The Appeal of the Political Animal to Politicians and the Electorate
Politicians and those who elect them, you are blind if you do not see that an irreparable thingis happening: the human being is losing its essence, its animal element. Adam, a harmonious man, broke into two parts in his functioning, into a predator governed by the instinct to kill, and the social being following bureaucratic patterns. Both of them kill life – the first does it directly, while the second – indirectly. It happens everywhere, from Budyonnovsk to Kremlin, from Sarajevo to Halifax...
Politicians and those who elect politicians, you have to understand the main thing: no democratic concept could remove the problem of basic violence which the human being exerts over its own and other biological species. This violence inevitably breaks through to the superstructure, to the construction of the human society proper, and tries to rule it. It is you who are responsible for that majority which lives and breathes nearby, but which does not enjoy equal rights with human beings.
Politicians and those who gave them their posts, think of the conditions for the fusion of natural and social elements in the human being, give the floor not only to a creaturewearing a jacket and a tie, but also to the animal which does not fit into this jacket. Or the human being as a species will be doomed.
Kulik. June 19, 1995
Your party is a Party of Animals, the Kulik Party!
To be Homo sapiens means to be a Nazi today. The Nazianthropocentrism, just as Nazism of any other kind, results in the moral and physical degradation of man. Simplification is our salvation, but not down to the Tolstoy level, to the level of his Strider horse, at least... When the Kulik Party comes to power, it will be the beginning of the new political epoch. Don't think that the world is shared by the man and the woman. Its structure is much more complex. It is shared by the frog and the giraffe, by the lion and the dolphin, by the ant and the anteater. The world's structure is exquisite, it is infinitely varied...
It is well known that politics is a show. It is a less widely known fact that politics is nothing but a show. Stop pretending that it is politicians who solve problems. Economy is made by economists, war is made by generals, bread is made by grainfarmers, and shows are made by politicians. And everything runs in its groove. The human society is an imperfect ant-hill, and man must widen his mind to attain the mind of an ant in order to make his own mind perfect. Feel yourself to be a bee, a buffalo, a wolf in the pack. The true democracy is the law of the jungle. Vote for the truly democratic law! For the freedom to useyour freedoms! The jungle is the only place where freedom and equality are possible - there is no hired labor and oppression of your like in it. It is the only place where all community members enjoy an equal position in respect to property (real estate and otherwise), and that is the only guarantee of democracy. It is the only place where the strong and capable comes to power (and we know pretty well what "wise" gerontocracy means).
When the Party of Animals comes to power, it would not mean that only goats, orangutans, eagles and partriges would form the parliament (this happens today too).
When the Party of Animals comes to power, it would mean that man is ready to see his Other in the animal and to discover the Other in himself, this non-anthropomorphous creature, in order to feel mutual exhilaration and mutual responsibility for this unique world, helping this world to welcome man with unprecedented fullness.
Can you forecast an earthquake a week before it comes? And any tiny aquarium fish can. Did Thomas More know the secret of a harmonious social order? And "mindless creatures", the bee and the ant, know it!
Could you always be adequate? Without betraying? Without lying? And the animals can. And they cannot behave in any other way!
Can your love be loyal and disinterested? And their love can. Believe me, the modern man who is infinitely lonely and unloved needs to love and to be loved. Zoophrenia is a salvation from the total schizophrenia of the contemporary society.
The main argument our opponents cite against us is that the animal is not capable of expressing its interests. That is ridiculous. An overwhelming majority of people also are not capable of it. "Ai, ai" and "nay, nay" can be barked by out any mongrel. And the rest comes from the evil one.
Our party offers a universal language, the language of emotion, of passion, the language of intuition, nosing, comprehensible to the animal-man. I, Oleg Kulik, am the Presidential candidate not just from the North-West electoral district, but from all animate Russia, from all its noosphere (it is not by chance that the philosophic prefix "noos" was derived from the "nose", "nosing"), from every living creature which breathes and praysat our side for us, kuliks and people.
I need your vote. And you need me, believe me.
November, 1995
The Presidential Candidate from the Party of Animals, Kulik, the leader of the party
Speechwriter: M. Bredikhina (member of the Party of Animals since 1981)
Oleg Kulik, the founder of the Party of Animals,
is interviewing by journalists
Interviewer: (Press Service of the Party of Animals): Kulik, which of the existing political trends (movements) – democracy, totalitarianism, liberalism - is close to you as the leader of a political party?
Kulik: Corrections of these too human notions are inevitable. There are no antagonism and "inter-ethnic" territorial conflicts among animals. Ants, elephants, birds have nothing to dispute. The territory of the elephant and the territory of the ant are two absolutely different territories, even if they are interposed upon each other. Sahara is glad to have termites, they make its soil solid. And termites are glad to have flies and their larvae. And so on.
