“Let us work or rescue us.” Of the two options, they prefer to go back to the pit, but since aid to a sector does not reach the limit after seven months of inactivity due to the pandemic, this Thursday thousands of professionals from the Spanish cities mobilized, including Logroño. events and shows organized by the Red Alert initiative. “Culture is safe,” they say. But if nobody does anything, the culture as we knew it dies.
The concentration of this Thursday in the Espolón has been, in fact, staging the anticipated funeral It is a heterogeneous union that is difficult to quantify, although at the national level there are 700,000 people affected by the stoppage of cultural activity since March. In addition to Logroño, there have been demonstrations in Alicante, Albacete, Badajoz, Barcelona, Bilbao, Córdoba, Girona, Granada, Ibiza, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Lleida, Lugo, Madrid, Malaga, Murcia, Oviedo, Palma, Pamplona, Santiago from Compostela, Seville, Tarragona, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Valencia, Valladolid, Vigo, Vitoria and Zaragoza.
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In the Riojan capital they have gathered about 350 people in an atypical but highly organized demonstration, with strict security measures, also with reduced capacity, prior registration, personal distance, hydroalcoholic gel, black clothing, red masks, smoking ban and respectful silence, all to show that «culture is safe and that events can be organized if you like ”, in the words of Sergio Formoso, one of the local coordinators.
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Many volunteers like him have spent weeks organizing everything through social networks so that Logroño also had his 17S. Red alert brings together all types of professionals, from technicians to promoters and entrepreneurs, including artists from all disciplines. It is not a matter of stars, but of workers and entrepreneurs.
–“The important thing is also the union of the sector”, according to Ainhoa de Cabo, another volunteer of the organization: “The visibility, showing that the culture is safe, that many jobs depend on cultural events … That is to say, that the culture generates employment and wealth and is necessary to grow, learn and develop as a human being ”.
With slogans like ‘all together with culture’, this Thursday the participants staged that unit, but also the situation of a sector bound, gagged and in serious danger, before the reading was given, at 9:30 p.m. and simultaneously in all cities, the manifesto of September 17.
It demands urgent measures from the Public Administrations. Among others, they propose to create a sectoral table that defines the specific needs and specifications of all this labor, cultural and social fabric, of utmost importance for the Spanish economy and society.
–They also ask for the “immediate reactivation” of the cultural and event agendas of the Public Administrations, “under strict compliance” with all health security protocols. They also include specific tax proposals for the self-employed, employed, companies and the sector globally.
The simultaneous mobilizations of 17S have aimed at an organization, management and development “with the maximum hygienic-sanitary measures.” “A qualitative and not quantitative incidence and impact is intended, and therefore there has not been a call for massive assistance,” Formoso explained.
On the contrary, they have been “controlled and limited” mobilizations in which the participants had to previously register as a preventive measure against the risk of contagion: “We know how to organize events and we can.”
Red Alert is part of the international movement ‘#redalert’ ‘#wemakeevents’, in which there are currently seven member countries. All with the same image, motto and address. It has only just begun. For the next day 30S they already announce a ‘Global day’, when professionals from half the world will unite to give a voice in the same day to a sector mortally wounded by the crisis, although used to resisting.
«They only offer you ridiculous help and that you reinvent yourself»
This Thursday, the Minister of Culture and Sports, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, held a telemeeting with the communities to “share points of view” on the situation of professionals in cultural shows. On behalf of La Rioja, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth, Pedro Uruñuela, and the General Director of Culture, Ana Zabalegui participated.
La Rioja, as reported by the regional government, defended “the need to establish a common minimum framework for all regions and agents of the cultural sector and to emphasize the role of culture as a public good and an essential service in the development of the society, without forgetting its notable economic weight in the country as a whole ”.
“Only good words”
For its part, the sector has been very critical of “the inaction of the Executive in recent months.” From Red Alert they assure that the demonstrations held this Thursday are only the “first step” to denounce the “lack of recognition of a clear vulnerability and concrete aid.”
This same week Red Alert declined an invitation to meet with the minister, who was clearly trying to deactivate the demonstrations: “We declined the invitation because the problems in the entertainment and events sector are broader,” they said. In fact, they ask that any meeting should be raised “in a transversal and simultaneous way” with both the Ministry of Culture and Sports, and with the departments of Labor, Industry, Tourism, Economic Affairs and Finance.
Likewise, Red Alert has reiterated the need for “an urgent commitment, in writing,” by the Public Administrations, for a rescue plan. To date, Sergio Formoso comments in La Rioja, “they have only given us good words but no solutions”: “When all they offer you is ridiculous help and they tell you to reinvent yourself, your soul falls to your feet. That doesn’t feed us.
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