Interview for Lab for culture by Marko Stamenkovic, regarding the project 'Victim’s Symptom', by Ana Peraica

NEITHER VICTIMS NOR HEROES, BUT SURVIVORS: Interview with Jonas Staal

Marko Stamenkovic:
Jonas, you are most known for your series ‘The Geert Wilders works 2005-2007’ (2005-2007). This started with a series of public ‘memorial works’ of Dutch Populist politician Geert Wilders, and ended up in a series of trials, in which you were prosecuted for ‘threatening a Dutch member of parliament with death’. The notes and files resulting from these trials were recently published as the most recent chapter of the project, in which you approached the trials as a ‘public debate’ or ‘happening’ (still to be finished with a last (?) trial in 2008). What is the whole fuss about this project (if you could explain it to an ignorant spectator coming out of the Dutch scene), and – more specifically – how do you see the role of memorials in that context?

Jonas Staal:
To explain the reception of ‘The Geert Wilders works’ it is important to be familiar with some key figures in what I call the ‘Dutch Populist movement’. Populism, as a political strategy, was actively introduced by politician Pim Fortuyn in 2001, when he participated in local elections in Rotterdam with his party ‘Leefbaar Rotterdam’ (translated as: ‘Liveable’ or ‘Endurable’ Rotterdam), and national elections, with the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (translated as: List Pim Fortuyn). He won the local elections, but was shot by an animal rights activist before the national elections took place (after his death, his party still won 26 out of 150 seats in parliament). Fortuyn made use of a heavily ‘sentimental’, ‘personalized’ politics: his personal history was basically more known than his political points of view, except for his strong ‘right-wing’ position towards immigration. The discussion on immigration had been a taboo in The Netherlands for decades, due to a strong sense of ‘Colonial guilt’ and the Holocaust trauma. Fortuyn was one of the first – succesful - politicians, who pleaded for an immigration stop for so called ‘profiteurs’: immigrants who come to The Netherlands for ‘purely’ economic reasons.

Also, the re-implementation of secularism, the clear separation of church and state, was one of his spear points, pointing out that muslim minorities were often living in excessively isolated and ‘ghetto-like’ conditions, not acknowledging fundamental ‘western values’, such as women and gay rights. Once the taboo on publicly criticizing immigration and the Islamic religion in The Netherlands was removed, new figures arose after Fortuyn’s death, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and, at the moment most notoriously, Geert Wilders. Wilders used to be part of the liberal-conservative VVD, but started his own party in 2004 and obtained 9 seats in parliament during the 2006 elections, a represenation of more than half a million Dutch voters. Wilders fights what he calls the ‘Islamisation of society’ to a much larger extent than Fortuyn. Similar to Fortuyn, the media form one of his main instruments. The media have spread his view on immigration and the Islam, for which he is continuously threatened with death, and he requires constant protection wherever he goes. This ‘public martyrdom’, has gained him much support, for he literally has ‘sacrificed’ himself to represent the ‘average man’s’ vote. In that sense, even though he strongly opposes ‘radical Islam’, he himself is a radicalist pur sang.

In the Geert Wilders works I have drawn a direct relation between the ‘public street memorials’ that were known to emerge after the death of publicly known figures, such as Pim Fortuyn and murdered film maker Theo van Gogh, and victims of car accidents and the like, and the cult that has developed around populist politicians in The Netherlands. I refer to these memorial works as a phenomenon that traces back to Catholic rituals with clear elements concerned with ‘death’. At the same time, they are a ‘celebration’ of the pop-status that certain politicians in The Netherlands have obtained.

It was this analysis that generated a fierce reaction in the public opinion: basically I acknowledged the fact that the taboo of publicly speculating on the potential death of politicians like Wilders has dissapeared. I also pointed out the untouchable and irrational (sentimental) cult status that individuals like him have gained.

Wilders, who felt threatened by the works, rapported this to the police, which lead to my temporary imprisonment, and three trials, from which the last one was publicly accessible. My conviction is that these trials can only take place because of the same cult that I have emphasized with my memorial series. This forced me to present, document and integrate the trials as a fundamental part of my work. By sending out invitations to invite people to be present during the trial, I labelled the event as a ‘public debate’, in which my defense existed of my artist’s statement, in which I publicly claimed the trial as a work from my hand.

MS:
In one of our last conversations in Amsterdam, you showed interest in the aspects of recent history of former Yugoslavia which generated a problematic context to distinguish the ‘assassinator’ from the ‘victim’ and the incapacity of international media, politics and general public opinion to make a clear point on this situation. Our conversation touched on the internationally much criticized ceremony in 2006 in which the soldiers of Dutchbat III received medals from former minister of Defence Kamp (VVD), for having functioned ‘up to their capabilities’ in Srebrenica and afterwards had been ‘affected by a negative perception in the public opinion’.................................................................................................. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article661062.ece).
How do you personally relate to this issue?