Interviewer: Do you mean that everybody is loyal in nature?
Kulik: Not really loyal, but always necessary for each other.Everybody exists in its own niche, and these niches are built into each other. Problems are no longer solved according to principles of the game of chess, they are solved according to the principle "matrioshka", of a set of nesting dolls, where one interest is built into the other staying inside them. This is a moment of principle importance, and the misunderstanding of this principle could blow up our world. You see, it is happening.
Interviewer: Why the set of matrioshka ? Do you see the inter-species, ecological balance as such a strict and stifling dependence on each other?
Kulik: Yes. Lions do not just live side by side with antelopes, their existence is built into the antelope life. They cannot live without each other. The antelopes are built in into one more shell, and so on. The world has been created precisely as a set of matrioshka. Many people believe politics to be a game with many potential moves. This is not so. The Russian matrioshka is a little bit stifling, right. But Indian version of nesting dolls is transparent and airy.
Interviewer: But any nesting dolls politics means that no moves are possible at all.
Kulik: That's right, not a single move off your path. There is only one correct move, it takes one to his or her niche. And this move is possible only when one takes into account the political interests of closest neighbors, of every living being. The contact with this idea brings about a radical transformation of any human notion. I am afraid we will need a new kind of political management very soon.
Interviewer: So, the first thing you are going to do when you are elected the President of Russia will be...?
Kulik: Five minutes of lowing will be my appeal to the nation broadcast by all radio and TV channels. It is appropriate. I want it to become the symbol of my rule - total mistrust in all human speech. I will be judged by my actions, not by my speeches and promises. Words stopped to mean anything long ago. Anyway, they mean much less, than the lowing of a cow as a social protest or the chirring of a cricket as an artistic gesture.
Interviewer: Do you regard the emergence of the Party of Animals in the post-Soviet Russia as a legitimate result of years long intentful "brutalization" of the poor Russian ordinary person? Do you take Russia for a weak link in the chain of other states?
Kulik: I do not associate the emergence of the Party of Animals in Russia with anything that could humiliate the dignity of Russians. No "brutalization" could make anybody join the Party of Animals. I have already said that. Nor to its emergence. This party was to appear in the country experiencing the process of radical renewal, so it emerged in Russia. The Party of Animals makes it possible for the human being to manifest its best properties. And a human being in its best is an animal which is not detached from environment. In Russia numerous experiments produced a new human being, the new Russian, a sort of Pavlov's dog. It, just as other human types, has characteristics which could be useful for the future Political Animal. The emergence of the idea of the Political Animal marks the change of all points of departure in the world. You know what a lot of discussions about animals take place in the world, how often their rights are regarded as the rights of certain non-intellectual minorities. I see it as a bizarre snobbism. Animals are not underdeveloped creatures, as they are often regarded, and they are not deities, "voted" by a majority (sacred cows, cats, monkeys etc.). As a border country Russia is to give a correct solution to the interpretation of this problem. Animals are equal to us, this idea should appear precisely here, in Russia, where the idea of collegiality is still felt. This is the point from which it will pour upon the world. I am sure that the United Nations Organization will move to Russia. But its name will be different: it will be called the United Species Organization, or USO.
Interviewer: How do you interpret such notions as "collegiality", "politics", "science", "art" in the light of your political program oriented at the recultivation of an animal, natural element in one's self?
Kulik: All these notions are important, but they should be extended. I follow Zabolotsky in my belief that the true, oppressed proletariat are animals. "Workers of the world, unite!" as a slogan is as important as ever. All the species should unite in the struggle for their rights, and they must never let political schemers like the "green" aging actresses earn political profits at their expense. Contemporary sciences are already developing a strategy "Forward to Nature"! As for the revision of art, I must say there is a law of compensation. Human society has separated itself and opposed itself to the natural element. According to the law of compensation, it needed the territory of art to make up for theinfringed natural element, naturalness. This was the only place where one was allowed to be an animal. That is the reason for my positioning myself as an animal in my esthetic practice. Thus I take the "end of art" to its logical final.
Interviewer: What about the institution of marriage? It is to pass away?
Kulik: No. We welcome any productive model. Family of the future is a social creativeness. It would be strange if I suddenly made my mind to marry a sheep. No. Some tactile contacts will be enough for me. I don't like to live with it. I want to live with a dog, for instance. As for my child, I want it to be a fish or a killer whale, to have their characteristics. Why not? And I want my child to swim in a large nice aquarium, so that I could come to visit him.
Interviewer: An amphibian man, right? I mean a movie.
