First of all you tell me is there some society that you know of that doesn't run on greed You think Russia doesn't run on greed China you think China doesn't run on greed What is greed well, of course none of us agree no it is always the other fellow who is greedy Listen the world runs on individuals pursuing their self-interests The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureau The only cases in which the masses have escaped from grinding poverty or where they have had free trade and that is what we bring to them freedom choice The first step is to sell the state-owned industries to the private sector in order to increase efficiency Productivity and to ensure that maximum profit is made a Government has no idea how to make money. They are always concerned about getting the vote and how they will be seen and not about the economy privatize privatize privatize That is the key Well the following step is to put the free market economy into place all previous government price controls are abolished Businesses are finally given the freedom to set their own prices and import and export what they wish the people are Finally given the freedom to pursue their own self-interests and not someone else's Next in order to remove the deficit to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund Government-controlled social support must be cut pensions Education benefits are affected. Yes But who wants a humiliating debt on their shoulders? Now the damage that that does to the price of a nation is staggering The fact is that the programs that are labeled as being for the poor for the needy almost always have effects exactly the opposite of those Which their well-intentioned sponsors intend to have Let me give you a very simple example take the minimum wage laws With bad programs who most always have an unholy alliance of the do-getters on the one hand and the special interests on the other The special interests are of course the trade unions who use the well-meaning sponsors as frontmen The do-getters believe that by passing a law saying nobody should get less than two dollars an hour or whatever The minimum wage is that you are helping the poor people who need the money You are doing nothing of the kind The minimum wage law is probably best described as a law saying employers must discriminate against people with low skills Yeah That's what the law says The law says here is a man who has a skill that would justify a wage rate of a dollar and a half Two dollars an hour. You may not you cannot employ him. It is illegal Because if you employ him you have to pay him to 50. So what's the result? Well to employ him at 250 is to engage in charity Not that there is anything wrong with charity But most employers are not in a position to engage in this kind of charity Thus the consequences of minimum wage laws are almost wholly bad To increase unemployment and to increase poverty What should we do with those who are displaced? 40 and 50 or workers who for practical purposes really cannot be retrained to keep up with this new developing industry What can we do about it? No Well, you see nobody can take Nobody can accept the principle that an infinite value should be put on an individual life To retrain those unemployed needs money No No, no it isn't money. It's resources and in order to get those resources they have to come from somewhere It cannot be accepted that a million people must starve In order to give one old worker a job And if mass unemployment only lasts for so long we have to tolerate it Do you know what it takes to reshape an economy? No A black market does develop It is an unavoidable occurrence in the economic transformation. However, it is nothing too serious alcohol cigarettes foreign currencies Minor human trafficking Things of that nature Nothing that we are really concerned about Now it could always be worse Nirvana is not for this world There is no such thing as paradise Crime happens wherever you go Democracy never promised to banish crime A reformed free market economy takes no responsibility over the maniacs the psychopaths and the murderers out there on the streets We take no responsibility over the rise in homicide At the same time that homicide is rising the economy is Soaring standards of living are at their highest in decades This scene happened in 1991 communism fell Western capitalism rose New Year's Eve The family waited for the clock to strike midnight Hope Hurry a rich man. Do you like your earrings because he's rich and has lots of money. Do you like your new shoes? He can buy me beautiful dresses a real woman and love me my woman It's important to be loved beautiful to know you've never looked so beautiful before but someone loves you People can die when no one loves them very bad like plants You need to get used to looking beautiful and he'll have blue eyes There's any opportunity ahead of us now like my thought only beautiful people in the future I don't have blue eyes. It's going to get better But feel about me new one. It's just a matter of waiting and our children will have blue eyes Our time has come to live life. We'll be so beautiful. Be happy. He can make me a queen. Live long And queens are happy. I'll get that promotion. Queens are. I can feel it beautiful And all that foreign money comes flooding in and queens never wait for anything They're bound to promote me and queens are always listened to With how hard I work and queens always get what they want and thousands of people love them Foreigners the western millions of people. They know how to run a business Yeah profit and my rich husband can do this my own office because he will have lots of money My own assistant and money buys you nice dresses My name on the door and nice hair and beautiful eyes And big houses castles and shiny cars a car really nice bodies and happy smiles To get a suit and McDonald's And Coca-Cola. I'll be somebody every day. We should start buying now Breakfast and lunch.  People who love you when you're rich People notice you and wave at you. That's what this new future is about And take pictures of you. Profit. I want all of you to own a picture of me And but I will only love my rich husband because he's rich I'm beautiful. I love you Sun in the sky You know how I feel It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new life And I'm feeling good Fish in the sea Know how I feel River running free It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new feeling good Stars when you shine You know how I feel End of the pie And I know how I feel It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new life For me This scene happened in 1992 Deregulated pies controls The student, the pawnbroker A hard bargain A watch? I have a watch to sell Yeah I'm paying rent now for the roof over my head Been a rough few weeks, I need to eat But the watch I have a watch to sell My father's He left me this Just need a little something to keep me going till everything gets back on its feet Good You're the Student Of law How is business these days? Fruitful Fruitful, yes Incredible The economy's really blossoming, huh? I'm sure things will pick up very soon For the rest of us Just running a little low at the moment, but only for the moment I'll catch up Well, that's why you're here The ring Last month Time went up yesterday to redeem it It's a good job you came I'll bring you interest in advance for last month Just wait This watch I decide whether I sell or buy your branch I decide You don't understand Yes You owe me for last month I'll bring you here Show me Solid silver Perfect working condition Shanty Yeah, generations old It is working So, what do you want for it? 25, I believe, is a very important 10 I know this watch is worth more than Do you? Yes And as I said, I'm struggling to keep everything afloat Nobody wants private lessons anymore I'm not in the right business Not getting as much work as I'd like 25 would save me The value of silver has dropped No, it hasn't It has now, my dear boy I'll pay you interest in advance for last month In a few days 19 Please 7 Even lower I lost my job I'll be evicted Please You're living this business for love There's no room for love under this roof Please No one's in business to just get by anymore I want to get rich I want to grow and grow and grow Don't you? So, I decide my prices I decide when silver rises in value or drops How do you do that? They have money, yes So you can sell, and I can buy And you can eat, and I can do it a little Something in my pocket And so when silver goes back up again There must be a wonderfully liberating time To be in business for you So, do you want to keep that brief Over your head or sleep in the street? With these to an end Surely, your shoes Yeah, I have some more at home These are in great condition Real leather Done 45% interest Now we can afford to pay my interest So I take it straight away So, here's your 1.50 1.50 So, 45% interest Now we can afford to pay my interest Now we can afford to pay my interest So I take it straight away So, here's your 1.50 You run a hard bargain You're what this economy needs With strong-minded women like you The economy will be rocketing in no time I hope we don't see each other again This scene happened in 1992 Promotization Mass unemployment Alcapulism The unemployed man returned home Debt, charity Suicide Teeth sunk into our own arms Because we've had nothing to eat Where is the money? Where is the money?  Come here darling Say hello to daddy Say daddy, why did you run away? Say daddy, why did you steal the money from the box? Tell your daddy what the gangster did to mommy Tell him that after you ran away daddy The gangster burst through the door He tore mommy's earrings from her ears He tore out those earrings He fucked me in the kitchen Gagged me with your debt We're springing my ear How much you were born All those things have been missing He did the money from somewhere I needed the money from somewhere So I began to burn But it was easy So easy, but I couldn't pay him back They were done in serious worth There's nothing for us to live off So I tried to ignore him Burned from somewhere else to pay him back But the interest was cheap He was happy He was happy He wanted me somebody I didn't think he would come to here That would be hardships The unemployed man threw himself in front of the lorry On the motorway Some people say A man is made of Hands made of Muscle and blood And skin and bones A man that's weak And a man that's strong 16 times And what do you get Another day older And people in that same Pee they don't you call me Cause I can't go I owe my soul To the company store I I was born one day In the sun and shine I picked up my shovel And I walked to the mine I loaded 16 tons Of number 9 coal And the straw boss said Well I bless my soul You load 16 tons And what do you get Another day older And deeper in that same Pee they don't you call me Cause I can't go I owe my soul To the company store And I I was born one day And it was drizzling rain Fighting and trouble On my middle names I was raised in the Cambridge By no mama lying Ain't no high tone woman Making me tow the line You load 16 tons And what do you get Another day older And deeper in that same Pee they don't you call me I owe my soul To the company store And if You see me coming Better step aside A lot of men didn't And a lot of men died With one fist of iron And the other of steel If the right one don't get you Then the left one will you load 16 tons And what do you get Company 16 happened in 1992 Pensions cut The paranoid mother The dead father's shoes The arranged marriage Nostalgia Delusion You can't take them You can't take your father's shoes This is all I have left My life You don't love me You care more about a pair of shoes than about your son Do you not love your father My shoes My last memory of him He's dead, mama He doesn't need them any more I need them Where is sister?  Everybody knows. And everybody knows. Yeah, everybody knows how it goes. Sorry. Everybody knows. In other words, everybody knows. Everybody knows that's how it goes. Last chance. Everybody knows. Everybody knows. That's how it goes. Once in homicide, the homeless student, the pawnbroker, promise of gold, the murder, the speech. I have something to sell. Who is it? The student. I have something to sell. What's that about? What? Oh, around here. I was afraid it might be sleepless in gold. I forgot I owned it. What is it? Cigarette case. I was afraid it might rain. I'm so tired. Can I see a thing? Please. Let me listen to you. I need to know that you know this was not a crime. It's very important you tell me you agree with me that she was the one who was committing the crimes. You understand why I'm here. Why I did this. Why I threw everything away. The free market is there to help people. But she was abusing it. I killed this pig. To bring to light. With my hands hold applied for you to see. To examine. To sit and discuss. In the bar afterwards with a glass of wine and a disillusioned heart. That it was heard was the criminal. Do you agree? You can discuss it now if you want. You don't have to wait. She was the criminal. Don't tell anyone. I believe in the western truth. I believe wholly in the importance of self-interest. So why have I ended up here? Lights? The tyrant is dead. Greed is dead. They won't abuse us any longer. Lights. Operator, turn on the lights. Turn on the lights. Please. What do you mean? I need the lights Nico. I can't find the money. We need the money. The student tried to leave the apartment. But kept slipping in the blood. Break me, my friend. Break me. Break me again. I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. Again. Again. I'm not the only one. You didn't search souls. I'll kiss your open souls. I appreciate your concern. They'll always think and burn. I'm not the only... Is there some society you know of that doesn't run on? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Have I said greedy? No. It is always the other fellow who is greedy. Listen, the world runs on individuals pursuing their self-interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from a government bureau. The only cases in which the masses have escaped from grinding poverty are where they have had free trade. And that is what we bring to them. Freedom. The first step is to sell the state-owned industries to the private sector in order to increase efficiency, productivity, and to ensure that maximum profit is made. A government has no idea how to make money. They are always concerned about getting the vote and how they will be seen and not about the economy. Privatize, privatize, privatize. That is the key. The following step is to put the free market economy into place. All previous government price controls are abolished. Businesses are given the freedom to set their own prices and import and export what they wish. The people are finally given the freedom to pursue their own self-interests and not someone else's. Next, in order to remove the deficit to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, government-controlled social support must be cut. Pensions, education, benefits are affected, yes. But who wants a humiliating vet on their shoulders? The damage that that does to the pride of a nation is staggering. The fact is that the programs that are labeled as being for the poor, for the needy, almost always have affects exactly the opposite of those which their well-intentioned sponsors intend to have. Let me give you a very simple example. Take the minimum wage wars. With bad programs, you almost always have an unholy alliance with the Dugarders on the one hand and the special interests on the other. The special interests are of course the trade unions who use the well-meaning sponsors as frontmen. The Dugarders believe that by passing a law saying nobody should get less than $2 an hour or whatever the minimum wage is, that you are helping the poor people who need the money.  The minimum wage law is probably best described as a law saying employers must discriminate against people with low skills. That's what the law says. The law says, here is a man who has a skill that would justify a wage rate of a dollar and a half, $2 an hour. You cannot employ him because it's illegal. If you employ him, you have to pay him $2.50. So what's the result? Excuse me? Well, to employ him at $2.50 is to engage in charity. Not that there is anything wrong with charity, but most employers are not in a position to engage in this kind of charity. Thus the consequences of minimum wage laws are almost wholly bad to increase unemployment and to increase poverty. So what should we do with those who are displaced? 40 or 50 of old workers who for practical purposes really cannot be retrained to keep up with this new developing industry. What can we do about it? Well, you see, nobody can take, nobody can accept the principle that an infinite value should be put on an individual life. To retrain those unemployed needs money. No, no, it isn't money, it's resources. And in order to get those resources, they have to come from somewhere. And not to be accepted that a million people must starve in order to give one old worker a job. Mass unemployment only lasts for so long. We have to tolerate it. Do you know what it takes to reshape an economy? A black market does develop. It is an unavoidable occurrence in the economic transformation, nothing too serious, alcohol, cigarettes, foreign currencies, minor, minor, human trafficking, things of that nature, nothing that we are really concerned about. It could always be worse. Nirvana is not for this world. There is no such thing as paradise. There is no such thing as paradise. It happens wherever you go. Democracy never promised to banish crime. A reformed free market economy takes no responsibility for the maniacs, the psychopaths, and the murderers out there on the streets. We take no responsibility over the rise in homicide. At the same time that homicide is rising, the economy is soaring. Standards of living are at their highest in decades. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. I hope you get home safely and have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Welcome back to the last session of the second edition of GLOD, Political Theatres and Civil Rights, a fortnightly online platform presenting political theatre from around the world, hosted by HowlRound Creative Theatre Commons. My name is Niko Vokari. I am a co-artistic director and co-founder of Besna Theatre, a British Romanian political theatre collective committed to using theatre to investigate, expose and confront institutionalised and normalised violences. I also wrote and directed crime the show that was streamed this evening. Thank you so much for joining us. For tonight's discussion, we are joined by three wonderful panellists and very special human beings, each of which has had a transformative impact on Besna Theatre. So, to begin with, could each of you please introduce yourselves? Let's start with you, Matt. Hello. I'm Matthew Wernum. I played the student in the production. I have worked with Besna since a couple of times now, and we're about to start something else together which I'm really excited about. Great to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Matt, and welcome. Penny. Hi, I'm Penny Green. I'm a professor of law and globalisation and the founder and director of the International State Crime Initiative. So, I work on not traditional forms of crime, but crimes committed by states. And so, the production is really interesting to me from a structural perspective. And my association with Besna has been really enriching. I've loved being able to work with Nico and Sinziana, but that's where I am. Thank you so much. Welcome, Penny, and Angel. Hello. I'm Angel, and I was the child and the mother in the production of crime, and I've been working with Besna since 2014, which is sort of where the journey started for me, and I guess for Besna as well. And yeah, that's me. Thank you, I'm Kevin, welcome. Actually, on the back of that, I wanted to start with a question to the two of you. So, at least for me, back in 2014, I often classed crime as a production that was kind