Menta space: fighting for Bulgaria without everyday violence and abuse [audio interview]
Natalie Atanasova of a Bulgarian feminist, queer, anticapitalist and anti-violence Menta Space joins Cross-Border Talks to talk about the initiative and the social context in which it came into being. Interviewed by Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat, she speaks about everyday violence in Bulgaria that hits women, LGBT people, migrants, Roma people, people with disabilities and other minorities. She explains that Menta Space came into being to say no to this omnipresent discrimination, bad language and violence, and that its founders intend to build a safe place and community where people can gather, exercise, learn self-defence, discuss serious topic and/or support one another in a number of ways. Menta Space is an anti-capitalist space with no entrance fees. Natalie also gives her assessment of Bulgarian political class and its nearly total indifference to the most serious social issues such as poverty or violence against women.
A transcription of the interview is available below.
Good morning everybody, this is the newest issue of Cross-Border Talks. My name is Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat, I am connecting with you from Katowice, Poland, and my guest today is a really exciting and outstanding personality. Natalie Atanasowa is a Bulgarian activist and a founder of MENTA Space, a really important place on the map of Sofia, a place friendly for the queer, feminist people, and a safe space for everybody with anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-capitalist views.
If you listened to our previous episodes on Bulgaria, you should already understand at this moment how exceptional a place is on the map of that country. So, I am happy to have Natalia today with us to speak more about the initiative, about Bulgarian feminism, Bulgarian emancipatory movements, and how people in Bulgaria try to make some progress in this country. Natalia, hello, thank you very much for being with us today.
And I would like to ask you first how this all began. How did the initiative, the idea of the MENTA Space come up into your mind, into the minds of other founders, because I guess you are not the only one here, and how the space is now functioning, growing, changing?
I can start with saying hi, I’m Natalie and I’m from Sofia, Bulgaria, and like as a woman and a person who is also part of the LGBTQ community here, mostly I don’t feel safe on the streets, in the restaurants, in the cafes, and almost everywhere I go. This is one of my reasons for creating this Instagram and this space, MENTA Space.
One day I started realizing and analyzing everything that is going on here in Bulgaria, and I was just mind blown and also sad and after that very angry, because I personally have been attacked a lot of times, because of my sexuality, the way I look. I realized that I don’t know a person in Bulgaria that hasn’t been attacked or verbally abused in the streets or at home even, and everywhere in the public transportation, everywhere, everywhere, just everywhere. After that I told myself that I don’t even know a woman who hasn’t been either physically abused by their partner, or verbally abused in the street, or abused or attacked sexually. Then I thought about all these Roma people who live here, all the migrants I know that have a little bit darker skin, and I just told myself, no, we should stop this and we should do something about it, because things are getting out of control nowadays. I thought I should try to not just go and participate in some protests, but I should try to make the resistance bigger and the amount of people who have the same thinking like me and who have been victims of these crimes, also gathered. We should have this safe space to tell their opinions, to share their stories, and to just be themselves, and just to feel OK.
If I invite you to Sofia and you come to be my guest, you’re gonna see, when you’re just walking on the streets, swastikas everywhere, neo-Nazi stickers, homophobic stickers, racist stickers, everywhere. People even got so used to them that they don’t even recognize them anymore as bad symbols that tell us what’s going on in our society, in our country. But it is not only about stickers. if I tell you about my last three days, you’re gonna be shocked. Yesterday I was walking and going to the shop to buy some food, and an old grandpa, like 65 years old came towards me and after he asked me very loudly: “Are you the third gender?”. He grabbed me by the hair and started pulling me. This is not OK! Here the violence is so normalized, that it’s freaking me out, and something should change. Yesterday I was traveling in the metro with my girlfriend, and a terrible thing happened: a boy of 15 years old was holding a vape, and at one time he just smoked a little bit, and a 50 year old man, just without telling him anything, just went and hit him in the face. We were the only people who did something, and everybody else was silent, just as if everything was OK. Yesterday my girlfriend was traveling in the tram, and an 11 year old boy just spilled his drink on the floor in the tram. Again, a woman stood up and hit him in the face, like it’s nothing, and when my girlfriend said this was not OK and this was violence, two other men traveling in the same tram stood up and said ‘Do you want me to slap you too?’.