Kulik: Yes, an amphibian man. I'm fascinated with it. That boy also had a father who was very much attached to him. If he had been an ordinary boy, the father would have probably forgotten him.
Interviewer: But the child would have survived. It was excessive paternal care which killed him.
Kulik: No! He was killed by his desire to be a human being. If he had realized that all sorts of creatures make this world, all kinds of them, there would have been no conflict. He was killed by the anthropocentricity which is no less terrible, than genocide.
Interviewer: Imagine that all the plans of your Party, such as inter-species ties, trans-species language, extended limits of the human etc. are being implemented. Amphibian people, your killer whale sons are in the aquarium, other children with tails chatter like birds ...
Kulik: What a splendid picture! The Renaissance!
Interviewer: But Plato and Socrates were before that. Would those creatures with tails remember them?
Kulik: Why not? They will be remembered by those who want it. Today few people remember them. Nothing can be done about it. Maybe my killer whales will be able to dissolve the memory of them in the depths of their minds with greater benefits for themselves and for the world then you are. I believe that any thing that would happen to some turtle as the result of the new awareness of itself in this world is much more interesting than all contemporary philosophy.
Interviewer: Do you mean Zeno's turtle? And how should we treat the new dissidents who will be interested in philosophy, not in killer whales?
Kulik: Dissidence has nothing to do with it. It is wonderful if you are interested in philosophy. I also think that Diogenes was an interesting philosopher. The specter will become wider, richer, the choice will be greater. That is all.
Interviewer: And what about responsibility for those you have tamed, as Saint-Exupery put it. What about it?
Kulik: And who tamed whom? I see myself as a faithful servant of some dog, as a matter of fact. Does it feel responsible for the fact that it has tamed me? That is interesting. Would it be responsible for myself? Let it be responsible for me. It makes me feel glad, excited. Such a luxurious, perfect creature, and myself, such an ordinary, insignificant man, one of millions... The role of a trainer is not really attractive for me, on the contrary, I am a trained and tamed creature.
1994
Oleg KULIK, the founder of the Party of Animals,
interviews
Ilona Staller, former Italian MP
KULIK: Ilona, you have been a member of the Italian Parliament , and you are going to run for it again. Yet you belong to those few people who can love animals as tenderly, as members of the Party of Animals love them. What do you think of the idea to represent the political rights of animals in the Russian parliament? Italy saw the precede nce of it: Caligula brought his horse to the Senate of Rome.
CICCIOLINA: Actually, I love animals, but not in the sense you are hinting at. I can't imagine how animals would behave in a parliament. In my time I championed their rights and even proposed a bill on them. Excuse me, what animal are You going to represent in the parliament? Who are you? Your horns make one think of the devil, rather than anything else.
KULIK: No, no, I am a bull today.I like this animal – it is strong, sturdy, the father of all animals, their defender and patron. Can you imagine a bull in a parliament?
CICCIOLINA: Not in the Italian parliament, and I know so little about the Russian one.
KULIK: You've had an unforgettable night with Zhirinovsky, a member of parliament. Didn't he tell you of any animals in the Russian parliament? Didn't he remind you of an animal himself?
CICCIOLINA: Well, perhaps, but it was a very lovely animal. He was really great. Bella, Bella! He kissed the pig!
KULIK: A live pig?
CICCIOLINA: No, a roasted one. A roasted pig in honey. And Zhirinovsky kissed its buttocks as if it were a baby. And then we ate it. Zhirinovsky is a merry, lively person. If Your parliament has animals of his sort, I could onlysupport it.
KULIK: Politically you side with the left. Would you cooperate with the right for the sake of a serious career?
CICCIOLINA: No, no, fascism is terrible. It is the end of democracy, and I am a person of democratic views.
KULIK: Ilona, You are a politician of long standing experience and a person who had difficult life, you know the life of different social strata both at the top, and at the bottom. That is why your forecasts are of great interest. What are the prospects for the evolution of mankind?
CICCIOLINA: Our world is awfully built. I was especially aware of it when I stayed in New York and fought for my child. Our world is not fair, and people are cruel. In New York this is especially hard. I always felt fear without any reason there.
KULIK: And that is New York, the centre of human civilization! Don't you think that world is cruel because man is the only ruler in it? Full-blooded communication with animals will give us a powerful impulse of creative energy. We must provide these others, i.e. everything living and breathing, with equal political rights - it is man who needs it in the first place. The world will become more chaste and kind.
CICCIOLINA: Oh, if that were possible, I would be all for it. The world demands some radical change. Today I perceive everything through the future of my boy. I always feel my ties with him. When I was pregnant with Ludwig, in my apartment in Rome I often played the white grand pianoto him, and he listened to it. I felt which melody he liked more, and which he liked less. Now he is three years old, and he plays that grand piano himself when he waits for his mother. I know how he misses me. He is so defenseless. Children demand decisions from us.