of like a hallmark moment for Besna and me as an individual in many, many ways. It was the first time we traveled abroad and toured a show abroad, as well as after a London run. But also, I would sincerely say that it was my first real attempt at experimenting and trying to tackle what I was discovering as political theatre. And so, to open tonight's discussion, I just kind of wanted to ask both you, Anko and Matthew, kind of what that experience generally was like for you. I mean, was it your first time working with political theatre, and what was that experience for you if it was, especially because we came from a classical training background? I suppose, I mean, I think our training, obviously this, I don't know if it's obvious for everyone, I don't know if it says anywhere, but we started this production at drama school when we trained together at Drama Centre London. And I think that that training at the time had a particularly strong emphasis on, if not politics, at least, what are you doing with your work, or what do you want to achieve with your work? And for me working on this, I mean, working on this production was likewise for me a kind of real, a hallmark in the truest sense of the word in that it kind of really has left a deep impression. It's been stamped into me somehow, and it informs everything. That process informs everything I do now. And I think it was a drawing together of a lot of the things that we'd been testing in our training or kind of things that were hinted at, and I think that working with Unico is fantastic because you kind of forced us, by hook or by cook, to bring it all together and to be quite sort of uncompromising in many ways with what is this about? What are we serving? This is something that is bigger than all of us and it felt like, it felt like, I mean, the experience of actually doing the production itself and especially working in Romania and meeting people who maybe had a bit more of a direct memory or experience of some of the things that crime explores. It was like, oh wow, this work does have a really, really vivid immediate impact on people and I think that working with you since that idea of theatre as protest or something, you can feel in this production the seeds of that. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Okay, sorry. Yeah. Well, I can only sort of reinforce what you said and I agree with everything. Obviously, the process was life changing like artistically and I guess existentially. And yeah, because that was sort of the first time that I felt connected to an idea and in the deepest way where things just had to happen at this stage. Obviously, well, no, obviously, but the process was how to describe it but the process was life changing in a way as well but it was quite tough and hard in a way to get where we got by the time we were in Romania or by the time we opened the show and I think that what was beautifully about this show, what was beautiful about this show is that we sort of constantly changed with it but only reinforcing the ideas behind it. Yeah, and well, I mean, I don't know if it has the same impact on me than the audience but I am certain it probably does because I've never seen it as an audience. Well, I saw it, I saw the recording but I'm still hit as a performer there and then and yeah, I mean, this work and this play completely informs what I do artistically today and it's sort of a bar that I have set into I'm now starting to sort of direct and write and stuff and it's a high bar, you know, it's a high bar, Nico. It's still a bar for me as well, you know, in many respects. The work I think with Besna has evolved from that amazing point, it's evolved in many ways but there are still certain aspects, many aspects in terms of crime that I look back on and go, actually. We did something there, you know, and I do want to come back to this idea later on about the audience because I actually watched it every single night and even operating it and doing everything. I have a lot of memories of the audience and different audiences interacting with the show and stuff but we'll come onto that a little bit later. So it's an adaptation of the first part of Dostoevsky's like really famous novel, Crime and Punishment which I was always struck by how relevant it was today and I think this show was my first kind of like concrete, I would say, activist activity and kind of like exploring and trying to deconstruct, maybe in a crude sense, capitalism and trying to understand class, trying to understand I think even retrospectively after doing the show how violent economic policies can actually be and even though it was set in Russia and we set it in more contemporary Russia post-91 when communism fell, there was still a lot of, I could relate to a lot even though in terms of the area that I grew up in and seeing austerity, et cetera, et cetera and Penny, I wanted to come to you with a question about kind of like, as one of the most renowned and kind of leading voices on state crime I was very curious, I'm going to give you a very generalized question of like from your perspective of state crime how did you see the show? Obviously we tried to stage it in like a series of crimes that directly or indirectly were maybe influenced by economic policy. I'm just very curious about your immediate response. Oh, thanks Niko. Well, I think it's an amazing show. I found it hard to watch. I mean, I'm sure we're coming back to the audience. It's a tough watch and I guess that's the intention and it should be because it's trying to get to the core of what is wrong with capitalism in the way in which it reaches out and touches us all. I mean, when I was a young activist the personal is political and clearly the political is personal in the film, the play, I'm sorry, I watched it on screen, the play really captures, I think, the structural nature of, sort of the structural violence of capitalism and the way it inflects crime so that you have the petty examples of crime that the individuals in your play are engaging, you know, theft and violence and when I say petty, they aren't petty for the individual victims who are involved but if we can contrast it to what states and corporations do and the sexual violence and the exploitation of the dorsher and so on but these are the products, these are the criminal products of a deeply criminal system and I think that that comes across really powerfully. I think there are two ways of looking at state crimes. You can look at the crimes that states engage in in order to advance particular strategic goals particular organizational goals and we see a lot of the prosecution of war, for example and torture and so on but then there's something deeper which as a criminologist we might not always describe as crime because then everything about capitalism is criminal but we can begin to look at the structures of capitalism and the way that capitalism relies on fractures between classes it relies on exploitation, it relies on violence and so there's something very fundamentally criminal about the system so there are two ways that we approach I suppose state crimes and much of the work we do is in relation to actually very specific breaches that states engage in breaches from their own, if you like, proclaimed rules and regulations that they expect all of us to abide by and in the play you have individuals breaching those rules and regulations and laws that have been imposed by a very criminal state and by a very criminal system which has criminality at its very core and when I talk about criminality, state criminality we're talking really about violence and corruption primarily Thank you so much Yeah, I guess actually retrospect because I was still, when we were making the show I think, I don't know, I can't speak about Ankel or Matthew but I certainly, I think the making of the show was part of my own process of understanding capitalism I didn't read a little bit of reading before and stuff but I think, yeah, it's certainly in retrospective I'm glad that even like six years on it still comes across as like the structural violence and actually I have to say that actually is down to Dostoevsky because we adapted his novel and even like that was written over 100 years ago and he was writing in the feudal system which to be quite honest there are arguably in general terms there's very little difference between the feudal system and capitalism as we know it today in many respects and what always struck me is the students kind of but he holds onto the last, last moment of his belief in the new freedom and I'm like, no, no, it has to work, it has to work regardless of the fact that with each part of the structure that he goes through he's challenged with even more the stakes get higher for him he becomes more and more desperate he's given circumstances to become more and more terrifying and violent and I don't know, Penny, if that made sense what I said, do you think that this is particularly unique to capitalism? this idea of it's able to exploit and violate yet at the same time kind of, I don't know what the word is like convince everyone that everything is fine does that make sense? I don't think I can speak for feudalism in the same way but certainly capitalism has made an art of, if you like Graham, she talked about hegemony the idea that the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class the ideas that we hold in our heads about competition and success and profitability are somehow good concepts and good aspirations and healthy aspirations when the reality is quite the reverse and so capitalism produces it is an economic structure but it's an economic structure that produces a whole set of superstructures that Marx sort of alluded to so the whole education system and a system of religion and so on which reinforces, they all serve to reinforce the wholesomeness, if you like of capitalist social relations of production capitalist economic relations of production and the social relations that they then produce so there is a sense in which we are ideological victims as well as economic victims and I'm