Last week, the General Directorate of Arts announced the opening of competitions to support the Arts, launching with it the announcement that, as far as the Algarve is concerned, difficult times are approaching for the few cultural structures that remain.
The opening announcement, which can be consulted on the Dgartes website, points to a global investment in direct support for the year 2013 in the amount of 5 350 000 euros, compared to 5 630 000 in 2011 from the last tender that it opened. These accounts, which leave out a 2012 where nothing but emptiness reigned, might even seem orderly, if we analyzed this cut in global percentage, however their division by regions represents an unjustifiable decision to leave the Alentejo and Algarve heavily penalized.
By plotting the data, it is possible to see that these two regions, and in particular the Algarve, are placed at the end of the table, with non-transparent discretionary cuts in their calculation formula. If not, it should be noted that, while the Lisbon and Vale do Tejo region saw its amount increase in the order of 6,9% and the Center maintained the bar, the North suffered a cut in the order of 6,2%, the Alentejo 32,8% and the Algarve 35,7%.
These values are the harbinger of emptiness and the announcement of revolt. There is no State without respect and equity and the crisis cannot knock on everyone's door using different covers.
Culture in the Algarve has been the target of arbitrariness in the application of public policies, as, similarly to what happens in the country, cultural planning and management is something that does not exist. Not in the present time, not in the time of fat cows, where waste without kings or rocks has built a culture poisoned by the convenience of the State, offered to citizens wrapped in gunpowder by those who (dis)govern us.
Without funding, culture succumbs and it's no use asking them to look at European statistics and directives that place culture as one of the areas in which to invest in times of crisis. It's not worth it, they're blind!
We live in a country that annulled the Ministry of Culture and gave birth to a new structure that has no legal formula to be represented. In the presidency of the Council of Ministers, severely conditioned by the moneylenders who follow the triumvirate, is the Secretary of State without a Secretariat, trying to weave a poisoned, gray and sticky web that does not bode well.
This web was built by those who, in recent decades, looked at culture as a talk show where politics and planning easily got mixed up with the hot nights at the Algarve VIP parties, where the usual "pines" paraded, creating pink dreams with double “Ls”, bringing in tow a visionless Minister of Culture (like all the others), and thus shaking up ministerial cabinets.
So famous has this dream of selling an Algarve without sedimenting its culture become. In between, millions invested in an Allgarve that created confusion in the Algarve's cultural milieu, when, without any connection, it invested immeasurably in projects that, despite their qualities, did not emerge from a cultural policy and a long-term vision, nor from a willingness to contribute to the development of artistic creation structures in the region by applying public funds.
This heartbreaking, even if metaphorical, analysis is what we are left with. And looking at these cuts now means returning to the past, where many argued that the Algarve should receive less cultural support, due to the money invested in Allgarve.
Author Jorge Rocha is an independent Artist and Producer
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