Long live heresy, long be rebellion: the 20th Prague Writers' Festival Begins!

I like festivals. I loathe festivals. I've seen it from Prague to Edinburgh to New York City to Cannes – festivals can either create a unique forum and opportunity for the exchange of ideas and work between experienced thinkers, creators, artists and in this case, writers – engaged with enthusiastic audiences who feel compelled to participate; or run off the road like a breakaway chicken trailer enroute to the slaughterhouse – resulting in a profit-driven ego parade with audiences morphing into hungry 'customers', fighting for their signed first-editions that rarely get read.

But, on rare occasions, when the weather (like today) is right, the mood is pleasant, and the stars cooperate (no Mercury Retrogrades) something very special occurs and this is what I look forward to here at this Twentieth Prague Writers' Festival. And as I have literally just given Guillaume Basset, the festival media director, a shirt off my back after the first spilling incident, I stand before you, optimistic.

Czech, English, French, and Chinese were flowing at the inaugural press conference on this  sparkling clear night in Prague. I was relieved when Peter Matthissen mentioned chicken coops  describing his trip to Prague in 1948, as the Soviets were marching the streets. Apparently, he'd met a jittery black marketeer named Harry Meisner, who, under threat of hanging, swapped currency and goods with Matthiessen in exchange for a promise that if he rang the doorbell at 3am, Matthiessen would drive Meisner to the border, where, Meisner would enter a chicken coop which traversed the line between Belgium and what was then Czechoslovakia. Perhaps I should rethink the role of these domestic birds.

I asked Mathiessen about the latest invasion and occupation of Prague, by British and American Capitalism, and while we agreed it's good for the locals in terms of jobs and earning a living, I can't help but notice that these fortunate workers don't seem as overjoyed to see throngs of Westerners carrying pockets filled with dollars and pounds as the proponents of McCulture might claim. I don't see any enthusiasm for the way the heart of the Czech capital has become a shopping mall, dominated by  trademarked signs and logos which have noticeably, in the past four years since I've been coming here, nearly eclipsed the historic beauty of the city centre.

And I don't think I blame any local ambivalence toward us presumed saviours-of-the-future: what, really, is the difference between the noise and pressure of tanks, guns and soldiers, versus the noise and pressure from hoards of roving bands of drunken soon-to-be-wed foreigners just off their cheap flights to Prague, and entitled tourists? Not much in my book. What's needed? Perhaps some heresy, rebellion or both!

In his play Rock 'n' Roll, about Prague in 1968, Tom Stoppard suggests: “...the police love dissidents like the Inquisition loved heretics...” implying each gave meaning to the others' cause. Now, in 2010, I'm not so sure. Today, while strolling through the sunniest afternoon I've seen in a while, I noticed a tshirt for sale. On it were images of young people dancing, with the inscription: “American Youth Uprising, we rally to bury the hangman's noose”.

Now I don't know about you, but I seriously doubt any American, Brit, or young person in a  civilised world, has ever felt a real pang of hunger, much less the threat of a hangman's noose. Well, unless you're black and live in Texas or gay and live in Iraq (civilised? yet?). I think that the notion of 'American Youth Uprising' for much more than an ipod is a stretch. Except, as Mathiessen pointed out “they came together for Obama” (only to counter with “but where have they gone?”).

Right now, as oil continues to destroy the guts of the Gulf Coast of North America, at the center of all this is the heart of our festival – Heresy and Rebellion. Last night, at the residence of the Mayor of Prague, writer Michael March initiated the potential revolt:

“Baudelaire was taken by the intoxication of numbers –
Nietzsche by the pessimism of strength – their web sites are entertaining – but not as entertaining as heresy and rebellion.
Freud dealt with hysteria – we deal with indifference – the algae of fairy tales which gives violence to the truth.
The pleasure principal – the age of magic materialism – is being transformed into the principle of pain – the age of dictated materialism.
There is no strength in numbers – only the way back”.

So, shall we learn some new things in Prague this June? Shall we inspire, er, corrupt some new minds to stand alone as proud rebels and heretics?
I hope so. It'll be better than chicken.

Tommorrow: Gao Xingjian on the liberation in learning multiple languages; Milena Findeis on the life-transforming power of literature. And a Scottish man named Banks.

Stay connected!

Martin Belk

Martin Belk is a writer, and the editor of ONE Magazine - www.IamONE.co.uk - published in Scotland. He is also the Writer-in-Residence at Her Majesty's Young Offender's Prison, Polmont; and a member of John Calder Associates in Paris, London and Glasgow. Belk is grateful for the invitation to take part in Heresy and Rebellion - his third Prague Writers' Festival.