not speaking for myself because I am one of the privileged but the vast majority of the world the vast majority of people in the world are victims of capitalism I think and yet nonetheless I always remember teaching in my first lecturing job at university and talking to criminology students and thinking about Marxism and a Marxist account of criminology and criminality and they'd all say to me yeah no no it absolutely makes sense I mean Marxism makes sense it explains the system really well socialism can't work it makes sense theoretically but that's the limit of it so it is a hard one, it's very hard for people to move beyond the sphere of the present and what they know and what they their place in the system to imagine socialism or to imagine a world which does not rely on exploitation and so on so I think yes that you were alluding to ideological practices which state structures themselves produce and I can completely understand that relationship is extremely powerful and it's hard for people to break free of it and they normally only ever break free of it in circumstances of struggle quite frankly there are few people who intellectually can grasp the value of a critique of capitalism and the value of a different form of society but unless you are really on the front line unless you're on a picket line defending your job defending your wages defending your conditions then it's much harder it's much harder to think beyond what we have the way we've been educated and the way we've been socialised is all about this system is a given capitalism is a given well it's not very old capitalism is a young economic system but nonetheless we are conditioned to believe that it is the only way almost the natural way this is how human beings are you mentioned earlier it's the typical excuse of like it looks beautiful on paper another typical comeback I hear is socialism works fine with 15 people in a field it's like and often a lot of arguments or discussions that we have in Romania or more in Romania where discussing these ideas is that while we live through socialism we live through communism and we know that it doesn't work but there are not that I would ever claim to have experienced that hardship but within Romania's case were a number of other things to consider that economically speaking Romania was always a state capitalist country only the people were forced to live under the ideology and the ideology wasn't even that of socialism but of Stalinism which was particularly hostile and Romania was the only country in the whole of Europe that didn't go through destalinisation in the late 50s and so they stayed up until 1889 with Stalinist policies but yeah I remember my parents telling me that they grew up eating canned fruit and peas that were canned in Romania so the Romanian people were forced to starve and live on rations yet all those products were sold so the economic system within a lot of the communist countries up until 1889 were actually state capitalists so the economic violence was still there in one way so I wanted to come back to a point that you made Penny and link it to you Matthew which was this idea of breaking free from the ideological framework or structure or even prison of capitalism and I wanted to ask you with six years of retrospect whether you think the student does break free in the end I was just watching just before we began our discussion I was just watching the final speech of the student and it's really interesting to watch it with six years of retrospect because to be honest I know that now in your process which I think is very interesting you do this process of de-rolling and as I was watching me doing the speech I was thinking oh I don't know if I ever really properly de-rolled from this and what I mean by that is that I've seen the recording before but it was the first time I'd really looked at it with my first feelings about a little bit of objectivity not actually looking at it from within the student's point of view and thinking actually yes you know he's right he's starving what's he supposed to do but I see him standing there saying I believe in the western truth and it really strikes me and you mentioned before you said something about approaching this perhaps crudely approaching this idea of capitalism perhaps crudely which I think is interesting because I think that it relies on this almost like a smoke screen of complexity when at the heart of it there are some extreme there are some things about it which are extremely crude in and of itself I knew nothing really about the system before we started working on this so I think we were all going at it with this brand new kind of wow look at this truth that we suddenly we felt like we'd all had this will lifted from our eyes or something but I see somebody standing there who almost more than his need to eat or his need to find the money is someone who needs to protect their reality someone who almost is driven to these lengths because it's the it would be the revealing of the fantasy or the finally seeing through the facade or something that is really the thing that the student cannot accept perhaps this thing that he has surrendered to this kind of idea that he surrendered to to suddenly realize oh well you know that was a lie I've been lied to and I have been complicit in this lie and affect somebody at the level of identity of their identity that so much is built on this thing that to admit that that foundation is has a big crack in it is almost unacceptable to your idea of self or something yeah was that was that towards your question at all absolutely I mean I was just I was just thinking kind of what whether I mean some audience members felt differently different countries and different venues that we played in but this idea of not that it's just to fight his act of violence but whether at least once and we were touring it and travelling whether you felt any form of liberty post murder or even actually post not post murder but post not finding what you've gone into the the pawnbroker's house for and whether there was a kind of more of an emotional liberty or that again coming back to this idea that you talked about the crack in the foundation because you know Dostoevsky wrote a lot about people exploring and searching for freedom whether it was freedom from religion or freedom in religion or through economic policies or even terrorism as you wrote in the demons I just wondered whether that was something that you've ever thought about because for me watching it night and after night there was always a moment of freedom but maybe the character doesn't find it actually and actually it's more to do with the interaction with the audience which we had wonderful ones which I'd like to come on to but I didn't know whether you had anything else you'd like to share with that on that point yeah I mean that's really interesting that relationship with the audience I think it's almost slightly going down a separate route but there is something about the fact that the student is alone and this idea of individualism and when the student it's so conflicted isn't it because the student stands there sort of trying to defend individualism whilst also trying to reach out his hands to the audience and ask for their help and yeah I mean I don't it all feels so desperate you know I really would love to know what happens to him next I suppose because we almost deliberately didn't look at that or think about that you know do the police arrive does someone in the audience call the police I think we had threats of that shouted in some audiences you know yeah I think I think it's just very very conflicted as to I think it's in the recording you see the student go and even ask for your help Niko would you put the lights on and it's like there's just this false sense there's been this sense of control and it's like here's somebody realising how little control they have perhaps how controlled they have been and I think that's where you leave the student is in this like liminal space between understanding and having some kind of I don't know you know some kind of epiphany about something it'd be interesting to meet him in six years time yeah that's very true I don't know am I good well yeah just to add to that and again reinforce what Matthew is saying it's sort of it's very interesting how every character has their own position and their own yeah sort of place in the capitalist structure and how the hero let's say which would be the student has this incredible journey on failing at it you know failing at what he believes and yeah yeah so for me like playing the girl which was like directly affected with her not being able to do anything around her to change her life or surroundings and with the mother being a direct part of of this advantageous way of dealing with the structure yeah so yeah it's very interesting to think about the student afterwards I love that I mean that's another book and another play but yeah just just that of course the rest of the novel the rest of the novel is the student dealing with his guilt and then actually being sent off from Gulag for his punishment he's in prison right so he is freedom and I suppose that's the interesting thing that we're talking about here is what is the freedom that we have? We have the freedom of choice you know this Milton Friedman thing but is it a sort of freedom freedom is it some kind of an opticon that we all live in this kind of there is of course the freedom or the revolt the act of free will of the actors at the end to refuse to listen to Milton Friedman anymore the mechanism of the blurring between fictive character and actual actor activists we call them the best man to a point but that brings me kind of beautifully onto the audience so when I think back to crime I do think about some of the most amazing interactions with audiences to give some brief examples in London I don't know if any of you remember but when we're playing in Camden an audience member threw money onto the stage in the final scene to see what you would do with it to try and help you in Romania we had we