Vote for yourself! Just do it!
"The view in the face
of a human that is helped
is the view into a beautiful landscape:
friend! friend! friend!"
This is the first draft of a translation of the Chance 2000 platform and core instruments of propaganda. It may be awkward in parts, but in the interest of the broad and quick distribution of this brilliant innovation in national politics we have decided to feature it anyhow.
Germany 1998:
Two years before the New Millenium a new form of Political
Party came into existence: CHANCE 2000 - The Party of the Last Chance.
In the midst of an election that was one of the most important in
postfascist Germany an artist jumped into the political arena to
"make politics more aesthetic and aesthetics more political".
The film and theater director and talk show host Christoph Schlingensief
started the campaign: "VOTE YOURSELF!" In Berlin he started the project
with an "Election Circus". Together with a famous circus-family from
former East Germany and with his crew of actors and his family of
handicapped performers he founded CHANCE 2000 - Party of the Last
Chance in a circus tent in Berlin/Prenzlauer Berg. The message for the
Republic was: "Vote Yourself, we know how to do it!"
Every citizen was asked to become an independent candidate for the
new Bundestag. Manuals were sent out how to become a direct candidate.
And many different people realized their chance to "prove that they
exist" by bringing their name on the ballot sheet: "Chance Meier",
"Chance Mueller", "Chance Schmidt".
If you managed to collect 200 signatures of support in your political
region you were part of the game and you could vote yourself.
Why not voting somebody you know by heart, you trust and love?
Parallel to these "direct democrats" CHANCE 2000 developed into a network
of different party subgroups in many German regions. In every province
the party had to collect 2000 support signatures in order to be accepted
as a normal party.
The main CHANCE 2000 political demand was that unemployment must
be accepted as a profession. To be unemployed means to have a heavy job!
Millions of unemployed are made invisible. They have to start making a
picture of themselves again. The most important goal is to make them
visible and activate them: "Doing, doing, doing!" Just do it.
Don't hesitate, just do something with your life, no matter what, the
most important thing is to start doing something, e.g. vote yourself.
Go out and get your support from your neighbours and prove your
existence.
And we called millions unemployed to come to the Wolfgangslake with us
to visit our chancellor Kohl in his summer residence in Austria. We
calculated that if six million people jumped into the water at once,
the water level of the lake would rise so much that it would flood the
little house of Helmut Kohl.
Doing, doing, doing, because we want to help, help, help.
And we wanted to help Helmut Kohl also. After Schlingensief had asked
the unemployed masses to bring him the head of Helmut Kohl in his
talk show "TALK 2000" at the end of 1997 and after he had called to
kill Kohl at the documenta X in Kassel (hybrid work space) where he got
arrested we changed our message: from KILL KOHL to HELP HELMUT!
We said: everybody is our friend, friend, friend! The hymn of the party
was a little song by Bertolt Brecht: "The view in the face/ of a human
that is helped/ is the view into a beautiful landscape: friend! friend!
friend!" This song was the leitmotif that accompanied our mission since
1997 when Schlingensief made his street-action "Train-Station-Mission:
PASSION POSSIBLE - 48 hours survival for Germany" in Hamburg. For one
week he left the temple of theatre and hit the streets with street
activism,art demonstrations, processions, etc. At the Hamburg
Hauptbahnhof (Central Station)a little container was built as an
"angstfree room" where the junkies and homeless people found art & soup.
They could express themselves through open mikes and Schlingensief
collected money for them in a huge Gala.
Many prominent people became supporter of this "post-caritative mobile
theatre commando" (Carl Hegemann, Schlingensiefs dramaturg).
Since then we demonstrated our good-will: "Poor People help the Rich".
And our message to the Rich was: give away your money. And save the
market economy. And the media started tp call Schlingensief
"Jesus of the unemployed".
We did not say: we want the communist market, we only said: this reality
is occupied by parties, churches, labour unions, the media, etc. This is
System I. We want into System II. Because "the way persists, even if
the goal explodes" (Heiner Müller). Because in a world where money is
the only value that makes orientation possible, humanity cannot survive (Heiner Müller said this also).
Money has a become a fetish, a latter-day
taboo. Rich people can only liberate themselves by giving away their
money. And only the poor can help them - by accepting that money. Modern
management theories like Tom Peters' suggest that in this world only
those companies can survive that take values like human dignity very
seriously. Not selling the customers stuff, but serving the people is
the new orientation in the market place.
CHANCE 2000 tried to connect "post-heroic management" (Dirk Baecker)
with the epic theatre as envisioned by Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Müller.
While in the economic sphere the difference between superior and
employees has to be minimized in "flat hierarchies," in the room of
theatre the difference between actors and audience has to be eliminated:
"The 4th Wall has to fall!", as Brecht said.
Germany 1998:
On Bertolt Brechts 100th Birthday we started the
revolution, inspired from the coming of the New Millenium and the
numerical mystics of dates: 1998 - 1989 - 1968 ... While in 1989 the
Wall fell, we felt that in 1998 the 4th wall had to fall. The revolution
has to take place in the theatre, at least in Germany, the country of
the failing revolutions and the triumphant counterrevolutions: 1918,
1848 ... 150 years of "failure as chance" ... Back then the
radicaldemocratic "We Are The People!" ("Wir sind das VOLK!") was
changed into the volkish-nationalist "We Are One People!" ("Wir sind EIN
Volk!"): after 1848 and in 1989. In 1998 we said: "You Are one Volk: 1
V!", meaning: everybody. WE THE PEOPLE.
