Sid Lukkassen on KIRAC: “What Is Happening Here Is Horrifying—Exploiting Emotional Vulnerability”

“In retrospect, I should have guarded my boundaries and not given in to the pressure.”

Opinion — Sid Lukkassen, 27 October 2021, 15:27

There is currently consternation over my participation in a KIRAC production that will, or was to, be screened at De Balie on 27 October. The outrage is understandable. I explicitly withdrew from the project, gave no permission—beforehand or afterwards—for the use of the footage, and was shocked by the way the production came about.

KIRAC seized on my statement about this to lecture the film’s critics and as a reason to push me once again to attend the screening. This was emphatically not my intention. “You have regained your strength!” said KIRAC’s Kate Sinha. Good. That means the strength, too, to make clear to the world why what is happening here is horrifying.

Initially, I intended to leave it at what I had said elsewhere. But a legal philosopher whom I will not name reported that De Balie’s director supposedly had seen “a statement signed by Sid” in which I gave permission for the publication of footage. No such document exists. The legal philosopher sees this as “yet another boundary-crossing postmodern joke”.

After I pointed this out, De Balie faced a choice. Either they would knowingly show a film they knew I did not support and had not authorised, or their account would be that KIRAC had lied to them about my consent, and they would not show the film. After some insistence, they admitted that no such document had ever been seen. It does not reflect well on De Balie that such a document was invoked, since the media have reported that I already say in the film itself that the footage may not be used.

For me, it is a lose-lose scenario. If De Balie cancels the film, that only makes it more interesting. KIRAC will cast themselves as tormented artists fighting oppression.

If De Balie goes ahead with the film, that establishes a precedent that it is entirely acceptable to do this to someone, while also giving the film a kind of artistic cachet.

Although I have criticised feminism in the past, I must now express my gratitude to the feminists demonstrating against this film at De Balie. The connection between left and right has been made after all, in the sense that anyone in their right mind wants nothing to do with emotional exploitation, sexual shaming and related behaviour bordering on humiliation, extortion and blackmail with the help of public media. These events have again underlined that both sexes—or, if you prefer, all genders—can be guilty of this behaviour. Standing up against it together is a gain for progressives and conservatives alike.

This is predatory behaviour: exploiting the emotional vulnerability of people who, precisely when they need a helping hand, are kicked further into the abyss. A few politicians are also responsible: they kicked the stool from under your author when I already had my neck in the noose. Afterwards I confided in KIRAC, but KIRAC tore the corpse apart and displayed the pieces publicly for ridicule and derision.

As I wrote in an email to Chris Aalberts, I had not been the strongest version of myself for a very long time. Paralysed by stress-related symptoms and feelings of depression, I wanted to put the whole episode behind me, while KIRAC continued taunting me in the media. But now that my new girlfriend loves me, I find the strength to fight back against this bullshit and explain my side of the story. She watched the trailer and concluded: “It is both bad acting and bad taste, but it certainly is not shocking.”

On the day itself and afterwards, things came to light that, taken together, intensified my initial negative feelings about the afternoon’s filming. After an outburst, Jini was said to have been diagnosed as “borderline”. Tarik literally said that she “is not a left-wing woman” and had “ended up in prostitution” through him. She was also said to be involved in a court case in which she is accused of sexually transgressive behaviour, and to run an OnlyFans account commercially.

I would have been willing to set some of these things aside to meet her person to person. After all, I had not Googled anything about her, which relates precisely to my motivation for contacting her in the first place, on a female friend’s recommendation. People are often accused of things, and the accusations need not be true. Taken together, however, the matters above created an atmosphere of insincerity that gave me a bad feeling about this project and led me not to authorise publication of the footage. The fact that I came to meet Jini and afterwards heard only from Tarik, Stefan and Kate confirms my suspicions. If Jini is innocent and her ex is accusing her unjustly, lending herself to this project does not help how she is perceived.