had somebody actually have a dialogue in fact there was a reviewer that night and most of the review was just then transcribing this unbelievable dialogue between you Matthew and the person having a conversation with you saying I don't agree with what you did but I don't understand why you did it I don't agree with violence but I'm not here in this space in this privileged position as an audience member to judge you and I remember and that really this was one of the strongest points of this show for me as an artist and as an activist I have to say understanding what actually our theatre has in a role of social change and promoting social change and what it really may need to interrogate which is a question I'm still ever interrogating with every single project I do which is what is the role of the audience audience comes has the root word into here and actually there are lots of radical theatre theorists and philosophers that talk about how actually political theatre one of the key defining things of political theatre isn't the content necessarily but also its relationship with the audience and to change the role of the audience from somebody passive to a participant or a spectator I think participants sits more comfortably with me and it's about actually just not putting the audience in a voyeuristic position but actually getting them to engage on many different levels with the content and the live performance being presented to them and so I wondered whether you two had anything else before I come to Penny with my next question regarding linking this to that but whether you had any particular moments of like audience interaction that have kind of stayed with you with this production yeah I mean absolutely it was very interesting to have you know to perform it in London and have like a British audience where I don't know at least personally I felt that I had more sort of power in telling them something and more confidence into doing that and when we went to Romania it was like before every show it was like what are we about to do, what are we about to say how are they going to receive it and I don't know like British audiences are a little bit more sort of quiet and they would I don't know there was fewer interactions I guess than they were in Romania but there was more interaction with you when I would ask for money they were like I'm not going to give me money I'm not going to give the shoes to your son or for example I remember one moment clearly when I was playing the girl and I went sort of to hide into someone's legs and they were they embraced me and which I found it very interesting the involvement of the audience which I think is the most important thing and they held your hand no, is that the same night when the person held your hand I've never seen that from where I was operating I was like my god that's incredible and it was genuine it wasn't forced it wasn't yeah well it was a beautiful moment of I guess complicity between the audience and the performer which was really nice in the way that it felt real, you know it felt really like they wanted me to be well which I guess we all do with a child but yeah the difference between the audiences I found it very interesting and again I think that is the most important thing that I feel that crime has done the interaction with the audience and the relationship that we had on telling that story with the audience that conversation that we were having constantly even like at the beginning of the show the lines are delivered directly to them looking at them in the eyes which is goes against the classical training but that's one of the things that I love the most about this show which was the direct impact that I had on the audience and the direct impact that the audience had on stage night by night so it was it was very tense it felt like everything was boiling and something was about to explode every night yeah yeah thank you Anken what about you Matt have you got anything that you'd like to add to that I mean just listening to Anken's example of somebody taking your hand being pulled into the action and contributing to it actively you know it's not like the kind of pantomime like I'm here in the audience and I can say something to you and be safe it's I mean I remember begging for food and being and it really still hits me actually I can feel myself so it's so moving that someone would feed me you know their food out of their back and but sort of thinking about the theatre of this it was the first time that I'd certainly ever worked in a context where you spoke to the audience and of course we kind of trained to make a connection with the audience if we speak to them but I'm not so sure that we're trained to expect a response or actually demand one we're not moving on from this until until I'm speaking to you like can I have the answer please can you help me please for real and of course that feels very risky as an actor because you genuinely don't have any control and of course that's what you want to do as an actor as a person is control everything and you really give up that but that is liberating and that is exciting I mean it means that you obviously it demands something different of you as a performer it demands a kind of investment that goes beyond just knowing your lines you know it means that you have to understand the argument of the character and of the play I suppose ultimately and maybe that's not the argument of you the actor so that's really interesting thing to encounter as well is to be able to stand without judgement and to really make that argument as if from the point of view of the character that's exciting and that's kind of weird well that comes to something Ankel mentioned earlier about being connected being so very deeply connected to the idea as opposed to the individual character itself and I think that's at the heart of what we do with Besna and obviously that was very much inspired by Brexite ideas in the mid 20th century so on that discussion Penny with the audience now since we had the honour of kind of joining something that I've been very inspired by reading your work, reading and other colleagues at ISKI and all their work is the role of civil society and I know that you have a lot of experience with working with civil society and doing civil society actions yourself and how the intersection between law intersection between criminology, state crime studies and civil society so I'm wanting to build kind of like an image between how theatre comes in but before we start that would you be able to give us a clear definition of what civil society is and should do or does please? I'm sure I think civil society stands effectively between the individual and our social personal lives and the state and civil society is always progressive and it monitors state actions and it's about protecting human rights but it's much more complex than that civil society can be a real force for reaction as we've seen in Burma for example so during the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority, civil society just stood right back many sections of civil society inside Burma contributed to the genocide contributed to the hate campaigns against the Rohingya but civil society is a space I mean this is what Antonio Gramsci talks about it creates a space in which an arena in which challenges to the state can be made and the forces of reaction can if you like offer a countervailing force so I think it's a fluid space but we can take advantage of it and I think if we want to tackle the kind of crimes that I'm interested in state crimes civil societies are much more powerful force than law for example than international law or the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court if we want things done we have to work with activists, with trade unions we have to build civil society movements and exactly that is happening against the coup in Burma right now in the Rohingya disability movement and many of the people who are now fighting against the military which conducted the final stages of the genocide are saying actually we made a mistake we should have stood with the Rohingya I'm not sure how big that group is but it's a fluid space so I was interested listening to Matt and Uncle talk about their relationship with the immediate spirit which the play engendered and certain people sort of feeling so moved to want to reach out to both of you but I wondered do you want to go beyond the play because it's a very intimate setting you have a small audience and that's the nature of left wing productions but they can be incredibly powerful as this play is but is it enough is there something that you want to do beyond the setting of the play to take these arguments forward and Matt you talked about earlier that this was really your first experience of political theatre and as a political academic somebody who wants to make a difference and to make an impact and how does our research and how does our work how can we make our work more impactful how can we begin to change people certainly through lecturing it's a very didactic form but we might be able to change the ideas of a few but as I said before the power of dominant ideology is probably more pressing than one voice in a lecture theatre speaking Marxism to law students but one of the things that we try to do in our work at the International State Crime Initiative is engage our ideas and our research and feed it into civil society and feed it into activist groups and so but as actors I wonder what you do after the play and do you take it into schools do you try to make your ideas reach a wider audience than simply that visiting the play I can speak to that in the most immediate way for me is that I'm a teacher in drama schools so I'm bringing this to the work that I have this expectation of the students and a big ask is to be asking what they're doing with their work I try to kind of bring that bring that in but I really hear you and that was something that we certainly felt and talked a lot about when we were doing this was sort of what next I suppose it strikes me in