Cultural suicide

The absolute disregard with which the Bolsonaro government treats the area of ​​Culture is unprecedented in recent Brazilian history. Demoted to a secretary position, the Culture portfolio was handed over to a theater director who emulated a Nazi speech, passed through the hands of Regina Duarte – who did nothing useful and even went so far as to downplay torture and sing jingles from the military dictatorship in an embarrassing interview – and now has landed in the hands of an obscure actor who makes pro-Bolsonaro speeches on social media.

This is a serious situation and reinforces the idea that the transformative role of culture is under direct attack. It is regrettable to witness the speed and fury of this dismantling. It wasn't that long ago that projects like Cultura Viva and the cultural hubs recognized the leading role of territories in everyday cultural practice.

All those who think about and experience culture in its inclusive and civic political dimension need to mobilize. The shift of public cultural policy from the political field to the merely administrative field is not without intentionality: to demobilize the Brazilian people in order to dismantle public social welfare policies and annihilate workers' rights, to favor rentiers. Emptying the potentially transformative and inclusive field of culture, to achieve these objectives, is strategic.

We need to fight for a public policy focused on cultural diversity and dialogue with civil society, putting on the agenda issues such as shared management and the cross-cutting nature of cultural public policies, which can no longer be approached from the top down.

During the pandemic, the cultural sector has been even more severely affected, with a huge number of artists and cultural agents experiencing difficulties due to the necessary isolation to combat Covid-19. Beyond the need to support these workers, governments at all levels need to understand that the cultural economy is a crucial asset for the future recovery of the national, state, and municipal economies.

The field in which the cultural economy develops is vast. It encompasses cultural industries – such as audiovisual, music, and publishing – but also involves non-industrial sectors and small-scale local activities, which can be individual or associative in nature, with a strong impact on the territory in which they operate.

Against this murderous dismantling promoted by the federal government regarding public policies for culture and its agents, more than ever it is necessary to speak out, debate, act, and mobilize. We need to make this commitment. Beyond the genocidal policy expressed in the disregard for Brazilians victimized by the coronavirus, the government is also a "culturicidal" government: an exterminator of culture as a field for the exercise of art and freedom.