JS:
The ceremony has been playing a central role in my attempts to approach Serbia as a context to develop a series of works in cooperation with you, in which I want to break through the status quo that surrounds Dutch art and politics, desperately holding on to a fiction of ‘neutrality’. The Dutchbat III debacle resulted from the incapacity of the Dutch army to properly act to a direct threat, in this case coming form Mladić’s army. The Netherlands were only present there as a ‘peace keeping force’, somehow only carrying weapons ‘in case something would happen’. This is very typical for my country which, as another example, did initially not practically participate in the Iraq war, but did give ‘political support’ during the invasion.

Of course, neutrality, passivity, is a choice as well that demands as much responsibility as a concrete act of war, though this is not acknowledged as such. I think exactly the same problem is appropriate to describe the Dutch art scene: it is this strong will to keep ‘our hands clean’, to not have les mains sales. As if it would be possible to be ‘politically involved’, to take a critical position within society, without having to truly commit to a subject, and therefore inevitably be affected by it.

Just as our army and politics does, disturbing tactics are used to a continuous ‘denial the obvious’ within the Dutch art scene. Within the margins of the arts, one is allowed to reflect on populism, but not to be populistic; one is allowed to dream about a possible Utopia, but it is not allowed to realize it; one is allowed to do proposals for a memorial for Iraq, but it is not allowed to actually make it. Within these margins one is allowed to speak out, but prohibited from actually committing to a subject. To be short: my interpretation of the Dutch art scene is one in which everything is done to keep up a myth of a de-politicized country, in which the greatest taboo is to actually penetrate the real, that is to say: to actually affect the structure and use of the public domain.

I see the military insignia ceremony performed by Kamp as being representative for the political (un)consiousness of the Dutch and their incapacity to seek true commitment and responsibility when entering in international conflicts. Basically, it was an insignia given to the soldiers ‘for being human, and having acted as such’: having done everything to survive. In this respect, each and everyone in ex-Yugoslavia should have received the same medal, for they are all survivors.

It is impossible to determine which group or organisation or ethnic population of ex-Yugoslavia was ‘right’, was standing on the ‘good side’. Bosnians, Serbs, Albanians, all having represented different religions, Catholic, Orthodox Christianity, Islam, etcetera: it is impossible for an outsider (and probably for an ‘insider’ too) to define who was ‘right’. At the end, the only thing that can be said is that the actors within the history of ex-Yugoslavia all have ‘survived’. They were and still are humans, and have behaved as such (to refer again to my interpretation of the insignia ceremony). I think that in that respect, the Dutch government, now that they have given these insignias to the Dutchbat III soldiers, should hand out medals to every citizen or former citizen of ex-Yugoslavia as well.

MS:
In that regard, you seem to be specifically focused on the idea of the 'shared/collective guilt' and this could be seen as a main point of your approach to the aforementioned subject. Could you please elaborate this further?

JS:
I think that the collective guilt, in respect to the Srebrenica mass murder, is representative for both countries: for Serbia as being an active victim and assasinator, and for The Netherlands, having employed the myth of neutrality once again as a weapon, with heavy consequences. For me as an artist, it has become more and more important to accept and allow the fact that in respect to the subject matter that I am involved with, it is not possible to get away ‘clean’, ‘unharmed’. My impression is that in so-called socio-politically involved art the exact opposite is actually the case. I want to permanently break the myth that any form of engagement can take place as a sort of ‘neutral’, ’formal’ gesture, leaving all involved unharmed. I demand of art that it penetrates some form of ‘reality’; that it accepts and demands actual consequences. It is for this reason that ‘The Geert Wilders works’ trials were of such importance for me: it forms my most fundamental statement in respect to the role of art within society’s framework. ‘Engagement’ is not just one of the many things that you can ‘do’: it is inherent to the practice of art in the way that I commit myself to it. Approaching the collective guilt between The Netherlands and Serbia is in this respect a statement at forehand, demanding full- and head on confrontation from my side, to be able to generate meaningful projects in relation to both countries’ histories.

MS: If we talk about 'survivors', what do you actually mean? Is it a position that goes beyond common dualisms between 'heroes' and 'victims', or what?

JS: I think that the term ‘survivor’, in respect to ex-Yugoslavia, acknowledges the fact that no one involved in it’s past conflicts or wars can be labelled to be the ‘assasinator’ or ‘victim’: all were involved, and in the end: all can be only survivors.

MS: The last thing: is it possible to detect and diagnose, within the contemporary Dutch society, any signs in everyday life that puts them in a position of those who suffer from a ‘victim’s symptom’? If yes, what are the reasons for such a conclusion? Does it also have to do with ‘disrespectful and ungrateful’ migrant-communities who were allowed to move and start living on the Dutch territory or…?

JS: Before I can answer this, you’ll have to explain to me what it is exactly that you interpret as the ‘victim’s symptom’: what is it that you see as the ‘symptomatic’ aspect in the position of an individual who is victimized?