Milan Kohout, "Performance for the social change as the part of the real life", 2016

Excerpts from the Czech most popular show Máte slovo. Recorded from the computer screen.
Untitled performance. Prague, Czech Republic; appearance on the Czech public TV show “Máte slovo” (“You have the floor”), 2016.
Life-as-art performance: Milan Kohout
The Czech Republic has absolutely refused to accept any refugees escaping from the wars gener- ated by the West and by climate collapse. When Kohout appeared on the popular talk show “Máte slovo” (“You have the floor”) on Czech public TV, he suggested that it was the moral duty of Czech society to accept refugees and that each Czech family could house at least one refugee.
Kohout argued that historically, the Czech Republic has participated in European imperialism, co- lonialism, and the release of emissions of CO2, and therefore bears responsibility for all those crimes along with other European nations. He also argued that Lebanon, for example, with its population about 4.4 million people, accepted more than a million refugees from the wars in Syria and Iraq and therefore the Czech Republic with its ten million people can also accept a million refugees.
Kohout’s appearance on this national TV show sparked an enormous wave of hate among Czech citizens and he received thousands of death threats and was physically attacked on the streets several times. Therefore he decided to become a gun owner. He had to pass a battery of tests for legal gun ownership and carried one in order to protect himself and his family.