At the first televised electoral debate, on September 15, François Legault could not speak for more than 15 seconds about culture without skipping over anything else. A week later, during a second debate, it still seemed impossible to hear about culture other than on the margins of this televised evening, where it was relegated to the chapter of identity.
All the miseries that overwhelm culture are experienced in the awkward silence that prevails about it on such occasions. Obviously, we never know what to do with culture, except to wave it very vaguely, in the name of identity, as an invariant to which immigrants should submit. The official, in matters of culture, never achieves anything other than the superficial.
In 2018, in an interview whose segments had been reassembled to create an advertising capsule, the candidate Legault had hardly been able to deploy more than very vague generalities about culture. “Culture is the soul of a people,” he said. “Culture, thanks to culture, thanks to the arts, life is more beautiful”, he continued. “Hey, it’s nice to go listen to someone sing, to go see a play, to go see a beautiful painting, good to read a good book. So the arts make life more beautiful. And unfortunately, in less favored environments, young people often have less access to culture and the arts. »
For François Legault, it should be understood, culture corresponds to a matter rather foreign to ordinary life. It is consumed, as long as one is “favoured”, until satiety. To hear him, he who is happy to promote reading on his Facebook page, culture is like the economy: it comes from the sky to give salt, by a magical trickling phenomenon, from top to bottom. down. One never really feels, in the Prime Minister as in other politicians, a cultural appetite freed from the idea that this is “an industry” intended above all to create direct “economic spin-offs”, just like any production. The cultural table is simply not designed to accommodate everyone. So, it is by dropping crumbs on the floor that, more often than not, we imagine we can feed society.
Allow a parenthesis. In the 19the century it was common to eat oysters. They were easily accessible. They cost less, all things considered, than poultry or fish meat. On the streets of major cities in America, they were common. Then they dwindled. Prices have gone up. And they are now reserved for those who can afford them. In other words, the oyster closed on those who had the means to open them. This is also the case for culture, according to the elitist conception proposed by our governments.
The skimpy project of Blue Spaces, these expensive regional facilities dedicated to swallowing pride, doubles without worrying too much about an already underfunded museum system. The promotion of this project was an opportunity for François Legault to present himself as a self-proclaimed specialist in museology. He wants singers there. “I don’t just want to see them, I want them to be heard!” For Abitibi, he also claimed, from the height of his authority, a tribute to Serge Savard, the former hockey defender who became general manager of the Canadiens. It only remains to see confirmed what will be dictated.
How can we explain, moreover, that this cultural beacon that is the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec was entrusted, following a selection process that was unusual to say the least, to Marie Grégoire, this former member of the ADQ for Mario Dumont? To the one who has converted into a political commentator attached to the ideas of her former party, since reunited with that of Mr. Legault, this major cultural position has been ceded, despite the fact that it required before his arrival “at least fifteen years of management experience in a large organization or institution, including eight years in a management position. For his arrival, the requirements have simply been lowered.
It is interesting to see what has happened in recent months to the other candidate, the one who was rejected in favor of the former deputy. Following an exhaustive recruitment process conducted internationally, Guylaine Beaudry won a competition that now leads her to lead the McGill University Libraries, becoming the holder of a prestigious chair as Dean. Mme Beaudry, whose pedigree does not even remotely compare to that of the former BAnQ elected official, will also have to see to an imposing development plan for a digital network for which her qualities are constantly being praised. But apparently, go figure why, she was not properly qualified for the requirements of the Quebec government…
When culture is not reduced to small questions of administration, subsidy or concrete, it is assimilated, at most, to questions of identity, in a mythologized vision of the Western nation, in the name of a loyalty to an often imaginary and folklorized genealogy of tradition. Culture, thus instrumentalized, appears as a spectrum.
What our politicians call culture, if they understand at least how to conceive it in French, very often serves as a screen to maintain the illusion that we are fed less poorly than if we lived in the suburbs of the mind. in Pittsburgh or Cincinnati.
It is high time to consider the place of culture other than in small-time policies, conducted in the name of an identity retrenchment that is as sterile as it is servile.