Budget 2023 will be tabled on Feb 24.
As always, major budgetary allocations will be prioritised for health, education, defence, infrastructure development, shelter, and food security. These are the basic ingredients to sustain the wellbeing of the nation and its people.
But arts and culture, as is wont, will be accorded the lowest priority, consistent with the practice of previous governments.
Arts and culture have never been recognised on their own merits, always annexed as part of a component of ministries. It was initially, at its inception, a component of the Culture, Youth and Sports Ministry, and later morphed into Culture, Arts and Tourism Ministry, and in its current form, the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry.
The current government, thus far, has been mute on the role of the arts in the grand scheme of national development, giving the impression that arts and culture are inconsequential to the economy and the wellbeing of the people.
This dismissive attitude is strikingly apparent in its absence in parliamentary, and other policy discussions. Worse still, certain sect-based parties even denigrate them as being incompatible with their principles and beliefs. Based on their logic, arts and culture should be ignored and allowed to fade into oblivion.
Such attitude prevails because of an ignorance of policy, and decision-makers who are only concerned with the physical and financial aspects of national development, sans arts and culture.
These quarters see the arts as mere entertainment, and as adornments to secular and ritualistic practices. They also do not take pride in their artistic and cultural heritage. Perhaps they will only be jolted from their slumber if it involves financial gains.
Arts and culture play an important role in the educational, artistic, and economic life of the people, apart from being an organic repository of our cultural heritage. As a form of informal education, they transfer traditional norms and values, as well as creative skills for the benefit of the current and future generations.
In addition, the arts fosters visual thinking that forms a significant part of a person’s intellectual faculty, which enables the person to synthesise and transform physical phenomena into a higher realm of cognition and perception.
Such elements of creativity are crucial in all aspects of man’s aesthetic and functional endeavours and enterprises. They also act as a repository of knowledge, preserving and conserving traditional cultural heritage, while creating new forms of visual knowledge.
Besides its aesthetic and ritualistic functions, arts and culture generate economic activities and spin-offs through services such as performances and exhibitions, and the sales of artistic products, such as crafts and paintings.
In short, they are a significant source of revenue for the country, while providing employment and other attendant commercial activities.
Arts and culture also nurture the tangible and intangible, through the training of new practitioners, and sustaining the traditional masters, as well as developing arts impresarios and entrepreneurs.
While arts and culture contribute significantly to the spiritual, aesthetic, intellectual and economic wellbeing of the country, they have not been accorded rightful and serious consideration in government planning, especially in terms of budgetary allocations. Instead, they have always been at the lowest priority.
There must be a paradigm shift in the thinking of those in authority to accept the arts and culture to be on a par with other designated ministries.
The current allocation for the arts and culture component of the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry is minuscule, as a major portion is taken up by the tourism component.
Considering the importance of arts and culture in national development, it is imperative that the government significantly increases the budgetary allocation for arts and culture, consistent with their role in the educative process, and as a repository of traditional cultural heritage and economic viability.
This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Twentytwo13.
