation for the festival has naturally included that most esteemed egalitarian Ayn Rand, who spits out statements like “The best way to help the poor is not to be one of them” – the kind of thing that breeds self-loathing among those who for whatever reason do not reap the benefits of a system stacked overwhelmingly against them. Inequality thrives on thinking like Rand’s, which takes individual responsibility to its logical endpoint, celebrating the loneliness and despair of competition and the removal of solidarity between people. This is particularly pronounced in the countries of the former Eastern Europe, where the rewards of capitalism are proving continually too strong for old ways of life and structures - leaving many out of the profit, and turning to nationalism for answers. 

The shows from the festival are almost all negative portrayals of the theme, with many coming from former Eastern European states (in all of their diversity). There is an especially large Serbian contingent, with three separate shows exploring stereotypes and inequalities under capitalism. From Finland, Anni Taskula and Marje Hirvonen will present a more ironic take on the theme, in a celebration of inequality, whilst Hungarian theatre group Cloudwalkers Motion Theatre will examine universality through an exploration of differences between its cast members, who all have disabilities. The performance from Iran, by the grou Jirjirak, promises to offer something completely different – and is perhaps the only performance speaking directly about gender inequality (which is not directly a part of the theme - which focuses on economic or class inequality - but is anyway welcomed).  

So as the smoke from cigarettes and vegan cooking curls in the air, blends into a single cloud and floods through my furiously typing fingers, I strap myself in for another (and last!!!!!) festival of mayhem and bliss, in equal proportions.