From black sheep to black jackets

When I first saw this poster, I thought it was a joke. A gag by students or a left-wing group to make fun of the SVP. Well, not at all. According to information from the party's cantonal office, it is indeed with this photo that the Geneva UDC intends to persuade the people to accept a reduction in cultural subsidies.

That's what culture means to the SVP: a ridiculous, aggressive old rocker, in contrast to the well-coiffed, laundry-scented youth who devote themselves to sport.

Firstly, culture also means opera, theater, museums, choirs, brass bands, piano lessons and string classes in schools. Secondly, you can have the look of an old poster boy and still be a respectable person: Mick Jagger and Robert Plant have the same hairstyle. The former was knighted by the Queen of England, the latter received the Kennedy Center Award from President Obama.

PixCove

Barack Obama presents a UDC poster look-alike (Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant) with the Kennedy Center Award, America's most prestigious cultural honor.

Finally, culture must sometimes be subversive, disturbing, provocative. That's what our society needs, too, this critical, questioning vision. Baudelaire, Verlaine, Beethoven, Sidney Bechet, Georges Brassens: thousands of artists have had run-ins with the law. Would it have taken less culture to silence them? When it comes to provocation, the UDC has no lessons to teach anyone.

Because it's this aspect of culture that upsets the hard right: at the UDC office, Eric Bertinat, City Councillor and member of Geneva's Grand Council, tells me that he was outraged by the muscular demands made by supporters of the Usine, Geneva's alternative cultural mecca, which is in dispute with the Canton over a liquor license. A demonstration in support of the Usine degenerated on December 19, with damage being done to the Grand Théâtre. An unfortunate mix-up, because that's not what culture is all about. All artists will tell you so. Even those who occasionally play at the Usine.

On the phone, I get the impression that Eric Bertinat doesn't understand what I'm getting at when I explain that culture plays a fundamental role in social stabilization, and that music in particular helps children to develop and socialize. There are hundreds of studies on this subject. Here are a few a singlepublished in 2014 by the University of Vermont. It shows that music helps develop concentration, control emotions and reduce anxiety: just what you need to avoid Grand Theatre depredations, right?

But I'd rather direct the authors of this poster to an inspiring video by Boris Cyrulnik who briefly explains why culture should be the answer to terrorist threats (from 4:50), using the example of theater, which in ancient Greece preceded political debate. He then goes on to demonstrate how slogans (which make people think they've understood, when in fact they're merely reciting) subject people to a representation devoid of judgment. To live in a safer, calmer, more respectful society, as the SVP - and we too - would like to see, we need more culture.

Eric Bertinat reminds me: "In any case, the SVP generally advocates unsubsidized culture". What would we be left with? James Bond films and Justin Bieber concerts? Let's be serious: real culture, the kind that moves our society forward and stabilizes it, the kind that makes human beings grow (go and see Beethoven's Ninth danced by the Béjart Ballet), is not profitable. And politicians have understood this, provided they have a little... culture.