At the very end I received a message offering a certain oral service if I came to the premiere. But since it had now literally been said in public that I would be “sacrificed”—more on that shortly—and since I am abroad receiving medical treatment for persistent neck problems caused by an overdose of stress, I had to decline that honour. In any case, given the sophisticated way things had happened earlier, I doubted whether Jini’s message had really been composed by Jini rather than Kate and Tarik. I regret that, under pressure from those present, I was persuaded to get started with her instead of first having more meetings to get to know her personally, as I had intended.

As for my initial reason for exploring the project: so many people have an image of me based on what others once wrote or said in the media. Who you are as a human being is no longer seen. But I thought: I can get beyond all those layers of media representation and what people think of me by meeting one another as a “left-wing” and a “right-wing” person. To me, that would feel like proof that there is more than just the media framing. If I can feel an authentic connection with her, that demonstrates that a left-wing woman can still see me as a person, that a human being in his entirety can find acceptance beyond those media frames.

As I said, I had deliberately looked up nothing about her online. That would mean letting the internet influence what you think of someone—I wanted an authentic encounter. On the advice of a mutual female friend, I therefore arranged to meet Jini, who appeared to have independently initiated an art project. I assumed that, as an independent artist, she had a sincere interest in the subject. When I arrived, it turned out that there was an entire team around her.

In my work I devote considerable attention to controversial subjects and investigate all kinds of views on sexuality. In Levenslust en doodsdrift, for example, I examined the sexual rights of autistic people. Most people will know me from my outspoken political publications. I still think it is important to open myself to people of other political persuasions, and I am emphatically open to projects that explore differences. The intention was not to make a “real” porn film, but first to talk about her motives for the project and then discover, step by step, how far we would want to go with it.

The actions that followed made it clear that this was emphatically not the intention of the team present, who wanted to start shooting immediately. Giving this a chance was impulsive. In retrospect, I should have guarded my boundaries and not given in to the pressure. I made clear on the spot that I had misgivings about this approach. To draw a comparison: if you propose an idea for a daring experimental article and, after a few paragraphs, I think, “This is not working after all”, I do not expect you to publish the scraps anyway. And then say: “Yes, but it was my piece of paper you wrote on.”

Thus the product of my despair became the instrument of their hope. Announcements about me appeared without my being consulted. These showed that the footage was being used to corner me in a way that was damaging to me.

Fully aware of the distressing feelings the afternoon’s filming had left me with, KIRAC subsequently created a media event. The story then became: “Just cooperate now; it can only end up looking worse for you. You still have a chance to show your good sides. Your curiosity, your openness, your courage.”

I kept pointing to my stress-related symptoms and explaining that their project, along with other matters I had discussed with them at length, had left me deeply depressed, and that I absolutely did not have the strength to salvage anything from it. And that I had to withdraw because of stress and mental health problems.

To underscore the above, Wierd Duk wanted to show me a quotation in which Stefan Ruitenbeek says he is “going to sacrifice me for the sake of art”. To avoid stress I did not look at it, but if it is accurate, all I can say is that the past shows you can get away with doing almost anything to people who are not left-wing. I do, however, want to state explicitly that I do not believe KIRAC’s actions in this case are politically motivated. They will see themselves as “martyrs for art”, for whom everything is permissible. I did not give them permission to use the footage. Arguing with them about it merely feeds their sense of mission and my stress level.

Because of health problems, I am currently unable to enter into the discussion in person, as I need rest. It is sad that my absence has been exploited to harm me deliberately. The crossing of several legal and moral boundaries is equally sad. The fact that some media outlets cooperate with this must be a sign of the times. As I have said elsewhere, this serves only the agenda of those who seize on side issues to distract attention from essentials.

In recent days I have received many messages from journalists, friends and political opponents expressing their astonishment at what has happened. Art, freedom of expression and public debate are close to my heart. That makes me regret this way of working all the more.