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The cast of the 2014 production of the “Hate Speech” Monologues in the CEU auditorium (without the Choir). Photo Petra Bard. |
I.
They should have imagined
Philippe is violent
as a black man must be
but then they noticed that
instead of violence
he’s got this violin,
fragile instrument,
so much European,
so sophisticated,
then they thought fine, he’s black,
certainly plays jazz,
although he also plays Mozart,
you see how similar
Paul Robeson
and my father singin
„Ol man river” look like?
Two deep voiced eyed free man
singin ol man river,
two wise, broad rivers whisper stories,
the Danube and the Mississippi,
you see that the skin of my father is darker?
I mean dark to be white.
Is it just old picture?
Or was there a gypsy
in our family?
II.
Paul Robeson and my father
singin ol man river,
singin about skin color,
while my great-grandmother
dealing with the shape
of her Jewish nose,
are we free to change the
color of our skin?
Are we free to paint over
part of our nose?
You can baptize the day
before your marriage,
as my great-grandmother did,
aren`t you still Jewish?
You can be the first girl
who graduated from
high school in your town,
as my great-grandmother did,
aren`t you still woman?
Here you can see the sister of my
great-grandmother, and her husband.
They were shot to the
Danube in January 1945.
What would they say if they heard
that the current chairman of the Hungarian Parliament,
(the guy on your right side of this picture)
said in fall 1990
when cab drivers blocked
bridges over our broad river,
that „they should be shut to the Danube”.
Paul Robeson and my father
were singin about human rights.
History got into the deep voiced eyes of these two free man,
singin „Ol man river” in English and in Hungarian.
Paul got black-listed in the McCarthy-era
(wait, how is it when a black man gets black-listed?)
Lajos, my father, was born at Two Places
(how is that possible? two places is the name of his small village of birth),
to a 6 children catholic family, and often said:
„I am not the servant of anyone”.
III.
My father died 6 years before shiny 1989,
he did not hear when one of her sister at a family Christmas in 1990
objected to voting for a liberal party saying:
„but those are the Jews”,
so it was not such a big news,
when in 2009 in New York, an anti-Semitic and anti-Roma Hungarian immigrant asked me about how much Jewish blood I have, and my Jewish-Hungarian great-grandmother decided to show up there, the racist fellow-Hungarian told me:
„then you are like Barack Obama”,
I was more surprised when I heard
in a party of a dance coreographer,
also in Manhattan, about Obama
that „he has white values”,
so who`s white and who`s black,
am I getting crazy about this,
speaking through my homeless looking beard,
or you also see how similar
Paul Robeson and my father look like,
two deep voiced eyed free man,
singin Ol Man River for human rights,
singin about skin color at the Mississippi,
where „niggers” in these lines of the song
“Niggers all work on de Mississippi,
Niggers all work while the white folks play...”
was first changed to „darkies”, than to „colorod folks” then to „we all”
Paul Robeson and my father,
two deep voiced eyed free man,
singin Ol Man River
singin about freedom to love at the Danube,
where a non-Roma girl may not tell her parents if she`s got a Roma boyfriend as her parents would not tolerate that,
Paul Robeson and Lajos Molnar,
two deep voiced eyed free man,
singin Ol Man River
their voices join forces,
and I get not the facts, but the truth,
the simple truth that they have been brothers.
The above slam poetry “Hate Speech” Monologue was performed by Professor Peter Molnar, a founding researcher of the Center for Media and Communication Studies. He directed already the 2nd version of the "Hate Speech" Monologues this year, following the first version last year when he started to teach his course on responses to "hate speech" with which he created this self-reflective, participatory theater performance that he has been making a tradition at CEU. He has been searching for and promoting artistic responses to “hate speech”, also in a book that he co-edited, The Content and Context of “Hate Speech” – Rethinking Regulations and Responses (Cambridge University Press, 2012). (Check out the book at the CEU library. It can also be ordered with the discount code CCHS14 at www.cambridge.org until 30 April 2014.) The photo shows Molnar‘s great-grandmother. While the CEU‘s “Hate Speech” Monologues have been already performed on March 12th, the CEU Weekly editorial team decided to present a few impressions both from the actual pieces performed as well as some insights on how students experienced the process of developing their own pieces in Peter Molnar`s course "Enabling Policies for Responding to "Hate Speech" in Practice", offered this year by the Gender Studies Department, and later performing in the CEU’s auditorium. Julia Michalsky (History, Germany) spoke with Sofaya Hussein (Gender Studies, UK).
The CEU Weekly (TCW): Looking back, how do you feel about having participated in the Hate Speech Monologues?
