RECORD. 2023/VI/23/MORNING/86/3. VER: 01
RECORDED: 2023.VI.23. 11:17 MEETING START: 08:13
EXECUTIVE LEADER: BENJAMIN WHITE (Secr. Stt.) (on holiday)
RAPPORTER: ETHAN EGZ
PRESENT: ELISABETH YOHANNSON DR. Head of Department, JULIA SIMS Deputy Head of Department, TIMOTHY BEREEFY Ministry Trustee, ETHAN EGZ Rapporter, DOYLE SEMEREDY JR. Deputy Secretary of Technical Department (for maintenance affairs)
YOHANNSON: Okay, Tim, we have reached no coclusion again, so let's go on to the next item.
BEREEFY: No offense, Lizzy, but we've been sweating here since morning and we haven't got sh*t done, just keep yakking about it on and on, really, I have better things to do.
YOHANNSON: Alright, enough, Tim, Ethan, thingy, what is the next item on the agenda?
EGZ: Uhm...minorities.
SIMS: Yes! No! We must talk about that!
BEREEFY: Before lunch?
YOHANNSON: But yesterday you told me there's nothing to talk about!
SIMS: But I didn't mean it like that, we really need to...
BEREEFY: Isn't it getting cloced and that's it?
YOHANNSON: Sorry what?
SIMS: As if I hadn't been saying this for months...
YOHANNSON: No, Julia, you don't say things, you murmur things under your breath in the hallway, you whisper things to the interns, and then you hysterically mutter something in the corner behind one's back...
BEREEFY: Yeah, but what is the problem exactly? Not enough money?
SIMS: Yeah obviously not enough! But that is not the main thing...We just can not go on like this...
YOHANNSON: Oh my god, Julia, you are such a prima donna! Things have always been going on like this, you should get used to it...
BEREEFY: Okay, but let's admit Lizzy, that also that incident the other day, if there's no money...
YOHANNSON: But she JUST said that money is not the problem!
SIMS: Listen, I'm not doing this anymore!
BEREEFY: What? You quit?
YOHANNSON: Julia...
SIMS: No, I don't quit but I can not carry on with the department, this is just not ethical like this, it can not go on, no. It's over.
BEREEFY: Julia, you can't quit.
YOHANNSON: She just said that she's not quitting. It's okay, we'll get through this, everything will be alright.
SIMS: No, no, no, no, no! We can not act like we know what we are doing here, we don't have neither the qualification, nor the right to do so!
BEREEFY: But, Julia, you are the one here who went to CEU...
SZIMPA: With and Erasmus, for half a year, in gender studies! I have nothing to do with minority rights.
YOHANNSON: Okay, Julia, we get is, that it is a bit new for you, but we trust your ab...
SIMS: No. Look around, for god's sake, there are only urban christian caucasians sitting in this room. I mean, even on the pictures on the wall!
BEREEFY: Hey, I was born in Püspökladány.
SIMS: I don't care, Tim. A Minority Department can not operate without a single minority member.
BEREEFY: And my wife just learnt that she is one eighth part jew.
SIMS: Tim, really.
SEMERÉDY: Radiator's ready. It is still dripping a bit but that should stop. Good appetite.
YOHANNSON: Okay, so it is a problem that in the department there are no...
BEREEFY: Yeah, but why aren't there? What's up with the...
SIMS: Louie? He quit.
BEREEFY: When?
SIMS: Five months ago. Tim.
YOHANNSON: Okay, stop. This is not Netflix, this is the Ministry of Love and Empathy. Just because we are indeed a bit deficient in participa...participatoritivity, and, like, quota at the moment, it can still work...
SIMS: Work with what? Empathy?
YOHANNSON: Exactly!
SIMS: You can't be serious.
JÓKUTI: Why not? Isn't that literally our job?
SIMS: Because this isn't this simple. Because wedon't even know what we should be emphatizing with or what. I don't even know what we should be thinking. Let alone saying.
BEREEFY: Okay, but I mean the whole thing might just as well you know, I've always been saying that...
SIMS: Tim, shut up.
YOHANNSON: Okay, I admit it. It is a bit awkward.
SIMS: Awkward? No, you see, the problem is not that it is AWKWARD AS F**K, but that there's nothing to do. We have no tools or whatever.
And...you know...to...to begin with, it is not a...an emotional thing. Or a mental thing. It is not something that exists in people's minds. Nobody will be doing better by getting some space to think about stuff. This is a very concrete, tangible social, political, historical, economical problem. You know. It doesn't depend on the attitude of people. The attitude of those who are the minority. You know. Or the attitude of the people who really fu**ng hate their neighbors. This society will not be less oppressive, less unequal, there won't be more opportunities, or more money, or more I don't know warm water, so that people don't have to live excluded in shitty circumstances in this f**ng society.
YOHANNSON: Okay, I get it.
BEREEFY: But that's...that's not our job.
SIMS: What?
BEREEFY: To actually do something. You know. Love and Empathy.
YOHANNSON: Why, you think that empathizing, communicating, understanding is not actuallly doing something?
BEREEFY: Well...
SIMS: It is. But that won't make THIS better. Nobody benefits from OUR sympathy. Anyway, this is super complicated, we shoot ourselves in the foot all the time with these categories, there's the whatnot, national department or what, like you know national identity was not problematic...
YOHANNSON: Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, stop. So what should we do?
SIMS: Close the department. That is it.
BEREEFY: Maybe yeah.
YOHANNSON: Okay, and then what should we tell those who approach us with issues like this? That nobody gives a shit about them? While we deal with a bit gloomy citizens' problems in twenty-eight different super long subsections...
SIMS: Uhm...I don't know.
YOHANNSON: You see?
SIMS: I don't know. But the fact is that it is not ethical. And it is not good for anybody.
TEREBÉLY: Okay, I take the responsibility. We close the department, we say we are sorry, and we announce that we are empathizing. Lunch time.
SIMS: That is just fu**ing great.
YOHANNSON: Julia.
SZIMPA: No, really. It is a sh**ty solution, but I don't know any better.
BEREEFY: Okay, so we agree, I write the report about the dissolution.
YOHANNSON: Julia?
SIMS: No, nothing. Tim writes it.
YOHANNSON: Alright, then this is settled. I adjourn the morning session.
BEREEFY: Bye guys!
YOHANNSON: Tim, wait! So everybody have lunch, and...we continue at two.
-END OF SESSION-
RECORD. 2023/VI/23/MORNING/86/3. VER: 01
RECORDED: 2023.VI.23. ÜLÉSVÉG: 12:52
RAPPORTER: ETHAN EGZ