Editor of Culture and Stuff
This article originally appeared on VICE Serbia
Srećko Horvat hangs out with the world's most interesting
people. On any given day, the 32-year-old Croatian activist and philosopher
might be exchanging dirty jokes with Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek,
wandering around the Snowden film set in Munich with Oliver Stone or getting
face time with Julian Assange.
A frequent contributor to The
New York Times and The
Guardian, Horvat has in the past decade gained international recognition
for his left-wing activism. The last time we were together was in March, when
we demonstrated against a new
Labour law diminishing workers' rights in Serbia. A lot has happened since
then: Horvat published his new book, The Radicality of Love , which explores
the concept of love in the context of revolution and history; Europe was hit
with the greatest migration crisis in recorded history; and Greece's economy
continued to shrivel up.
This time around, I visit Srećko at the flat he is
temporarily renting in central Belgrade to talk about his work, the problems of
the Left and the ways the world has been changing. He lives like a nomad –
there is no particular place for him to call home or even store all the books
he usually buys at flea markets. He greets me with a nonchalant smile, beaming
an easygoing charm as he leads me into his transient home.
Emotions play a massive role in creating social change.
"I've been a misfit my whole life," the philosopher
says to me. "It all started with a feeling of not belonging." Horvat
was born in post-communist
Yugoslavia, but when he was just six months old his father – a political
prisoner – got asylum in Germany .
"I grew up in Germany, where I was regarded as a
Croatian. And when I returned to Croatia, I was perceived as a German. So I've
always considered myself to be a foreigner and a native everywhere I go,"
he goes on.
1991 was the worst possible time for Horvat to return to
Croatia and to this day, he is not sure why his parents chose to do so.
Everything in his native land was being turned into ashes over the Croatian War
of Independence, while his family had already lost everything in the move to
Germany. Today, his parents are retired and live in a rented house in Zagreb,
while Srećko moves from town to town working, as he says, on "creating new
worlds ".
We are sat in his poorly lit flat, drinking green tea with
coconut. We are surrounded by a few personal items which, due to his constant
moving, could be packed into a single suitcase. Jacques Derrida's Spectres of
Marx is peeking from his suitcase while his laptop is covered with 'OXI'
stickers – which is Greek for 'No' and references Greece's austerity referendum
that was held this summer. "My first influences were Kafka, Nietzsche and the Existentialists,
Sartre and Camus," he recalls.
Like many progressive people who came of age in the former
Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Horvat's personality was also shaped by the local
hardcore punk scene, fanzines and vegetarianism. Back in those days, the
political elite across all parts of the former Yugoslavia were attempting to
force new national identities on the younger generations who had been born
under the iron curtain of communism. The youth reacted and so being a part of
alternative culture and listening to punk, rock – anything but the local turbo-folk
– became a political statement.
At the turn of the century, Horvat began his philosophy
studies at Zagreb University and a few years later, in 2007, he published his
first book – Against Political Correctness. Since then, 10 more have hit the
bookshelves, with the most popular being What Does Europe Want? The Union and
its Discontents which he wrote with Slavoj Žižek.
"I've known Žižek for almost a decade. I've translated
his works, published his books and, in time, we became friends. A real measure
of our friendship is that we don't just talk about Hegel – we mostly talk about
sex and love," he laughs.
Within the span of one year – between 2008 and 2009 – Srećko
started developing into the international personality we know today. In 2008,
together with with philosopher Nikola Devčić and writer Igor Štiks, they
founded Zagreb's Subversive
Film Festival – which was meant to be the meeting place for a melting pot
of alternative film makers, artists and independent thinkers.
Without the money, the Left has no chance at all. We have to
understand that we live in the world of brutal capitalism, where money largely
runs our lives.
Croatia's student protests
in 2009 followed suit. Just as the protests gave him a wider public
recognition, they also gave him a deeper insight into the practicalities of
bringing theoretical ideas into life. The 35 days of protests and ceases of
about 20 universities across the country proved to be a real-life
handbook on how to run a movement against the privatisation of education.
"To be able to occupy a university for 30 days or to
just hold a five-hour long protest, you have to be in tune with people's
emotions. Emotions play a massive role in creating social change," he
explains.
Speaking of social change, the Sixth Subversive Festival
which took place in 2013 helped sow the seeds for the creation of Greece's
first Left-wing government (which came to power in 2015). It was there that now
Greek PM Alexis Tsipras became friendly with Yanis Varoufakis, who was going to
become that government's subversive finance minister. "We all had dinner
together," Horvat says. "It was the beginning of everything that's
been happening in Greece since January 2015."
But soon after that year's event, Horvat and Štiks left the
Festival. Many thought it was due to a disagreement over the festival's
corporate sponsors, but Horvat is quick to dispel that rumour: "Sponsors
are not a problem, as long as they give you money to create your content
without imposing their influence," he says recalling the time Oliver Stone
was asked what was so subversive about attending a festival sponsored by
Peugeot.
"Stone gave a wonderful answer: 'I come from Hollywood.
If you want it make it over there, you need to have an infrastructure: Cars,
trucks, space, equipment.' he said. If your goal in life goes beyond
pretentiously citing unknown authors in a café then you need money. Nowadays,
sadly, nothing works outside capitalism. Which is why it is necessary to use
the existing structure of capitalism against itself."
"Without the money, the Left has no chance at all. I am
not saying that an the world of brutal capitalism, where money largely runs our
lives," he explains.
But Horvat also believes that people who think the same way
somehow gravitate towards each other and that "if you work hard enough,
sooner or later, your paths will cross and there will be some co-operation. And
when you connect with these people, a new world is created. That in its turn,
will connect you to even more people that share your mindset."
Case in point: A couple of months ago, Horvat was invited to
spent a few hours with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Apparently, it was Assange who told him that "we have less than a couple
of years before Silicon Valley takes over the world and the problem of the Left
is that they don't even notice it. They don't deal with new technology and are
completely oblivious to this new world being created based on individual
control."
Assange and Horvat drank some wine and had a conversation
that covered Syria, Sweden and Angela Merkel. Then Horvat asked Assange how he
was really doing: "'I have a glass full of wine, some friends are with me
– I am OK,'" said Assange. And you see that this man, who despite
everything is keeping it together. He knows that even with a small group of associates,
he can really challenge all the powers struggling to discredit him," muses
Horvat.
A desire to keep it together is one of the reasons why Horvat
recently decided to take on a couple of new hobbies – running and writing
something that resembles a journal. "It is never too late and never too
soon to start with the things you have never done and to discover a new part of
yourself and become – what you already are," he references Nietzsche.
As we talk, I'm beginning to realise that the strange
combination of anti-communist sentiment and nostalgia that's been keeping the
Balkans in the darkness, is gradually withdrawing. Thanks to their progressive
ideas and their willingness to act, people like Srećko Horvat are becoming the
leaders of a generation that has so far been invisible, or, at best,
marginalised. Since it's not looking like the temperament of the people in the
region will change any time soon, we have to create opportunities for the kind
of people we are. Thank fuck Horvat has taken it upon himself to "create
new worlds" then.
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