KULIK: Yes, as beings who are pure, defenseless, who have not been spoiled by society yet?
CICCIOLINA: Yes.
KULIK: Almost as animals that also expect decisions from us?
CICCIOLINA: Probably. It is painful to see homeless animals: you feel guilty. One day in Rome I saw a woman lying on the stairs leading to St. Peter's Cathedral with two tots sleeping on her breasts. It was terrible. I wept. I told myself that this should never happen. The main line of my future political work will be to champion children's rights.
KULIK: Children and animals have one thing in common: they are deprived of the right to vote. Could the Party of Animals be closer to you, than the Socialist Party of Italy?
CICCIOLINA: Do you propose that I become a member of your party?
KULIK: Yes.
CICCIOLINA: If I am not able to carry out my ideas in the left move ment, I will accept your proposal.
KULIK: Ilona, you are a famous person. But are you aware that in the artistic circles you are just a personage of your former husband, Jeff Koons. I know you had a difficult divorce...
CICCIOLINA: Did I get You right? I am his personage? My husband, that American, used me. He married me for my fame. He doesn't love anybody except himself. A true American. When we got married, I was much more famous. He always went mad about it. Just to irritate him, I often said: "I got into the Parliament, and you will never get into the White House!" Fame was behind all our domestic quarrels. He saw a rival in me, and he treated me really bad.
KULIK: Your family broke up because Jeff Koons never became as famous as inimitable Cicciolina, didn't it?
CICCIOLINA: It was one of the reasons behind it. I lost my first child because my husb
and maltreated me. When I had another child, he started a real war against me and practically kidnapped my son. I had to go to America for six months to sue him and get my baby back. I hated that country. It was a terrible period. My husband spent one million dollars on lawyers to take my boy from me. I smoked so much. I wouldn't have lived if they had taken my baby from me, but the judge saw my situation, she understood me and took my side.
KULIK: Why do you hate Jeff? He may also love his son. A million dollars is big money for an artist.
CICCIOLINA: This really is money for my husband. He needed that courtaction as another trick of his. He never economized on that. I don't want to speak of him any more, or I'll burst into tears. I want to forget this story. Our marriage was a mistake.
KULIK: Your divorce and marriage to a man were so traumatic. Perhaps, a union with somebo
dy non-human would have been more successful. You are famous for revolutionary views upon sexual relations with other biological species. This problem is very fascinating for me, and it seems to be of principal importance for the liberation of the human spirit. Without contacts of that sort a true abolition of animal slavery will never take place. The freedom of non white people till mixed marriages have become a norm. Moreover, love between a human being and an animal is a source of immense creative energy. It destroys all shackles, reveals a new system of images that has been tabooed. Don't you want to be a pioneer in this field too, i.e. to marry aliving being of another species who is not capable of betrayal? If you have a child in this marriage (and latest research in eugenics lets us hope for it), you would have a most unusual child and a most faithful husband. In Paris you said that Ludwig Maximilian would be the American President. You are an ambitious mother. Your other child would have a life more famous, than that of the US President.
CICCIOLINA: It is quite an unexpected idea, a bit too much for me. You'd better try it here, in Russia. All revolutions take place in this country. Everybody expects something new from Russia. I think Europe is a bit too old for experiments of that sort.
KULIK: Europe is not too old. It is a myth. Europe has been exhausted by the idea of a superman who rules the world. Yet, as a matter of fact, a superman is the creature that is capable of going beyond the limitsof its species. Is Cicciolina a superwoman? Are you capable of crossing the border of your species?
CICCIOLINA: No, I am not. I love people and my future marriage is to be with a human being. And with a man. Thus I make an official announcement that I'm looking for a new husband.
KULIK: A new Russian husband?
CICCIOLINA: Why not Russian? I liked Moscow very much, the people, its atmosphere.
KULIK: Is it so because there are so many rich men among Russians, or because Your roots are from Hungary and Your mentality makes You closer to people from East Europe?
CICCIOLINA: I don't care where the man comes from. The main thing is that he is to love my baby, to treat me well, and never go begging for anything.
KULIK: You are more eager to speak of politics and children, than of sex and Your main occupation, pornographic art. Is it due to your age?
CICCIOLINA; (putting her tongue out at him): I haven't acted in pornographic scenes for six years. But I like to perform strip-tease, and I am doing it better than anybody else. My body is magnificent. I am a young and attractive woman yet. Yesterday I showed a true strip-tease in Moscow, and that's what I planned to do.
KULIK: Thanks a lot, Ilona.
Moscow, spring 1995
Recorded by Mila Bredikhina