Recently an arts organisation of which I am a member received an invitation from the government to present its views at a hearing on a particular matter. The organisation then received a letter informing it that the venue had changed, but that the hearing would still take place. And then there was the follow-up phone call to make sure that we had received the new details.
This was the stuff of an efficient democracy. Representative organisations being invited to make their views known on public policy. Calls from the government to ensure that we would participate. This took us back to the distant and heady days of the Arts and Culture Task Group (Actag), when the government still did the democratic thing and involved the arts community in formulating policies that affected their lives.
There was just one problem with the invitation though. It came from the Department of Agriculture. Somehow, artists had been confused with farmers.
The disappointment of the invitation did allow for a moment of reflection on how the road of dialogue, consultation and partnership between the democratically constituted arts sector and the government has been less and less travelled since Actag.
After a newspaper report criticising a decision he had taken, a politician responsible for culture recently suggested that the arts community and the politicians managing the sector were really a family, and that there was no need to hang out ”the family’s” dirty washing in public. Extending the metaphor to his own family, he said that as a father he would defend his sons to the hilt in public, but discipline them at home. It’s the notion of internal solidarity versus the perceived common enemy out there.
Except, in the case of the extended arts family, the father is seldom home when the kids want to talk. They phone him. Send letters, faxes and e-mails. Make appointments to see him. But he seldom responds. And when he does meet them, it’s for 15 minutes before he has to rush off. The kids want to talk about their present, their future. But dad has no time for them. Yet he continues to make decisions about and for them. And this despite the fact that they are grown up, independent adults.
Inevitably, there’s resentment, anger and rebellion on the part of the kids. They embarrass their dad publicly, telling what a bad father he is. Then, suddenly, dad has time for them. His reputation is on the line. There’s a spate of family meetings. They try to resolve the ”misunderstandings”. There is reconciliation. But a few months later the cycle starts again. For the truth is, the father has little real interest in the family. And he knows that it is only a matter of time before he will move on.
Democracy is in the eye of the beholder. From the point of view of the kids, at the moment, dad sucks.