This is just crazy. I’m sad about myself, I’m sad about all the queer people and the women who fell victim to violence. The Feminist Library and LevFem made a protest against that, and we were very surprised that so many people came to this protest, because it had been announced just a day before. A lot of people came to this protest in Sofia, and they just started taking the microphone, and started telling us about the situations that they had experienced, and all this violence. Almost everybody, every one of them had experienced something like a physical or sexual abuse. This is why I wanted to create a community like this, not only a space, but a whole community.
You asked me how this started. At first, we started uploading videos of removing all these homophobic and racist stickers. A lot of people followed and started sending us videos of them removing these bad stickers. We even had messages telling us: ‘All my life I have seen this sticker in front of my building, the place I live, but now I had the strength, and bravery to remove it finally, and I’m so proud, and thank you for doing this’.
I don’t know if you know about this case… A migrant who is actually living in Bulgaria for 20 years now was walking on the streets with his wife, and he was attacked, just because he didn’t speak Bulgarian. He was speaking, I think, over the phone, or even maybe he wasn’t. They attacked him and his wife, even though she’s Bulgarian, but she was with him, so she was attacked too. The sad thing is that when we report all of these cases in the metro, everywhere, we have to talk with people who are abusers too, because the police here is homophobic most of the time. They are racist – this migrant who was attacked with his wife, said to us that every time when he wanted to call the police, and he called them because he was attacked by a group of teen boys with swastikas on their t-shirts, the police came and just continued the abuse physically, verbally. I have seen this happening on the streets, I see this almost every day, and I think: we have to have this space, because it’s so important.
People should have the right to walk on the streets without feeling scared. It’s hard for me to talk about this, because like I told you, I was attacked and I’m a little bit emotional when I talk about these things. But so we started uploading these videos, removing these stickers, after that we decided to have feminist gym. We rented the place, messaged some people that we know and who are trainers, and we started having self-defense workouts, to learn not only how to self-defend ourselves physically, but also we talk about how we can avoid all these situations. We also created a chat called fast action, and if you are a queer person, or migrant, or Roma person, and you’re in this chat, and somebody attacks you somewhere, you just write in this chat, and people who are around just come to support you. Even if the attackers are not there anymore, you actually need support when you report these events to the police. Adding more and more people in this chat, we started seeing that the situation is even worse than we were thinking. We were just victims, or we knew about our close friends and what had happened to them, but after that, with this chat, we just realized that this violence happens every day.
We have had these self-defense classes, we had kickboxing classes, we use the place like a gym, and you can just come and work out with your friends, with the people you don’t know, but are part of your community, and all of our events are free. You mentioned, when you introduced me and the place that we are an anticapitalist place, and we decided to be a place like that. People who are subjects of this abuse are mostly queer people, women, migrants, Roma people, and even people with disabilities. They usually don’t have enough money to even survive nowadays, to buy food and water and to pay for everything necessary. We don’t think that it’s okay to take their money, because we wanted the place to be available for everybody. Most of the places I know in Sofia for queer people, except for free events some people and foundations do, all the bars and of course gyms are actually very expensive, and we don’t like this. We don’t support this, because people should have the right to be somewhere, to gather and to stay somewhere without consuming, without paying money.
I have always wanted to go to the gym, to be in good shape, but when I visited fitnesses I realized you just meet people there who treat you badly, who tell you bad words. You meet homophobic people, sexists, and if you’re a queer person, or just a woman who wants to go to the gym without being told what to do, or surrounded by guys who want something from her, you don’t have a place like this, you have nowhere to go.
From the beginning our dream was to actually have a community place, not only a gym hall, but a place where we can hold events, where we can gather people, where we can discuss very important topics, where we can help each other. We even have dreams to make a food bank, and to donate all this food to homeless people. Now there are fires everywhere in Bulgaria, almost everywhere, and people lose their houses and they need support even with food. We want to make like to make movie screenings in this place, to rent it and pay it with donations, that’s why we are making like a fundraising now, and we try to reach as more people as we can to make this happen and to make our dream come true.