this six year window since we did the play just how foundational this seems to have been as we've watched I mean the most kind of vibrant example is the pandemic and I mean I've certainly felt in the more existential moments of like what are we doing why are we doing it is theatre where we can make an impact should we be out on the streets doing something else and I don't know really I mean when all the theatres are closed you kind of think well should we do something else and I've got friends who have retrained and have gone into things for example something like working in a kind of very progressive tip looking at like because this is a friend who could no longer watch the world burning and thought I can't make this impact in the theatre I have to go and do something that's to do with the environment much more immediately so yeah I don't know I suppose I don't know it wasn't a critique of theatre because I think actually it's incredibly powerful what you do and I wouldn't say crime was entertainment which is very often the way in which people receive theatre it's something much more powerful I think entertainment sort of I'm not sure how impactful entertainment of itself can be and I think yeah I mean teaching is certainly one really powerful way of doing that it's something that we we're quite similar in some senses I think academics and actors you're preaching to a certain audience yeah and that's really interesting isn't it because these are the people who've paid for their ticket and they've come to sit in the theatre and be spoken to they've probably seen some blurb about what it is that they're about to watch or they kind of have some idea and so I think that was also a really interesting thing when we were doing this was like we're asking or we're demanding of these people to watch somebody make a decision in this particular part of this particular environment or for example the mother who's forced to sell her child for sex and there was definitely a lot of conversation about who are the people that really need to see this how can we get people to and I think that's a big question about the theatre are the people that need to see it the ones that are actually watching it which I think is something that is a sort of internal struggle that theatre is always having on maybe should be having more absolutely I mean I'd like to jump in there a little bit if you don't mind Anka so for us it's the eternal question I hope it will be eternal I hope that we can find an answer pretty soon in terms of like what the role of theatre is maybe I'm deluded I have been criticised of that before but I'm absolutely convinced that I have not or Bezna have not and other people have not found a tool of resistance and not just a space of reflection and I guess that's actually this question was at the heart of why me and Sinsiana decided seven years ago to actually found Bezna because we were sick and tired of the vast majority of British theatre at least being used as two hours for the middle classes to digest their pre-show dinner and actually it was kind of very frustrating for us who were seeing various oppressions and violence as intersect and nobody really questioning them especially in Britain where I think personally there is a very special type of British apathy towards a lot of this on blindness so I'd like to touch on the idea of post crime and we then did five productions in Romania where we stayed out in Romania for five years and we were very much inspired by the I have to say a beautiful political movement out there and a lot of people there were two massive things that we were heavily inspired by working in the political movement in Romania one free ticket prices for social and political work and I now feel that it's so almost immoral and wrong to charge people to come watch political or social work so that wouldn't that changed that perspective of approaching funding model has to change we need to be able to make sure everyone's paid and compensated and employed and everything's covered but we do not depend on profit making so again it's us kind of stepping back from a system that was set up to produce profit and immediately audiences do become different I can't say in England quite yet because it's a little harder for us to get there but at the moment we're trying to reduce ticket prices down to the living wage of each city that we're on tour so for one hour even if it shows two hours it's just one hour of living wage for that area and then we also at least a quarter of the seats are given for free to certain organizations that we work with or and the you know the communities that they work with in so ticket prices is one and I think blood is another example of us believing that political theatre is a civil right and so actually I don't know maybe it's just me but it's just weird to go okay I will pay to go and learn about something or to be questioned I might not come out without the positive experience but it's that interaction I do believe and that's why I brought up the whole civil society question because I do believe that I dream of making theatre that actually threatens the establishment in terms of when the establishment know its existence they feel threatened and intimidated and so in that regard I don't mean that necessarily in a violent way but I mean in terms of we know what you're up to and we've got people watching what you're up to and again I think it comes back to this idea of civil society going out the field work collecting the evidence and bringing it back to people which you know every second that I've been in this key I've taken the opportunity to absorb and to learn about how that actually works and I guess the other thing that you mentioned was getting audiences to ask questions I mean in my mind I would love audience members to just have an impromptu protest you know as I heard of like many radical feminist in the 70s in the States giving certain speeches on university campuses of people rising and protesting that is my dream but until we get to that point and I find how that is done I mean we'll just obviously be constantly criticised as we already have been producing Adjitprop but you know I've learnt to take that as a compliment now as opposed to a criticism if the middle class white man who was reviewing the show calls it Adjitprop actually that's a compliment because I pissed him off a little bit and he's uncomfortable with what we're saying but yeah it's like theatre as a way of taking part I say an open space not a safe space necessarily but an open space where a community or various communities can see a violence being deconstructed and then we can rehearse together resistance it's very ideological I'm aware of that but like that's kind of how I always approach each project differently etc and so on that I didn't know whether like because I would like to point out Penny the incredible work Iski did in the Rehinga genocide years ago and I'd like to point out that Iski was one of the only people in the organisation in the entire world that collected that evidence of the genocide and made it public and took the courageous brave steps to say there's a genocide happening and I don't know if we're not doing that and so I don't know if you feel comfortable Penny just to have a few words on that experience because I think it ties beautifully into this whole civil society conversation Yeah thanks Niko we had been in Burma doing a different project actually on civil society and we had heard about some violence taken by citizens in 2012 that had been taken place in the west of the country in a really remote part, Rakhine State and so against the Rehinga Muslim minority and I got to meet a few Rehinga in Yangon at the time and it seemed to us that something really terrible was happening this wasn't inter-communal violence as the state was painting it or as the west was painting it and we applied the funding to go and do sort of more in-depth research but we did write to the British government at the time saying we think that there's a genocide happening on the basis of the work that we've done so far and the British government should be doing something about it and then we were told well there's no evidence base so we by Hugo Swire actually so we went to Burma we got the evidence we interviewed about 175 different people Rakhine State officials business people and got a really good clear understanding of what was going on wrote the report submitted it to Boris Johnson in fact who told us it's not a genocide until a court of law pronounces it as such which is just really good a perfect justification for why we don't have any faith in international mechanisms of justice we want an international court to determine something as genocide we wait 30 years wait till the genocide has taken place wait till the annihilation is over wait till there are no Rohingya Myanmar Rohingya they'll be in the diaspora but they will not be in Myanmar so we did that and it was difficult because we were as you said Nico when you're fighting against the grain so today program on Radio 4 who I have been interviewed in the past but they're not interested in it because they want to go to the people who are much more sort of government sources or organisations like Amnesty or Human Rights Watch which still don't call it a genocide I have to say Amnesty calls it an apartheid regime and Human Rights Watch called it a ethnic cleansing and crime against humanity but they avoid genocide for very very political reasons because once a determination of genocide is made there is an obligation on the part of the UN and states to actually intervene to prevent and punish they're okay with the punishment bit years and decades later but they are absolutely not willing to deal with the question of prevention so yes I think we made a prediction in our 2015 report because we used Daniel Fierstein's work and that's where theory and practice come into being if you've got a really good understanding of genocide as a process which was the theoretical model we adopted and we used a lot of Daniel Fierstein's work and sort