Addressing ‘the Cultural Level of an Average European’ (Kafka)

Abstract

Several times during Oliver Frljić’s 2019 production of Kafka’s Report to an Academy, at Berlin’s Gorki Theater, the question ‘are you afraid of Jews?’ is posed. This essay will explore what Kafka’s parables make it possible to ‘remember’ theatrically, through the haunting of the past by the future. Here, perhaps, the question as to what we might be afraid of concerns the idea of European citizenship, as it is repeatedly impugned by the social stigmatisation — and worse — of different communities. In a context where authoritarian populism is a major political force, and with the European memory of laws that fail to provide for a universal condition of citizenship, the question of anti-Semitism, as of Islamophobia, might be rephrased in terms of the politics of ‘majorities’ and ‘minorities’ — and theatrically posed as: ‘Are you afraid of democracy?’