Sofaya Hussein (SH): Taking part in the “Hate speech” Monologues was a really wonderful experience, and I’m so happy to have performed and, hopefully, helped people understand different forms of hate speech that occur in our everyday lives that we perhaps don’t think about. I think that the performance was able to connect with the audience quite intimately as the monologues themselves were personal stories and thoughts, showing the ways that hate speech has touched our lives and experiences as I’m sure they have many other people.
TCW: What did you find challenging about the process (e.g.: developing a monologue, speaking about your particular topic, performing in front of people, etc.) and why?
SH: Writing my monologue was quite easy, as I wrote completely from experience and wished to present them as everyday stories, along with my thoughts as they happened. I did have to keep reminding myself that I would actually be performing my monologue in front of a crowd, however, which due to the personal nature of my monologue was quite nerve-wracking. However, I’m very glad to have done it and I feel that the personal nature of it was what made it so effective – I didn’t quite realise how funny the audience would find it though! I was happy that this was the case though as I feel they shared in the ridiculousness of my stories, which was reassuring.
TCW: How did your particular monologue relate to the issue of “hate speech”?
SH: Being mixed race, and from a very diverse family, my monologue mainly related to issues of race, although it did touch on issues of gender indirectly. I was aware that my monologue did not necessarily touch upon explicit instances of hate speech – but I feel that this was good and necessary as it communicated that hate speech is not as simple as explicit, offensive speech; it also lies beneath many of the everyday things that we do and see that we consider normal.
TCW: Would you share an excerpt from your personal “Hate Speech” Monologue that you think is representative, interesting, worth sharing, etc.?
SH: “Where are you from?’ they ask, ‘I’m British’ I tell them. ‘Yeah, but where are you from?’, ‘Ipswich?’, I reply trying to guess what they want, where my home is, where I was born, where my parents are from. In the end, despite the many, many variations all they want me to admit, to confess is my difference, ‘what are you?’, ‘how are you not British, not like me?’ I accept that this is curiosity, but it is loaded, politically and otherwise. A polite tone and intent cannot distract from the constant headlines which explicitly state that ‘we do not want you’, ‘why are you here’ and ‘go back where you came from’.”
The text below is the slam poetry “Hate Speech” Monologue performed by Philippe-Edner Marius (Public Policy, USA).
Part I
When I grow up. I want to be white.
Like Peter and Jesus,
to have no problems, and
to be pure and standard,
and cultured. You know?
I want to have culture. And human rights.
And I want to share my human rights with the
rest of the world who got no rights
and want to be whites
I want to expand culture to the world
through music and force,
through violins and guns,
But first, I want to play violin,
as beautiful as white itself (Peter plays)
Oh yes. You hear?
So pure.
So Rich.
So elegant.
I want to be just that.
Standard beauty
Standard English
Standard shit
Standard Everything.
PART II
What the fuck?
You got all these folks in white skin,
looking like garbage cans
walking around Budapest,
collecting garbage and shit,
and all my life, I've been told,
you act mad white,
as though it's a bad thing.
Collecting garbage and shit,
poor white man, trying to preserve his health
Taking up space
with no disgrace
before its too late
trying to make sense of
all the mess that is the state
of things.
Is he white, if white is pure,
can she be white, if she's this poor,
his shirt with holes, his holes show soles
of the feet that have no soul, a criminal
for being poor, this is Budapest, in
EU, representing motherfuckers,
to whom I say fuck you, who replies
fuck you too.
Just like race,
It makes no sense,
but that's ok.
I'm not here for hate.
This is for my resume.
No time to bullshit,
collect all the shit
that'll make me shine in the future,
with as little effort as possible,
such is the stereotype of the nigger,
and so far so good.
I hate school. And here I have a full fellowship.
Someone serious could've had it.
Too late,
I'm a nigger,
I'm thief,
collecting opportunities.
Part III
Why the fuck would I want to be white
if I'll have to keep up with a nigger
who plays the violin and shakes hands with tony bennett
you're a faggot. But im a nigger who performed on stage
at carnegie hall at age 11, on the violin, they gave him hate,
reason for violenc
he fucked them up
with a violin
and now they hate him
'cuz now they're 25
and all they can do is chat on facebook and sleep late
they talk behind his back
'cuz he's a leader
and if he hears them
then he'll delete them
and they'll be lost
'cuz he's the light
not 'cuz he's white
but cut he shines.
Links to video recordings of the “Hate Speech” Monologues:
If you would like to learn more about the performers' motivations and thoughts on the project, check out this video by Andras Polgar (www.andraspolgarphotos.com):
If you would like to see the complete performance of the "Hate Speech Monologues", check out this video:
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