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I often have to ask myself, how can idealism survive in a world burdened by extensive rationalization and disillusion? And if survival is possible, how does it avoid ending up as either fascistic or hypocritical? I find the answer to both questions in the wide-ranging artistic practice of La Loko. Their medium is the universal language of Esperanto and their method is humor.
La Loko take their lesson from history and says that if any kind of idealism is to be taken seriously, act intelligently and eventually succeed, it must be able to make fun of itself. I could not agree more and I would add that La Loko do succeed, even beyond what politicians could imagine. Through their subtle and yet inclusive humor they balance the profound idealism of Esperanto and connect it with the dynamics of real world situations. Whether cooking eggs, organizing a football team for the World Cup, publishing a comic-strip language course or producing a sit-com La Loko show that to be idealistic and humorous is not a contradiction in terms, but rather an auspicious combination.
Faced with today's many conflicting realities, I am convinced that idealism in the form that La Loko represent it is indeed needed as much as ever. Through their use of humor to promote the Esperanto message they foster the belief in me that idealism can not only survive, but correct and renew itself.
Whereas most people probably think of Esperanto as a dead language from a dead utopian past, for La Loko (meaning "the place" in Esperanto) it still represents a genuine potential to conceptualize and realize a new and better world. Call me naive, call me romantic but I choose to believe them. Only by using the appropriate software can we truly reprogram...
Jacob Lillemose