in the previous blog post I wrote about the numerous events we organized in February, namely: art history lectures, workshops at Druga gimnazija, Dom Antona Skale and TOTI DCA; documentary screening, renovation of K18 facade, collaboration with Radio MARŠ, exhibition “Wall(s)” by Gilles Baudry, and, the lecture series focusing on the creation of contemporary USA.
We welcomed March equally busy with workshops at Dom Antona Skale, promotion of ESC at school of design, and presentation at TOTI DCA.
Promotion of ESC at School of Design
Presentation at TOTI DCA
Lecture at Gallery K18
The cycle was the last thing I participated in before the outbreak of coronavirus in Maribor. Now it’s been almost one month since we’re living in semi-isolation, striving to work from home. We have regular online meetings with our colleagues from PMM and with our ESC coordinator, we enrolled in various online courses on https://www.edx.org/ (I highly recommend you to enroll, most, if not all, of the courses are for free), I am also in the midst of my Slovene language course, and for some reason, I find it easier to write, rather than speak in Slovene… With Lucas and Gilles, we re-made our guided tour for the “Festival of Walks” which metamorphosed to the “Festival of Walks from Home”, and now it is an online tour which you are welcome to check out on the Rajzefiber Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/rajzefiberbiro/). At the moment, three of us are organizing webinar on Simone de Beauvoir and her book “The Second Sex” which is going to be held online, next Thursday, April 9, at 7 p. m.
Anyhow, our day-to-day life changed in the past few weeks, for many of us it means that we need to stay at home, and work from home. But that is a privilege. There are many who were already in the perilous situation, and since the spread of the virus, it is even more challenging for them. Think, for example, of the refugees and other migrants, unprotected laborers in factories, medical staff, and precarious workers. The virus is class-blind, but it’s easier to stay safe behind the walls of one’s home, unconcerned with the access to medical supplies or treatment.
Anyhow, our day-to-day life changed in the past few weeks, for many of us it means that we need to stay at home, and work from home. But that is a privilege. There are many who were already in the perilous situation, and since the spread of the virus, it is even more challenging for them. Think, for example, of the refugees and other migrants, unprotected laborers in factories, medical staff, and precarious workers. The virus is class-blind, but it’s easier to stay safe behind the walls of one’s home, unconcerned with the access to medical supplies or treatment.
Therefore, I call you to sign the open letter from the Transbalkan Solidarity Group (https://transbalkanskasolidarnost.home.blog/eng/) which demands urgent action of those in charge, and solidarity from all of us, to deal with the refugees and migrants in Balkans, because, as the title of the letter reads: “No one is safe until All are protected!”.
Another appeal I invite you to sign is of more local character: management of the supermarket chain LIDL in Maribor unjustly fired their employee and president of the LIDL syndicate Tjaša Kozole, in this period when the underpaid grocers are deemed “essential” for the “public good”. You can sign the petition here. Most of management and leadership, in general, deals awkwardly in these new circumstances. I know that there are many collectives and organizations which do well and strive to improve wellbeing of many and I would like to assume that some governments are doing similar.
Here in Slovenia that is hardly the case, namely, a series of disgraceful measures new far-right government introduced are outrageous. I would like to call them unheard of, but unfortunately, they are symptomatic for the Yugosphere and Central-Eastern Europe, at least. For example, in Hungary, the country I lived before coming to Slovenia, Orban and his accomplices used “state of emergency” from 2015 to create mass panic under false pretext in order to capitalize on it. Soon after they barricaded their borders. During the two years I stayed in Budapest I witnessed Orban expel my university and international NGO’s from the country, ostracize homelessness, jeopardize workers and their syndicates, take over academy of sciences and ban research which is not to their liking, encouraged oil company to privatize their oldest university, welcomes neo-Nazis to converge in Budapest for the “Day of Honor” while turning the police on people demonstrating the event… and most recently, Hungarian government seeks to ban legal gender recognition for transgender people.
Amid pandemic, when, instead of focusing on ways to better the living circumstances of the people in Hungary, Orban used the crisis as a pretext to grab unlimited and indefinite power by proclaiming a state of emergency, officially becoming new führer of Hungary.
In order to prevent similar turn of the events here in Slovenia, we should demand change now! Unfortunately, we can’t go on streets, but we can talk and write about it, create, or join many new and creative ways to rebel, such as:
Balcony Protest / Protest z balkonov (https://www.facebook.com/events/2582375822013375/?event_time_id=2582375828680041)
Fridays for Future / Petki za prihodnost - Online (https://www.facebook.com/events/587224615397416/?event_time_id=648029622650248)
or join #mislizbalkona.
✊
Filip
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