We know that this place is important for many people. We know that it’s not gonna be easy, we expect to maybe have to experience more attacks and things like that, but we should stay strong and just make it happen, because otherwise… I don’t want to live in a country like that, and I don’t want to live in a world like that, and I don’t think that this is OK nowadays or whenever.
I think it is really out of question. Nobody deserves to live in a reality where you can be attacked in the street for nothing. No women, no queer person, no human being deserves to live in a place where discrimination and violence can happen to you for really no reason at all. Your efforts are really something very important in Bulgaria, and not only.
I would like to ask you who are the people involved, or what can you tell me about the emancipatory movements in Bulgaria, the feminist movements, the LGBT movements, for the movements of everybody who do not agree to live in a country like this. You said a lot about what levels of violence you face, and now I am curious what is the chance to see it change soon. How many people are resisting this state of things, and is your voice heard in the public space?
The number of people involved in this is always changing, because it’s not easy to be an activist, it’s not easy to do this every day, to see this every day, to try to do something, and to see that sometimes nothing changes. The number of collectives and activists is changing every day, because a lot of times inside of these communities and these collectives, there are things that are not OK also. I once was a part of the collective, and I was abused physically by a person who was part of this collective, and when I talked about this, my collective didn’t help me at all. I’m not going into details about this collective, but the thing I want to say is that the collectives are still learning and still trying to gather more people.
I think that there are more and more feminist collectives, new collectives, new activists, more and more people who say no to this, and try to do something. They do different events, they hold protests, they try to reach and talk to people on the street also. But it doesn’t matter how many communities, collectives like this will have, but how many of the people here, even if they’re not part of some particular collective, see this and they don’t want this to happen anymore. It is very important to people to be involved, to try to do something, even if they don’t go and be part of a collective, they can do something. They can remove these stickers, they can talk to their friends, they can create mutual chats, they can ask for help, they can post something about where people who have been abused can seek help. Sometimes even if you share just particular information, it’s very important, because you don’t know who is going to need this, or is needing this right now.
I think that more and more people just don’t want to tolerate this anymore, and want to do something – and do something.
That’s very good to hear, because generally for an observer of a Bulgarian political scene, one thing is very striking: that the people don’t participate in the election, the number of people voting is falling, and the political crisis is continuing again and again. One might ask a question, are people involved somewhere else, are they involved in some social movements, social organizations, or everybody tries to survive on his own, perhaps caring only about his or her family.
So my question would be also, how do the, is there any, how it is that the violence in everyday life that you spoke, and this really awful attitude towards women, towards migrants, minorities, towards anyone who is not an exemplary white Bulgarian, let’s say, why it is tolerated by the political class. Perhaps the political class actually thinks this is the right state of things?
I’m asking this myself every day, and I just think that they just don’t care. They care only about themselves, their schemes, their businesses, and their own money. They don’t care about people who are in a bad situation, if they have food or not. That’s why the number of people who go voting is so small, and people, like you said, are just trying to survive somehow, because it’s not easy.
If you’re not some rich guy, it’s not easy for you at all. People don’t have money to pay their rent, people don’t have money for food. You just go twice to the supermarket and your money is over. The government here gives a very bad example of how people should act. They don’t care, and they show it every day.
There have also been a lot of just disgusting speeches and sayings against women, against everybody. You turn on the TV and you just hear the same words over and over again, bad words, they don’t care if somebody attacks you, they talk about women like they are second class people, they treat women badly, they treat LGBTQ people badly. It looks like they are afraid to go and say, yes, we support women, women should live calmly. And even if they tell this, nothing changes. For example, last year in December, they changed the law: if you are attacked just like that, like for example, you attack your neighbor because you had some arguing,it’s treated one way, but if you attack somebody because of their religion, for example, this makes the problem worse, and they put homophobia into this law last year in December. They said that if you are attacked because of homophobia, this is going to make things worse for the attackers. But even now, when we have this law, if they don’t follow them like they do now, if they don’t want to help people, if the police are acting like that, if the government is acting like that, they just don’t do it. Even if we have the best laws, they don’t follow them and nothing changes. I think that we need not to change the laws only, but also we need better education at school, we need people to go and talk at schools about these problems.
