Ida Finci: "Everything that is happening is interesting." (11/27/17)

What is it that makes politics so personally painful? I explore this question while reflecting on my interview [full link at bottom] with Bulgarian Jewish elder and former Opera star, Ida Finci.

My high school U.S. history teacher grew up during the Cold War. So, before teaching about it, she shared a few of her childhood memories with us in class. Some of her stories demonstrated genuine concerns over safety, like her memories of hiding under her desk during practice drills, where she and her classmates would prepare themselves for an imminent Russian surprise attack. Other stories were less defendable. She also shared that her P.E. coach would criticise her weak pull-ups in gym class, demanding she work harder, lest the Russians win the war since Russian girls could do pull-ups better.

When you feel like your life is in danger, politics no longer becomes politics; threat feels too immanent, and ideology too impersonal, to spend time debating. There’s no time to focus on the enemy, to attack. There’s only time to focus on defending yourself.

I hate to be that person quoting from assigned summer readings, but I think Chris Matthews said it best: “All politics is local.” Voters vote with their own interests in mind. And politicians cater to those interests. “Politics,” after all, derives from “politis,” the Greek word for “citizen.” So when the Cold War felt like a real war, both sides instituted policies with the primary purpose of (hopefully) defending and protecting their own citizens. Practice drills to protect yourself fall under this camp.

Then, there’s the other camp, what politics have slowly started to become: no longer about personal protection, but personal attack. This happened when the war’s focus, would, at any moment, shift from its citizens to a grand competition between eastern and western egoes. The P.E. teacher’s comparisons of Russian and American female push-up capabilities fall into this camp.

I’m not saying we musn’t ignore and try to fight ideological differences that may exist between different political systems. Some ideologies are problematic, dangerous, and need to be fought.

I’m concerned about what happens when the political fight isn’t fought conscientiously. It’s tough to separate policy from person, and to not confuse people as the problem. In my experience, at least while growing up, politics wasn’t what only had to be fought over; it was also, often times, people.

Let me give you an example.

I have memories of sitting in the back of my dad’s old and rickety Camry on the way to elementary school (I’m returning to the anxiety-provoking carpool line in my memory as I write). I remember zoning in and out while the host of “McIntyre in the Morning” boomed on the radio from the plastic speaker nestled between the headrests of the back seats. I was much too young to follow, let alone understand the current events McIntyre addressed, or the fiscal or social policies he’d attack or promote. While my dad probably thought I wasn’t listening, or that our drives to school were too short, or the reception in the back too scratchy for me to follow, I had internalised some things. I have this one distinct memory: I was in first grade, and after school, while waiting for my mom to pick me up, I asked a boy -- not naively, but contentiously -- if he was gay because I had heard people debating about gay marriage legalisation on the way to school earlier that day. My teacher got mad at me and told me that what I had done wasn’t appropriate. What had I been exposed to? I didn’t know anyone who was gay; I didn’t know the political or social implications of “being gay,” or that such implications even existed, either. Radio politics didn’t show me that big ideas really existed on intimate and small levels. I saw politics without the “politis.”

Then, as I got older, and moved to the passenger seat, I was no longer half-listening to a conservative radio host; I was listening to my dad. And his message was very direct. And it was always the same: the far-left is dangerous. “The far-left is evil.” “More government, less freedom.” “Communism destroys lives.” I never really expressed any interest in the far-left, or demonstrated “warning signs” of anarchism (or, heaven forbid, far liberalism!). Maybe my dad’s deeper political convictions were less about me, and more reflective of the nation’s increasingly-polarized political climate. The political extremism that my dad detested was problematic; I recognized that. But his own talk contributed to political polarization, and exacerbated those extremes. I was scared of the other. Policies seemed harmful, but people also seemed evil. Politics became distortedly personal now, not a matter of personally affecting other people, but of personally offending me.

I’m in a different headspace now, but there was a period in high school where I was so obsessed with trying to figure out if someone’s position was “liberal” or “conservative.” It was more important for me to figure out where their sympathies lay, or what dictated their worldview, instead of trying to understand their opinions themselves. Sometimes, I’d get offended for my dad, and other times, for my more liberal education.

So how does all of this relate to Ida Finci?

Ida Finci lives in Sofia. She is a former opera singer. She is actively involved in Sofia’s JCC, even though her family didn’t practice Judaism or involve themselves in the Jewish community while she was growing up. She was 13 when Bulgaria fell to Communism. Ida is the first person I’ve ever met to have both supported and live under the USSR.

I was part of a group of five students that trekked into the snow (!) to visit Ida and interview her in her little apartment while we stayed in Bulgaria. I am not writing about Ida to defend Communism (don’t worry Dad), or to explain why I don’t agree with it, or to attack communists (sorry Dad). Ida’s story brought to light how I, like the gym coach, 1) often focus on exacerbating -- not working through -- tension when it comes to facing different ideologies, and 2) tend to mistake people -- not policy -- as the problem.

Throughout the interview, we asked Ida what it was like to live under Communism. I asked about if and how her art/creativity clashed with the government. My question was worded in a way that assumed a certain answer. (Days before, I had learned the story of a painter living under the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania who was arrested for painting a blue sky.) I also asked what a normal day looked like -- and even though this question was worded more neutrally than my first, I still had a picture in my mind that I expected her answer to align with: ugly buildings, fear, sad and starving people, food lines.

Ida said no, there was no clash between her art and the government; the theatre was big in Bulgaria, and she actually toured other countries -- and even made it to New York -- as a singer. Artists, unlike other people, were able to explore. And she described life as normal, claiming that Bulgarians and Americans were both fed unappealing pictures of each other. The communists believed the capitalists were starving; the capitalists believed the communists were starving.

Perhaps Ida and other people in the Balkans experienced (I hesitate to say “suffer” after meeting her) Communism differently than countries closer to Russia. Perhaps Ida’s experience wasn’t representative of the greater population’s. Either way, her responses -- the mildness of the content, the mildness of her tone -- were interesting to me. It made me think about what I should reconsider, if anything.

It also surfaced a question that had been begging my conscience for some time now: what is it that makes politics not just personal, but personally painful?

It's no longer about the “politis.”

Our translator spoke about how Bulgaria is overindulgently capitalistic now. I don't think "capitalism"was the right word to use, but I understand what he was trying to say: money rules. Bulgaria has swung to the other extreme. Anyone can save themselves with money. Criminals can pay off a police man to ward off the punishments of a crime committed.

Before leaving, we asked Ida if she misses Communism, how she feels about change.“Everything that’s happening is interesting,” she told us. What an equally beautiful and scary sentiment.

To listen to our interview with Ida:

https://soundcloud.com/kayla-harris-cohen/ida-finci-interview

Bulgaria’s now capitalistic. Before leaving, we asked Ida if she misses Communism. “Everything that’s happening is interesting,” she told us. What an equally beautiful and scary sentiment.