The Big Debate

Yesterday June the 26th the Mars der Beschaving (March of Civilization) was held in Rotterdam and The Hague in the Netherlands. People gathered at a famous museum in Rotterdam (the "Boijmans van Beuningen Museum") and walked to The Hague, which is more that thirty kilometers from Rotterdam. They started at 8 pm and finished at 3 am. More than 3000 people did this to alert the Dutch people that right now, as I am typing this, there is a debate going on about subsidizing culture. Our current government thinks that because we are in debt, it's appropriate to reduce grants for artists who are just beginning and increase the taxes on culture from 6% to 19%. Here are a few facts about this issue:


1. saving 200 million on culture doesn't help a bit if your total savings have to add up to 18 billion. It is, however, very bad for the culture sector, so nobody wins in this case.

2. No culture = no education

3. Our current government has found a way to make sure nobody has to pay their mortgage interest rate. This is also susidizing. If you add up all the money that people don't have to pay because of this, you've got FIVE HUNDRED BILLION EUROS. Needless to say, that is more than our savings have to add up to. So somewhere, our government has the key to a savings-free world, only instead of using it to help culture, education and healthcare, they'd rather give it to people who have houses that are worth more than a million euros.

4. We are, after 4 years still paying the JSF aircraft research. This aircraft can't do sh*t, is extremely expensive and we don't need it.

5. If you don't subsidize on art schools but you do subsidize on beginning art associations and places where people who lack experience in the arts can get experience, that means that you are educating people for jobs that don't exist. We'll get in another crisis.

6. How is it fair that the big art associations do get money?

Today there was a big protest at Het Malieveld in The Hague (BTW, the Dutch government is in The Hague, that's why all the protests are there. And Rotterdam is said to be the Dutch center of art, so the Mars der Beschaafdheid began there) where everybody raised their voice in order to attend our prime minister on the fact that it's plain stupid to cut off art. The protest itself was amazing. Everybody standing united for one goal was just a great feeling. There was also music, and famous and less famous people had written brilliant speeches. Unfortunately, it was 30 degrees Celsius, I hadn't brought any water and I was dressed in black long sleeves and long black trousers because I'm an idiot. But still, the protesting was great.

As of now, there is almost no hope that they will change their minds. Still we keep on fighting until the end.

CULTURE LOVERS OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE!