Dear Minority,

You know, don’t you, that the majority of the theatrical profession (theatre managers, directors, actors and other theatre workers) – hereafter referred to as the Majority – disagree with the fact that you politicise?

The Majority feels that things are still going well, indeed, that things are going really well only now they can see your sufferings. Countless offended and vindictive people rub their hands with satisfaction when they hear your support will be taken away, your company dissolved, and you fired. They make bets in advance about where you’ll go begging for work and how you will finally accept their game rules. They can’t wait to finally and joyfully acknowledge: the pendulum has swung toward us now; this is our world now. According to the Majority, no more unlimited freedom, no more ungodliness and unnational feelings.

There are also members of the Majority who are not supporters of the current system, who recognise professional and moral problems, but still hope that ‘Judah’s money’ will be given to them for their silence. Whether they belong to municipal theatres or independent theatres, they are, in my eyes, the most contemptible in our profession; theirs is the ninth circle of Dante’s hell.

Although you tried to live up to some expectations, you adapted here and there, somehow nothing was enough. It was no surprise finally they found you too, though somehow that’s not what you expected, you thought there was some common sense and fairness left in the system. You thought they didn’t dare do it, you weren’t important enough to have your nose rubbed in the carpet, to be taught a lesson. You were wrong! Not for the first time and maybe not for the last.

So far you have not politicised, you have not spoken, you have kept your mouth shut. You considered that simply getting through was the most appropriate and wise solution. This is what you learned and this is what you handed on: loose lips sink ships; silence is golden, and so on. It was more comfortable and safer to move with the Majority or just to sit someplace warm. (Where it stinks, it’s warm – you get what you pay for.)

You didn’t say anything when the thick, offended leader of the Majority, Attila Vidnyánszky, rewrote the Performing Arts Law. You didn’t say anything because it was so good to hear that this great and big man, guardian angel of the oppressed Hungarian people, was acting in the interests of the theatre companies, and since you were a member of an ensemble, you were glad they could not chase you away, you were not forced to leave your beloved home, you were not forced to change. It’s true that this new law, which Attila and his dear lawyer friend Zsigmond Kriza made up in a few days, practically abolished democratic decision-making and classified independent theatres – i.e. the non-municipal theatres, those who have no normative support but represent an internationally recognized art – to the Kafkaesque OTHER category and, therefore, condemned them to death.

You didn’t say anything because you were not directly offended, and anyway, you don’t like to chew on theoretical problems, you don’t like to argue or to think together. You didn’t want to bother with the serious message hidden behind the words, which no-one formulated more simply than Ferenc Molnár: einstand¹! (see: Translator's notes)

Your social response threshold was not reached even, dear professional Minority, when committees of the central force field were formed, when interest representative organisations were re-shaped, and Attila Vidnyánszky’s fellows and supporters suddenly emerged, came out from nowhere; those who we had never heard of, but who finally could get their reward. You did not rise from your chair when the ‘noble gentleman’ appointed himself as supreme president, rector, and director of theatre. You didn’t mind this practice, which was inconsistent with any democratic rule, because you were not directly concerned, and you were never really interested in questions of principle. You never defined for yourself what democracy meant. You were convinced that art, your art was the most important for you, and that is why you never attacked the system that provided you with possibility for free creation. You accepted whoever or whatever left you in peace, you didn't want to interfere in someone else’s case. That’s why you didn’t say anything when the boss, as he promised, suppressed the independent theatre scene slowly and meticulously, like squeezing out a purulent pimple. They accused theatre workshops and individuals of ideological deviation; they cut subsidies on purely ideological grounds (without any professional justification); they manipulated grant application results; they helped into leadership positions people who couldn’t have written a letter by themselves, not to mention an entire application.

You didn’t say anything when not normatively-supported institutions, those who were slowly losing their state grants, had to say goodbye to their TAO² (see: Translator's notes) support. You were able to strike a deal, your situation was sorted out, and thus the interestedness that could have provoked you to speak disappeared.

That’s exactly how you didn’t say anything when someone finally dared to say aloud that some people let themselves get away with too much, and their behaviour is immoral: someone dared speak about sexual and power harassment! You protected not the victim but yourself! You feared only that fewer people would buy tickets if the truth came out. You let them badmouth those who dared speak out until they left.

You, dear professional Minority, you remained silent, utterly silent, and even resented when others politicised, protested, barked, created confusion!

“Why are you looking for trouble? Well, you brought it upon yourself!” – you said and smiled wisely, and you were getting as far away as possible from those who defended democracy, culture, freedom on your behalf too. You remained silent, you didn’t move, saying your home was the theatre, the wonderful world of the stage, you didn’t want to publicly quarrel since you despised the press and the social media. You didn’t consider it important to raise your voice when God as supreme warlord was introduced into the Constitution, and when they simply wiped out of it the state’s obligation to help those who live on the streets. You also remained silent when church grants were linked to loyalty and they punished those who lived in a truly Christian spirit, when they murdered the free press, when they incited against refugees fleeing wars, when they criminalized homelessness, when they abolished academic freedom. You didn’t say anything when they razed Hungary’s first organic farm, Kishantos, to the ground—driving mad and chasing to death all those wanted to create balance between humanity and nature. Instead, you installed a few recycled waste collectors. You didn’t say anything when orphans, physically and mentally disabled were deported from their familiar residences. You didn’t say anything when hundreds of people were evicted.

You did not say anything because you were not the victim, the abused, the oppressed, the humiliated one. You didn’t say anything because you were not compassionate, you didn’t feel solidarity, you were not determined and courageous in the protection of culture, democracy, community.

You know, it’s not enough to talk about solidarity when you need help. Solidarity is something we need to practice at all times. Even, indeed especially, when it is not ourselves who need help but someone who is not our colleague or our friend, some stranger, someone very different from us. Someone who is in trouble when we are not driven to act by any personal involvement or interest, but at most the pricks of our conscience.

Everything that has happened to us in recent years is primarily a cultural issue, a matter of our culture. What would culture be other than how a community works, how a nation behaves, how authority communicates with those who have none? When people’s relationships are strained by hate, contempt, exclusion, corruption, theft, the practice of misleading them; the betrayal of the weak, orphans and those in need; the total disregard for the rights of those earning their living with their own sweat and blood; the discrediting of those who take risk for others; the destruction of communities, glorification of falseness, placing uncouth ignorance into the curriculum; the caricaturing of morals, idolizing barbaric conceptions, and so on and so forth—then you cannot say that the collapse of culture began with the need to abolish Your theatre. You cannot say that culture is in danger right now, except if you admit that culture has been in danger all along, but you forgot to speak about it.

It is extremely important that you are finally leaving artificial illumination for real light, and joining those who have fought for you so far, only you didn’t want to recognize it until now. Happily, you finally understand that here everything is connected to everything, and what you thought was not your business until now could be actually yours. You may not have experienced certain things at all, you may not have been careful and reacted a little late, but it would be unfair not to admit you’ve finally and at last started to make a move. Although it’s your own interest that has moved you, you have realized that it was unavoidable and unfortunately necessary to stand up, and fight in public. You also understood, and this is what deeply and truly touches me, that what is happening is intolerable, because it has nothing to do with national or Christian values, and it is not playing party politics if we rebel against that.

You’ve understood that democracy is not just a political formula, but a philosophy of life, a worldview that we do need, and that without an active presence and public stance is impossible to defend. I’ll go even further: it is exactly these brave stands, these common revelations that create democracy, it’s through these that we evolve, learn, and finally give a concrete form to the system in which we want to live. To live and to create – what you love just as much as I do.

I hope you are not stopping here now, after a well received, pleasant demonstration, when you could meet your fellows and your spectators with whom you had a good time whooping together. I hope you refuse to “disarm”, and you don’t crawl away back to your safe home. I hope you will not let them smooth over your case with personal bargains, loopholes, and backroom meetings, while they keep kicking the others like sick dogs.

With all my heart I hope you are strong enough to realize that this game is more serious, now, than what we are used to on stage. This game is our life now and it will earn neither applause nor awards. In this game, all of culture is at stake! Our common goal can only be to put an end to the abuse of authority, to arrogance, to a culture of resentful vengefulness! Our goal is humane community and freedom in self-expression! Professionalism and solidarity! This is what I hope for you, and I trust, just as you do, that our work / fight will one day lead to success.

Árpád Schilling

Translator's notes:
1. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Einstand
2. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2017-004924_EN.html