of a six stage model of genocide we could see what was happening you know you begins with stigmatization and early instances of violence segregation and isolation mass violence systematic weakening before the mass violence and then states engage in something which is all about rewriting the history of a place and rewriting the victim population out of that history transforming the physical environment as if the Rohingya never lived there it's a bit like Palestine Israel Palestine you know villages Palestinian villages which were destroyed during the Nakba where you know the Jewish state then plants trees a forest over that village renames a village or completely erases the identity of the population that were once there so that was having that model a theoretical model of genocide as a process allowed us to sort of to talk about it much earlier than waiting for the spectacularised mass violence which we saw in 2017 which then meant more people felt comfortable about calling it a genocide then because they want to see thousands and thousands of people dying before they're prepared to call it a genocide which is a complete misunderstanding of what genocide is so and you know it was we worked through civil society in order to get the message out but as I said it was very difficult to do anything with civil society inside Myanmar because it was it was dangerous and because they took the state the state position that the Rohingya were in fact illegal Bengali immigrants effectively and so yes but civil you know I mean we do still see civil society as the most potentially progressive force the most effective way of challenging state criminality and state structures of violence but it's not it's enough you have to work hard at it and theatre will also have to work very hard at it as you are doing and I think it's wonderful because you will change people's minds you will change the way they approach certain questions and theatre is all you know your kind of theatre is about asking people to raise those questions to not accept what they have been given so I think it's you know hugely important and I think that one of the reasons that this can be loved working with Bezna is because it's another civil society it's another way of reaching audiences it's another way of thinking differently a little bit you know you think more creatively than we do and about reaching audiences in a really challenging way that we are less familiar with so it's a wonderful collaboration from my perspective Thank you so much Penny I wanted to ask you a quick question before because we have to wrap up soon for those that are watching who are interested in maybe like exploring experimenting or developing their political creative practice I would say that evidence and research is the key aspect for us at Bezna we do a minimum of six months at least and sometimes for certain projects that just doesn't even scratch the surface based on your direct experience in Burma and with the Rohingya I was wondering what forms would your evidence take exactly and maybe some of the people in the audience can take inspiration from that I suppose the evidence we gather we you know observation and interviews and so on but in order to kind of make some sense of the data that we gathered we had to put it together in a report we had to write it so we have the theoretical framework I talked to you about as genocide as process we had to be presenting it in a way that was as convincing as possible and so in our report we went the first report was okay we're at the fourth stage of genocide you know and if we don't take care and if we don't intervene and if something isn't done we will see the mass annihilation stage next followed by symbolic reorganization of the society and the final stage is all about sort of denial in the way in which states if you like make real their denial and so I think it's about getting the data into a form which makes sense which is compelling which has a clear argument and it has if you like a not a blueprint for action but some kind of you know we should do something about this and this is some of what we can do you know in terms of like supporting a BDS movement boycott sanctioned divestment strategy for example as has been so successful in South Africa against apartheid is very powerful in Israel Palestine and is beginning now the CDM movement in Burma is calling for precisely a BDS type engagement and that's a way of pulling people in using your evidence using okay we have the evidence here we've got to do something historically this is the most effective way we can intervene we have to build and it's about political organization then it's about securing support and building organization effectively so that people then can can become part of something bigger and know what to do that is effective that can can elicit social change absolutely and we're always thinking about ways of like trying to find those concrete activities that we're building towards as you said I mean I started before the pandemic to toy with the idea of like building a lot more communication and relationships with trade unions as well that is not an original idea I have to say like Piscotto the person who was a political theater practitioner who came before Grecht and German political theater practitioner he actually in his seasons would sell and get unions to commit to buying like 400 seats per season and so actually half the theater were always filled with unions and stuff again going down the dream road but I think definitely this idea of like collecting your evidence I have to say of all forms of research and evidence speaking to the people directly and first-hand testimonies are particularly powerful artistically speaking and of course more importantly in terms of actually getting the alternative narrative the real narrative of the working people and then making sure it goes down to that concrete form building towards a concrete action it's always good to remind ourselves of this especially with the pandemic. Matthew and Ankel I wanted before we close if you wanted to add anything or if you wanted to mention anything before we wrap up tonight's conversation I was just thinking towards the as Penny you were speaking there about this direction that your work seems to have taken Niko which is you mentioned it before about rehearsing for the moment sort of it seems to me a sort of a preparation for when you might be needed to actually take action or something and it just strikes me from my perspective which is mostly now although I still work as an actor it's I work a lot in movement and movement for actors and the embodied nature of what you ask of the audience or more and more I see that there are these moments or potential moments in your work where the audience aren't just and I suppose that's interesting that it sort of feels like it maybe started during crime with these small things of taking a hand or these very physical physicality of this and I know in my work with you on illegalised this moment where the audience were called upon to stop the stop the plane in a can you tell me what you deportation to get the audience to stop the deportation exactly and they actually have to stand up and you know virtually they have to take hands I mean they sort of do they're actually getting these things into people's bodies and I think that's one of the dangers of the pandemic is that we and I see people's lives and people's political lives being so lived out online that more can be done as a rehearsal like we should be practising when we can and that that should be really in our bodies that's what I'm thinking Oh wow I want to get into rehearsal room right now and start exploring that man absolutely and Karen is there anything you want to say add to that well yeah I would like to add just how how this way of working affects artists in a way I don't know how to say it but it affected me in a way that as I said in the beginning now I only try and do this sort of work in a way and try to have the same impact in a way and going back to Penny's question how do we take it further how it's been six years and and crime is something that always lives with me artistically and personally and it's more of a question for me we know the atrocities of the socio-economical system that we live in and we know the consequences of the abrupt change in some countries but I would have to re-quote Luce Milia which was on earlier Glock I think issues in the first season where she says that probably the political system is never going to change politicians are always going to be politicians but societies need to change and that's the only given that societies in constant evolution and it's more of a question that I want to ask everyone where do we go from here knowing that this socio-economical system doesn't work for the masses and obviously having socialist qualities in the way you move society it can be very helpful but as we know the predatory aspect of capitalism and the people in power not allowing it to change because they have the power what is the step forward it's more of a question than adding to the conversation but what is the step forward I would like to re-quote Penny what she said and say that building and organizing building solidarity is an artistic point of view but I think it also comes down to activism my group is working in isolation and finding sinews of solidarity between each other and sometimes I can say with some other other partnerships putting some issues that we don't see eye to eye to a side because if the establishment manages to keep us divided and conquered whereas we are more power than them and we have to find ways and this is where art can come in is building sinews of connection and stability between people and individuals it's not enough but being in a room where the audience is filled with people that would never have been sat next to each other in any other circumstance it's really incredible the conversations that can happen so that would be my answer anyone else I mean Niko and I were speaking about this recently but it really strikes me