theatre.makes.politics#theatre.power.politics

The rise of anti-democratic forces in Europe is threatening the cohesion of our societies. Their supporters seek to dominate political discourse, suppress others and claim to be ‘the people’ with the ‘right’ answers, denying others, especially minorities, a place in our society. Many supporters of right-wing populists, Islamist or Christian fundamentalists despise democratic processes and try to undermine them. At the same time, they expect others to tolerate their intolerant behaviour. We are deeply convinced that is important - and necessary - that young Europeans understand how populists and extremists of all stripes try to manipulate them, what are their strategies, how they create divisions and even hostility between groups / towards other groups, be they refugees, Muslims, ‘infidels’, LGBTQ+ people and many more.

To find a creative response to anti-democratic forces in European societies, in particular: - Right-wing populism / right-wing extremism and propaganda against refugees - Christian fundamentalism (through the Orthodox Church) - Islamic fundamentalism / Islamism - Disinformation and conspiracy narratives With the results of our project, we want to empower youth workers to enable young people to change their perspective, develop a deeper understanding of people who are ‘different’, overcome prejudices and discover the joy of exchanging ideas, playing, acting and dancing with people they would otherwise never meet. The development of tolerance for ambiguity was another goal. At the organisational level, we brought together organisations from various European countries that are active in the field of cultural and political education in order to establish a stable and reliable partnership. In addition to exchanging experiences, knowledge and existing methods and formats, we also wanted to develop completely new and contemporary methods for cultural political education.

In addition to regular offline and online partner meetings, we held LTTAs on the topics described above. Here, we exchanged knowledge on the topics and presented our initial approaches to each other. Specially invited experts provided us with further background information on the characteristics, strategies and appeal of various fundamentalist groups. In four international working groups, we developed initial workshop concepts on the topics in the following months and tested them in a pilot workshop on the island of Lesbos. Further pilot workshops with young people were held in all partner countries, mostly carried out by associated partners. After evaluating everything, we revised and finalised the workshop concepts and added further chapters to our handbook so that we could go public in various multiplier events and other events from March 2025 onwards.

The handbook ‘#theatre.makes.politics - Practical Handbook for Political Education’ is available as a PDF in six languages and as a book (only in German). There is also a multilingual website at www.theatremakespolitics.eu.