Culture Minister targets media and arts funding
Culture Minister Oto Klempir is fast-tracking legislation to place public service media funding under government control. This move follows protests last month where thousands people gathered against measures that could undermine media independence. Klempir also set new conditions for state subsidies for literary journals for the coming year. Projects will no longer be allowed to publish "political news, commentary on current political events, or other political journalism". I find these restrictions a direct attempt to silence critical voices. Deputy Culture Minister Adam Kocian added that politics has no place in music, film, or book festivals receiving state support. Kocian said, "Why should there be any political debate when we, as the ministry, are the ones providing the funding, and we don’t like politics being discussed at music festivals?" He also said, "We’re putting money into this; these are our conditions." The ministry is trying to dismantle the current system where expert committees made up of artists and creatives recommend state support for independent culture. Oto Klempir, who was expelled from the funk-rock band JAR last year after declaring his intention to stand for parliament for the Motorists, is a leading figure in this movement. The Motorists are a populist and nationalist party that is also climate-sceptic and closely aligned with Maga ideology.
Pressure on independent institutions
In April, the ministry delayed a subsidy for the Prague gallery Svetova 1 despite the relevant expert committee backing the application. Klempir expressed anger toward the state fund for audiovisual projects after it earmarked almost 1m Czech crowns, or about £35,000, for a film concerning the Ukrainian queer community, and he has since warned of cutbacks. He wants to dismiss the fund’s executive board. This pressure against independent culture follows the political breakthrough of the Motorists party last year. The party includes MEP Filip Turek, a former racing driver whose popularity among young men persists because of his macho image and social media rhetoric. Turek faced investigation regarding a Facebook comment mocking a neo-Nazi attack against a Roma family, and the ruling party also investigated his alleged use of a racial slur to refer to Barack Obama before last year’s coalition deal. Police shelved the Roma attack case in July because the statute of limitations expired. Petr Macinka, the party chair, has long sought Donald Trump’s favour, including through a speech at the Munich Security Conference where he attacked Hillary Clinton. The Motorists party draws support from fossil fuel billionaire Pavel Tykac, who also funds the Vaclav Klaus Institute where Macinka worked for many years.
Wealth and political alignment
The ruling coalition led by Andrej Babis seeks to control the media market to protect the interests of the wealthy. The top 1% of the Czech population owns 37.1% of the country’s wealth, and this gap remains one of the highest in Europe. Babis is one of the richest people in Czechia, and much of the media landscape belongs to wealthy business people. I see the effort to rein in public service media as a move to eliminate the last significant media segment not influenced by the super-rich. The Motorists party aims to import Maga ideology into the country. Babis and his coalition partners are borrowing tactics from Viktor Orban in Hungary and Robert Fico in Slovakia. These leaders have probably concluded that they need to increase culture wars and undermine democratic institutions following poor showings in recent municipal and senate elections. This alignment of wealthy individuals with far-right politics serves to protect economic interests. Progressive cultural institutions and democracy are the casualties of this global trend where the wealthy align with the far right to safeguard their status.
