They have ruined our culture industries by issuing hundreds of millions of Euros in subsidies to foreign artists and for foreign concerts and shows, added with the public contracts to corrupt Labour fixers to organise these events. The Malta Tourism Authority has spent hundreds of millions of Euros in entertainment for our criminal leaders while our culture industries have been wrecked. This process started with the Nationalist administrations but it accelerated at rapid speed under the subsequent Labour administrations.
I fought hard and strong against this wreckage when I was executive chairman of the National Book Council. I also started Malta’s first decent film fund for local productions and this prompted the Malta Film Commission to change and update their then-local film fund by adding more capital to it. I’m not going to list the history of my work as a public executive in the culture industry – it can be read online.
What I will say instead is that I have seen over the years the total wreckage of the infrastructure of the culture industries at the same time that the government has built artificial markets and culture industries that didn’t exist before with public subsidies. I saw bookshops closing down, clubs and venues that hosted bands and organsied concerts turned into strip clubs (actually money-laundering joins disguised as strip clubs), and basically, all the best-talented artists fleeing the country to greener pastures. Those who stayed like Ira Losco contend themselves by taking propaganda contracts by some of our worst ministers. I’ve seen publishers literally killing themselves with work and booksellers going bankrupt when corrupt government ministers issued millions of Euros just to take pictures with MTV superstars.
The class of public executives running the public entities of our culture industries is some of the worst kind of scum you can find: apart from being totally unfit for purpose, they are corrupt, idiotically vile and partisan-motivated, and blatantly opportunistic. The Culture Minister, previously found guilty of breaching the human rights of protestors by clearing the memorial of Daphne Caruana Galizia, uses public culture entities to dish out favours to pro-Labour propagandists. Others are using the Malta Tourism Authority as a get-rich scheme.
Once we get back to normality, a new government would have to set up a policy to build back our local culture industries. We need free-market approaches more than anything in the immediate and short-term. We need to destroy the artificial markets propped up by government subsidies so as to allow the organic growth of the local culture industries. New markets will be created and the demand will be directed elsewhere and local practitioners would be able to compete in our market fairly and equally like any other. Then the government can proceed to subsidise the parts of its local culture industries which have export potential. Local party events don’t need to be subsidised – there are plenty of entrepreneurs who would be successful in holding parties without government subsidies.
In addition, you build long-lasting culture infrastructure through the organic growth of local culture industries and investment in capital resources that are helping in producing and delivering high-quality products. This is how you eventually build networks and infrastructure capable enough of attracting film productions and other foreign culture investments – not by giving out free money. I did this stuff already when I was chairman of the National Book Council until the barbarians took over.
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Historian and Publisher
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