The cultural programs of 14-F

The lockdown last March forced us to re-evaluate the very idea and consumption habits of what we call "culture," a concept too vague but useful when summarizing the universe of management applied to fine arts (and its evolution in avant-gardes and postmodernity) and the educational, associative, industrial, and economic framework that enables its formation and practice. The particular idiolect of Covid-19 made it clear that, by an overwhelming unanimity, the population considers culture as an "essential good" and, certainly, during the hardest months of domestic confinement, the country's artists demonstrated boundless generosity in mitigating our loneliness with free or very low-cost online concerts and theatrical programming, an effort that the administration did not facilitate much when managing a de-escalation in which our facilities had to face the preparation of premieres and concerts without knowing for sure if they could carry them out.

The titanic effort of the sector to survive its ruin has not been rewardedin a campaign where, as always happened, this "essential" good has been buried in a disturbing silence andthe cultural programs of most of the parties running in the 14-F still show a disturbing resistance to the paradigm shift that the post-pandemic world will end up imposing on us. One of the gifts (sic) that this exasperating waiting period of Covid-19 has given us has been to seehow a sector that had relied too much on public power to survive has finally understood that Catalan culture should not be an appendix of the administration and that in public service it must be compensated with much more industry and a competitive private sector. Finally, and I'm glad, my colleagues have understood that our life is not a civil service nor a task of valiant volunteers and that, whether we like it or not, art cannot live oblivious to the rules of the market and free competition.Bienvenido a la world

Finally, my colleagues have understood that our life is not a civil service nor a task of valiant volunteers and that, whether we like it or not, art cannot live oblivious to the rules of the market and free competition

In this sense, it is surprising that most Catalan political parties are running for 14-F with a cultural program where the stars are still the 2% budgetary horizon, the cultural bonus (that is, the direct subsidy to the consuming spectator) and the eternal promise of a patronage law. I say it's surprising, first, becausethe pandemic has clearly shown that the budget directly allocated to cultural projects must be increased, not to fatten the administration nor its consequent and slow bureaucracy. Secondly,the viewer does not need to be subsidized; that people want to go to the theater and are still thirsty for concerts, we've already seen it! What is needed is to give more resources to public and private infrastructures so that they have morepasta,and as soon as possible, so that the sector can reactivate from its agony (it's no use giving a small tip to the citizen, ultimately, if the theater they want to go to has to close and the actors go hungry).

Finally, regarding the patronage law, someone should have a fit of sincerity and remind Catalans that, within the current jurisdictional framework, the autonomies of the kingdom cannot promote an Anglo-Saxon paradigm law for the simple fact that they have little or no room to modify income tax and corporate tax. This resistance to a paradigm shift is finally evident in the fact that none of the parties remember that 1% of the EU recovery funds can go directly to cultural projects; that is, that very soon we will have money that can reach the pockets of the sector directly through a much more agile agreement. The priority, in a sector that is not in an emergency but is dangerously close to disappearing, should be to activate these budgetary resources (and in the case of wanting a patronage law, explain how it would be agreed with the state). The fact that all of this is not mentioned, I insist, makes it clear that the cultural sectors of the parties are still living in the past.

With this, I do not mean that the 14-F programs do not contain some interesting findings (except for VOX's, which does not have a cultural sector and does well to remind us that intransigence is always accompanied by a certain illiteracy). Esquerra and the CUP opportunely point out that cultural policies should permeate other departments of the Generalitat, especially Education and Industry, Business and Knowledge. Laura Borràs's footprint is noticeable in Junts per Catalunya's linguistic program and demands something as basic as asking that Catalan be considered an indispensable requirement to work in public service and also reveals the degradation of the oral language in the CCMA's audiovisual media. It is a pity that sovereignism, however, still does not explain, now that no one dares to hide that linguistic immersion is not effective in schools, how it plans to give prestige to the studies and practice of the Catalan language in an environment where it is agonizingly minoritized.

It is a pity that sovereigntism still does not explain how it plans to prestige the studies and praxis of the Catalan language in an environment where it is agonizingly minoritized.

It is not strange that Catalan Spanish nationalism dedicates most of its efforts to emphasizing patrimonial policies, as is the case of the PSC, the party most interested in maintaining a sclerotic public industry and its consequent cultural mandarinism (in this, and it is appreciated, the socialists disguise it rather little). Nor is it surprising that Ciudadanos opts for something as super-cool as depoliticizing the framework of Catalan culture... so that it stops being Catalan; in this sense, it is very normal that both the PP and Ciudadanos find this historical memory a bit creepy, because we already know that this habit of ours of remembering leads us to be very essentialist, provincial and, again... Catalan. It is interesting that the Comuns dedicate a very large part of their program to the rights of cultural workers and to the will to achieve artist status, in imitation of the Jacobin model. But I insist on what I said before: no artist status will replace the grace that comes with havingcash.

Be that as it may, and whatever happens on 14-F, most Catalan parties have the opportunity to exercise their very well-intentioned policies in most of the city councils where they already govern and in which it is easy to verify that neither the budgets adjust to the 2% percentages nor culture turns out to be the "essential good" that everyone preaches. Fortunately, as I said at the beginning, cultural habits have changed with the confinement, and it shows in things as simple as that now no one would accuse a citizen of being provincial or uncool if they demand from the administration cultural programs that respect the Km 0 rule (a requirement that, in the case of classical music, for example, our auditoriums and opera houses have failed to comply with supreme irresponsibility). That the consumer is also more demanding and shows their priorities is fantastic news, as this will also streamline the lives of cultural users, making them more restless and responsible.

In fact, and given the slowness of most of the 14-F cultural programs, the conclusion of all this is that we will have to end up managing and saving our culture ourselves. If it's up to the parties and their programs from the 90s, mamma mia, this looks very bad. Despite this unquestionable fact, go vote, dear readers. Even if it's to protest.