Dear Editor,

Dear Editor,

I WAS happy to read the Peeping Tom column “Cultural industries vs. the industries of culture” (Kaieteur News, 14-Jun-16), wherein the writer makes some very sweeping pronouncements on what constitutes cultural/creative industries, and puts forward the argument for the non-creation of a national cultural policy.It is uninformed interventions like these that offer me the opportunity to educate the general public about the very complex area of cultural policy development and implementation. I will seek to address a few of its core points –- enough, I believe, to correct the misconceptions the writer so authoritatively seeks to promulgate.

“Cultural policies are about turning cultural products, which are but expressions of society’s culture, to the economic industries.” This shows a fundamentally poor understanding of what properly conceived cultural policies are, and what they intend to do. Policy-based interventions seeking to include cultural issues in developmental models have long been recognised as critical to the success of those models. The paradigm shift that has been taking place over the past 10 years, however, has been the movement of culture from the periphery of development to a core component. What was essentially an aspirational model of mainstreaming culture, the 2005 Convention on Protecting and Promoting the Diversity of Cultural Expression, has now become one of the pillars of sustainable development in the agenda of most Millennium Development Goals.

A national cultural policy that adheres to best practices has sustainable development as its primary purpose. The policy framework that the Government of Guyana, through my office, is developing looks, yes, at creative/cultural industries’ development, but also at heritage protection; and, most importantly, over the next five years, mainstreaming culture in sustainable development under three primary areas: education, environment, and citizenship.

With regard to heritage protection and preservation, while there are some aspects of cultural heritage protection that deal with economic sustainability in this area (tourism in natural heritage, adaptive reuse of built heritage, leveraging of intellectual property of intangible heritage), most of the funding under best-practice models comes out of national heritage fund mechanisms which allocate a percentage of revenue from some successful industry to heritage efforts. Had a national cultural policy been in place during the exponential growth of the gold industry, for example, a national heritage fund could have channelled part of the royalty revenues into heritage preservation.

My intention is that such a mechanism would be tagged to the pending oil industry, among others.

The concept of cultural industries is indeed about recognising and sustainably exploiting the economic value of cultural activity, though not necessarily by commoditising traditional culture, but in most instances by streamlining and adding value to cultural activities that are already being done for financial reward.

We can take what we refer to as Indian dance, for example, a form of cultural expression that functions as paid entertainment.

The cultural policy in development would not only seek to preserve and develop Indian dance forms, but ensure the environment offers adequate opportunities for educators, practitioners and entrepreneurs alike, whether it is financing, technical assistance, or further educational opportunities. Inevitably, this would lead to optimizing of the economic returns on the practice of one aspect of cultural heritage, but one that would be a natural outcome of the creation of an environment conducive to the sustainable practice of the form. Agro-processing of certain goods, cassava bread for example, represents an area of cultural industry growth with potential for local market expansion as well as export. The writer bemoans what he/she claims to be stasis or failure in cultural and creative investment, claiming, for example, “Guyana spent billions of dollars hosting Carifesta with the hope that it would have led to the development of Guyana’s cultural industries, including written, visual and stage works.”

On this latter point, I concede readily that purported investment in the creative industries over the previous 10 years, and particularly under the tenure of then Minister of Culture, Dr Frank Anthony, was fraught with poor vision and terrible accountability. In addition to Carifesta X (2008), which Guyana hosted, I can readily add the gross mismanagement of the Caribbean Press and the Sports and Arts Development Fund. Even as it is on the agenda of my office to properly investigate the extent to which there has been medium-term to recent mismanagement of culture, moving forward, the goal is to develop a framework for effective management in keeping with Goal One of the current UN recommendations for cultural policy development: “Support Sustainable Systems of Governance for Culture.”

This means that we will not be faced with billion-dollar expenditure on cultural activities and programmes, with no oversight and no accountability, as was standard operating procedure.

Investment in culture will work as well as investment in any industry, as long as there is strategic planning as well as monitoring and evaluating processes involved.

Finally, the writer pronounces that “Guyana does not need a cultural policy.” Not only has there been acknowledgement that this has to be a priority from the level of Government, but every single international framework in which we operate — CARICOM/ CARIFORUM, UNASUR/MERCOSUR, CELAC, UNESCO -– lists a national cultural policy as the fundamental priority step in collectively moving forward on culture. This philosophy that we don’t need a national cultural policy is precisely the sort of backward thinking that saw the former Government resist all attempts at formulating, circulating and seeking parliamentary commitment on a comprehensive consultation-based policy and strategy document.
Yours faithfully,
RUEL JOHNSON
Cultural Policy Advisor,
Ministry of Education