While intellectuals in the tradition from Niklas Luhmann like Dirk
Baecker show that we can never dissolve the differences between those
opposites, Schlingensief proved in his work of theatre the opposite. His
ensemble consists of friends: famous actors and Schlingensiefs little
theatre-family of handicapped people who prove that they can express
themselves more vivid and authentic than artists and actors. And in
Hamburg it showed that the street people from the real world can be
better performers by expressing themselves than the professional
performers from the theatre-world.In this respect Brecht's vision of the
epic theatre has become a reality. This goes far beyond humanitarian
engagement of the theatre-left who give little shows for the excluded
and mistreated. In this case, the real people themselves have -without
knowing- revolutionized the theatre. It is not decided yet: is it art,
is it politics? Have we made politics more aesthetic or aesthetics more
political? CHANCE 2000 is an in-between and it's vitality lives from
this ambivalence.
Only Tom Peters' parole: "Failing as Chance" has come to honour.
We failed gloriously with a result of 0,1% That was our chance...
"Failure as chance" also became true financially. Of course we have not
got money back from the government and went bankrupt. And it showed,
that "mass media is only interested in self-destruction, not in self-
salvation", as Schlingensief always said. His critics called him the
"most-media-horney media-hater" for he managed to stay in the media like
no other star before. Since his own talk show "TALK 2000" fall '97 and
his spectacular arrest at the documenta he has been invited in all talk-
shows there are on German TV and he succeeded in winning two of the most
popular talk show hosts as mentors for CHANCE 2000: Harald Schmidt
and Alfred Biolek supportet us and spend money, as well as the prominent
designer Joop. And -of course- a majority of the art and theatre world
(Elfried Jelinek wrote in our internet-thinktank and send a plastic duck
to the Wolfgangssee, Sepp Bierbichler spend his actors-price-money for
Schlingensief, Schlingensiefs chief Frank Castorf featured the whole
show, etc.).
So CHANCE 2000 became the running gag of last year's eleciton debacle,
we were the filler for mass media's summer hole. At the Wolfgangssee-
Spectacle beginning of August more camera teams appeared than
unemployed: on the shores, on boats in the water, in the air with
helicopters. Mass media filmed themselves, while Millions of unemployed
proved their autonomy by staying home and having their Wolfgangssee in
their own bath room.
After the Wolfgangssee-Spectacle only the message of our bankruptcy
brought the m edia attention back on us, while we declared CHANCE 2000
International. We became a company. We sold art warrants: if we get
profit, you get your shareholders' value, if not the warrant transforms
automatically into art. We think that by this measure we are ahead of
our times again, because soon all parties will admit that in reality
they are companies.
Berlin, 27.Septembre 1998:
A little revolution has happened in the
Federal Republic. For the first time the German "Volk" has elected a new
chancellor and we enter the "Berlin Republic" with a red-green
Bundesgovernment. King Kohl and the conservatives lost the elections by
an earth-slide victory of the oppostion. CHANCE 2000 celebrated the
"Election Debacle" in the "Volksbühne" in former East Berlin: two
minutes before the first results were broadcasted, Schlingensief cut the
cables- we were liberated. This must be System II. As the logical next
step we founded a State.
Berlin, 3. Octobre 1998:
FAREWELL FROM GERMANY. At the Congress 3000
Schlingensief declared the Chance State, dressed as a Rabbi. From
the "Jesus of the unemployed" to the "Moses of the metaphysical
homeless". If we get 3 normal nation-states to accept our statehood, we
get a seat in the UN. Forget the Bundestag - forward to New York!
Chance State, Church of Chance, Chance World... the rhizom lives and
prospers. Schlingensief just returned from his mission in Africa and
starts the State in 2 weeks. The State -as the party-intellectual Dr.
Druff describes it- is an "ideal state of Israel", a protection zone for
the mistreated masses and the metaphysical homeless. Embassies were
opened in Basel, Johannesburg, Sarajevo (with artists from the art-state
NSK).
Europe 1999:
The Party is now in the hands of us, original chancists in
Frankfurt/ Main. We want to take part in the European elections this
year.
From today -1.1.1999- Frankfurt is the true capital of Europe as it has
always been the secret capital of postwar Germany: Bankfurt/Mainhattan.
Instead of the "Berlin Republic" we have declared a "Frankfurt
Republic". After our Farewell from Germany we want to expand in Europe,
to hack the "Brussel Republic" with our little subpolitical Y2K-bug.
Therefore we are looking for collaborateurs and co-workers.
And therefore we have changed our label into: CHANGE 2000.
Send your comments to: http://www.chance2000.com (thinktank, Kommentar).
Or contact us in Frankfurt...
In August we will take part in the Bordercamp '99 in Zittau with
"Kein Mensch ist illegal!" instead of jumping in the Wolfgangslake
(Helmut Kohl is now finally dead!). On March 20th we organized the
"Chance World Congress" in Berlin and also planned is a "cosmic bus tour
with theatrical revolutionaries". A new book with texts from the
thinktank etc. and a Chance CD with booklet and fictional passport
was introduced at the Chance World Congress. During July and August we will organize a multimedia-spectacle-thing at the Kunsthalle
Schirn.
So far our plans.