Buenos Aires, April 13, 2022
From the Argentina Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity, we join the growing concern and mobilization of cultural workers given that on December 31 of this year (by a law introduced by the Macri Government in 2017) the specific promotion funds that subsidize cinema, theater, music, radios, libraries and community media will cease to exist. In this way we are heading towards the emptying of our institutions and organizations that produce and promote cultural and artistic activity.
If this painful step is confirmed, we would enter into an unprecedented crisis that would leave thousands of workers in the sector in the street, making the activity and cultural production of our country unsustainable due to the lack of funding.
We call on artists, intellectuals and the cultural militancy as a whole to take up this issue and support the claims and actions of struggle that demand the deputies of the Argentine Nation prevent the expiration of the funds in Congress, while we ask the Ministry of Culture to make a public statement on this issue and take action on the matter.
We need to ensure the cultural sovereignty of our country, because therein lies our intelligence, our heart and our courage. Culture gives us that identity of struggle that, in times like these in which the ruling classes show their worst face and from the north the attempt to renew the colonializing of knowledge and thinking – in addition to aligning us to their warlike proposal – makes us stand up, speak out and take to the streets displaying our own banners of struggle for the welfare of the people.
Finally, we categorically repudiate the brutal repression unleashed last Monday at the gates of the INCAA by the police in Buenos Aires against the comrades who were peacefully demonstrating there.
We need the full and integral recognition of the workers who build Argentine culture day by day.
NO TO THE EXPIRATION OF FUNDING FOR CULTURE.
NETWORK OF INTELLECTUALS AND ARTISTS IN DEFENSE OF HUMANITY, ARGENTINA CHAPTER
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano