We are pleased to invite you to the MENTOR: “More than a joke – Satire under Dictatorship” Project online event, which will take place on Wednesday, 2nd of July, 10:15 to 13:45 CET. The event will take place online and will be free and open for all.
During the event, the MENTOR team aims to explore the power of humour and satire under authoritarian regimes, engage with researchers, cartoonists, and activists and launch the participation in a live survey on free speech & satire. Please fill the survey here.
The event will highlight real case studies from Ireland, Greece, Serbia, and beyond. The participants will also have a chance to engage in panels dedicated to humour as a form of resilience, expression, and memory preservation. Within this event, MENTOR will also create opportunities to engage with experts in civic rights and free speech. The webinar will take place on zoom, with webstreaming on social media available.
Please register here to join the event – looking forward to seeing you soon!
Event agenda:
About the MENTOR Project:
During the twentieth century, Europe’s population had to cope with dark days due to the establishment of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes,
coming with wars, terrible crimes including the Holocaust, the imprisonment and the deportation of large parties of the societies as well as the
suppression of fundamental rights such as the freedom of speech, assembly, thought, conscience, and religion. Although democratic life is mostly
established in Europe the last few decades, recent developments are proving that democracy needs a persistent effort so as not to decline towards
authoritarian and/or totalitarian regimes as it was for instance the case in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
More precisely and due to the latest crises that the EU countries had to overpass and/or encounter such as the financial crisis, the migratory one or even the COVID-19 pandemic alongside Russian aggression against Ukraine, populists, radical movements as well as fake news came not only to emerge toxic online debates but also to make people question fundamental values of diversity, democracy and political freedom. At the same time, as content is being constantly produced and published
on blogs, social media pages and various platforms, the entire European population including the youth, is in fact participating on daily basis, even unconsciously, in debates with political background.
As a result, MENTOR project focuses on educating selected target groups, with special focus on the the youth, first- and second-generation migrants as well as the general public about the importance of safeguarding democracy and fundamental rights by drawing on the lessons learned from authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, promoting a comparative approach on how humour was used during various European dictatorships. Through the analysis of these small examples of freedom in days of unfreedom, our goal is to establish better understanding of the importance of the fundamental rights, the pillars of the EU.