Last year we went to schools to try to talk about topics like that. It’s very hard to be allowed to go to school and to just ask questions, for example, what is a migrant? Unfortunately and sadly, teenagers and students described migrants as black people who want to come and steal everything we have. Then we asked them: do you have a member of your family or relative who lives abroad? Yes, a lot of them said yes, and we explained to them that these people are migrants too, and they were like mind blown, because nobody talks with them about what is a migrant, what is an LGBTQ person etc. The only things that they hear are bad things about Roma people, about women, about migrants, about LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and that’s why they act like this, because they don’t have the right role models, and this should be changed.
We will try to do something about this also, because I think that schools are like a very important part of this change and of revolution, and we’re gonna try to speak more about this at schools also, if we are allowed to, if we are given the chance. It is hard, because when you want to go to school to talk about things like that, they tell you,you don’t have the right to say the word gay, this word, this word, this word. They are silencing these topics and they are silencing us.
I know that a lot of people will listen to this and I want to tell everyone: even if you’re from a small city, and you want to change something, but you think, you don’t have the knowledge to create a place or a community like this, or a community like this, or you say, I don’t know so many people, and that’s why I won’t be able to gather people and to make a community or space like this, I want to tell you: that was stopping me also. I was thinking: do I have the qualities to do this, do I have the strength, do I know so many people, can I gather so many people, am I going to act correctly all the time? But then I realized you should just start today,it doesn’t matter if you have enough knowledge, or enough friends, orenough money, and all the things that matter is if you have these qualities, if you feel in your soul and in your mind that people should have rights, should live in a safe environment, should go on the street and walk their dog and come home without anything bad happening. I’m sure that maybe I’m gonna make mistakes also, when I gather more people, when we are a community, maybe we will have some problems into the community inside, but I know that when you have this in your soul and you have these qualities, even if you do something wrongly, you will have the ability to reflect on your actions, on yourself, and you’re gonna do the thing right and correctly, and you’re gonna do the perfect and the good things every tim. Even if you have some mistakes, you’re gonna make them work, you’re gonna get over this, if you’re able to listen to people, to feel them, and you want them to feel good, and you want this to work very, very badly, because you know how important it is.
This is the thing that I want to say. I want Menta space not to be a place which is surprising and where people are shocked that this is happening, no, I want this to be something regular. Something that is everywhere, in every city, every village, because it has to happen now, we don’t have more time to lose, because things are getting out of control.
At this moment, I would like to wish to the Bulgarians, all Bulgarians, that they have Menta spaces in every city, every village, just like you said, or even better, that Bulgaria becomes one big Menta space, a safe space, where everybody can live safely, and live happily, no matter who he or she, who they are. I feel really empowered by our today’s talk, I am really fascinated by your strength, and by what you want to do in such unfavorable condition. I really love your message, that when somebody wants to do a good thing, and fight for a right cause, it is not the time to think, am I able to do it, do I have knowledge, do I have competences? You just need to go and start fighting along with other people, and this is how we make change in Bulgaria and everywhere, this is how progress was made in human history, and this is how I believe we still can change the world for the better.
Natalie, thank you very much for being with us today on Cross-Border talks, and I wish you all the best, I wish you success. Finally, to listeners: don’t forget that we are on all the social platforms, we have the Facebook page, we have Twitter page, we are also on Substack, where you can get Cross-Border newsletter, so subscribe, of course, also to YouTube.
Today our guest was Natalie from the MENTA collective, MENTA Space in Bulgaria, a feminist activist fighting to make Bulgaria a better place for everybody. Thank you very much for being with us today, and see or hear you again.
Photo: The Menta Space’s logo (source: Menta Space)
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