Equality festival looks for connections, celebrates the differences
With debates on climate change, the refugee crisis and prison systems, Ghent’s Festival van de Gelijkheid intends to offer hope in a time of despair
Kaleidoscope of equality
Young thinkers Rutger Bregman – a Dutch historian – and Alicja Gescinska – a Polish/Belgian philosopher – debate contemporary society’s many flaws and the ways to fix them. The renowned Flemish international affairs professor Rik Coolsaet and the equally legendary war journalist Rudi Vranckx (pictured) host a debate on despair and terror.
Other talks deal with the questionable use of prisons, our treatment of refugees, the issues of privacy, the discriminatory taxing of singles and – of course – climate change. For the first time in four years, the festival leaves the safety of Vooruit and steps into the city.
At a branch of the ethical bank Triodos, young professionals are hosting a debate on the notion of “degrowth”, while Sphinx cinema is screening documentaries by local and international filmmakers. The real eye-catcher here is Flemish filmmaker Pieter-Jan De Pue’s award-winning The Land of the Enlightened, a docu-drama about Afghan children coming to terms with the war ravaging their country.
The same, but different
The festival offers a wide range of subjects, but “equality remains our main focus,” says An Pauwels, from the organising association Curieus. “It’s been our explicit goal to be as broad as possible. Working on this subject over the last four years, we have found that there’s no facet of life that isn’t affected by equality, or rather, the lack of it. Hence the many themes and the increasing number of art disciplines that we’re hosting.”
Among these disciplines are street art and literature. British artist Ben Wilson creates miniature street art on the city’s paved stones, using nothing but chewing gum.
Real equality isn’t possible if we don’t celebrate our differences
The Backstay Hostel, across the road from Vooruit, is preparing its beds for read-aloud sessions with some of Flanders’ most renowned writers, including Peter Verhelst, Lize Spit and Heleen Debruyne. Visitors who fall asleep during the last session of each day will wake up the next morning to breakfast.
The Empty Shop in the traveller’s corner of the Backstay Hostel is selling clothes donated by the festival’s visitors, with proceeds going towards planting a new forest. The nightly Poetry Slam at the Backstay Café is another novelty of the festival, giving the stage to some of the finest rappers in Flanders.
Vooruit’s winter garden, meanwhile, is being turned into a barber shop – all cut hair will be made into wigs for chemotherapy patients.
If the debates on climate change and the penitentiary system only aggravate your angst , the festival offers enough positive alternatives to ensure that everyone goes home with a bit of hope. “We want to change people’s minds for the better, not sour them,” says Pauwels.
While equality has many forms, there is only one way of defining it, she claims. “Everyone needs to have the same opportunities when starting out in life. That doesn’t mean we all need to be the same, but we must be given equal chances, whatever our needs, passions and dreams, or the language we speak. Real equality isn’t possible if we don’t celebrate our differences.”
1-3 December, across Ghent