that that seems to be the most hopeful way forward but this thing of looking for even the one thing we agree on and allowing that to be enough to work together because I see a lot of I see a lot of inability to get past certain things in other people that keep us just keep us kind of chasing our own tails there's this thing in the left that you see it kind of consuming itself and sometimes I feel like the other side are kind of watching and laughing and just completely like ha ha ha look at them so yeah I agree I think it is about United France and really working at all levels I mean it used to be I would always have argued in the past building a revolutionary socialist party was the thing to do but the left is very fractured at the moment and actually I think it's quite demoralising in lots of ways people do resist and people fight back you can't always predict when it's going to happen nobody predicted that the Berlin Wall would fall when it did but it is about being organised because without organisation struggles just dissipate and I think the Arab Spring was a really good example and tragic example of that so I think it is about one has to think very seriously about the nature of the organisation and what one wants and that is we do have to read it's not just about struggle it's about understanding and the way the world is and what we want about it to change so I think it's a combination but a united front is definitely what we want and that is the perfect place to end tonight's discussion and blood series too united front on the evils of capitalism unfortunately we have to finish there but thank you so much again Matt, Penny and Ankel for joining us tonight and for such a stimulating conversation I feel really stimulating and on the streets thank you to our partners HowlRound for hosting GLUD the second time round at F-Side CineClub Romania's first feminist CineClub devoted to promoting films made by women I'd also like to thank Untiatru Theatre in Bucharest Romania where the Recording of Crambers live stream tonight was shot there in 2014 and thank you for everyone who joined us tonight in solidarity though tonight is the last live event of the second season of GLUD I'd like to remind you that the whole of season 1 and 2 will be available to watch on HowlRound's website the links should appear in our social media platforms and be sure to sign on to business newsletter you can sign up there for any updates on our projects that we're working on this year we've got some really exciting things coming up this autumn and also the next GLUD season so thank you once again everybody stay safe and inspired and always in solidarity thank you bye


Hey what's up you guys, welcome back to my channel if you're new here, hi her, I'm Lillian. Today I thought I'd talk to you a little bit about what it's like to change psychiatric medication. I have been on a lot of different variations of psychnotes, I've been anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, benzodiazepine, and procedure. I'm actually considering starting a mood stabiliser. So I'm looking at that and I am also looking at changing from QTiopein to something else. Mainly because the weight gain I've had from the QTiopein is a lot. You know it's getting harder and harder to manage, which ain't the best. Let me take you back to the beginning when I started medication. So the first medication I ever went under my mental health was lithium. I took lithium when I was 13 years old and I reacted really badly to it. I struggle with dehydration at the best of time. So any medication that makes you more dehydrated I do struggle with. Unfortunately that is a side effect I have on all my medication, physical health and mental health. I came up with lithium, got discharged from CAMS and then years later I got re-scented CAMS which is Children and Adolescents Mental Health Services. The second time I got referred to CAMS I was started on fluoxetine. In case you don't know I was under CAMS when I was 16. CAMS you're up to age 18 in Telford. My experience with them so fluoxetine and me don't mix. I can't take it and I also can't take any that have similar ingredients. I'm actually allergic to fluoxetine and I lasted a grand total of a week before CAMS told me to stop taking it. I then stopped taking medication for a bit because I was too afraid to go on something else. And then the next summer so I had been 17. I was started on to Citalopram. He didn't do anything and I got put on the high dose of it. Nothing so that got stopped. Then switched to sertraline which sertraline I couldn't eat on. I just didn't feel hungry at all. I couldn't eat, I'd throw up for it. And because of that time I was also struggling with my eating disorder. I was also under eating disorders. So then we got on to metazepine which helped me to leave, begin with, and then it just didn't do anything. There are changes in medication. There has always been two weeks between each medication that I've changed because that is the requirement under the British guidelines with antidepressants and especially SSRIs because of the thing called serotonin syndrome, which if you want I'll make a video on that. We're on metazepine and I said it didn't do anything so that got stopped. And then I got put back on sertraline which didn't work at all. And then I got started on to Vendelofaxi and extended relief which is what I am still taking to this day. In terms of antidepressants, the switching of it, it was so hard. Like the withdrawal process is real. Like even now if I miss a dose of my Vendelofaxi I can, I physically start shaking and I can't manage. I get really shaky, I get jumpy and I can't cope if I miss a dose. Mainly a good thing because it reminds me to take it and I do have bad habit of forgetting to take meds, it's not the best. So yeah, taking Vendelofaxi has helped a bit. So now that it's gone to antipsychotics, so I've taken a few. I have taken, well I've taken Alanzepine with hated last little wee body didn't respond well to it. Got switched to Quattaiopeine which I'm still on. I take around 300 milligrams a day now but early this year I actually got started on Haloperidol at the same time as Quattaiopein as kind of a supporting dose. I reacted to the Haloperidol really badly, really badly. Every time I've ever had that I've reacted horribly and an upfront experience because when I was in hospital in January I actually did get injected with it because I had an episode and yeah. But shenan psychotic was, it is a long process because you can't just jump off a high-dose, decrease it very slowly otherwise you run the risk of so many health issues that it's literally not worth trying to just come off it. I've really not advised that. I have gone cold turkey on medication. Main one being Quattaiopeine. I did try and stop taking it. Dole-Badrishang. We are being it. But back on the subject of withdrawal from antipsychotics. Going cold turkey is the worst thing you can do. Do not do that under any circumstances. At all. Every doctor ever will advise against it. So when you take medication you can't ever just decide oh yeah I'm not taking it anymore because that's not how. However, I do want to talk about this room in that. The biggest thing with a mental health that helps with anxiety helps with sleep and helps with countless other things. I've been to those opinions. And every time I've mentioned this, spoke about this, I have gotten so much hate. I am very pro-medication. I have nothing against therapy but I don't have any good experiences with therapy so I don't talk about it. And I take the nasal plan at this point. I take it three times a day. Two 0.5 tablets in the daytime and then I have one milligram at night. For me being a game changer, I've huge misconception that everyone who takes them is going to become an addict or dependent. And I think if you know how to manage medication and do it right and follow the instructions by the professional, you are a lot less likely to become addicted. Now I have taken different variations of benzodiazepines for nearly two years now and I still forget to take it. I'm actually the worst person when it comes to remembering to take medication and I can tell you from switching from lorazepam to clonazepam it made all the difference because lorazepam is very short-term. Clonazepam is the longer term benzodiazepine that you can take for longer than the others. And me and my consultant are both in agreement that I cope with things better on that medication and we have no intention of stopping it. And that's the joint agreement between me and my consultant. Big thing in that is I am very, very honest about how I feel. I've been very open with them about my past with drug abuse. Anyone who doesn't know me, I used to use cocaine two years ago and I haven't used it in over a year which is a big deal for me. I would never do it again because it nearly killed me. My best advice for medication change is one, know your meds. Understand how they work. Or if you don't want to be on a medication, tell them why and explain your worries. And you know, if before you start medication ask to know what the expected side effects are because that is within your right. It's medication is swings and roundabouts and I'm not gonna lie there is always a trial and error in everything. There is no picture perfect way to know what medication will work for you. So yeah, there's a chance you will end up on a medication that makes you ill. There is a chance that medication won't work. There is a chance of adverse effects. I take medication to cope, to survive and to want to exist. There is nothing more than that in what I do. And I said I finally do have a medication routine that I believe anyway works for me. And I honestly question channel would not have continued on if it wasn't for the support that you guys have given. And I owe a lot to you. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for standing by me. Stay safe, stay strong. And in light of what's going on at the moment, stay home or stay two meters away. Yeah, I've got to sit in the car, man, for a bit.