On The Money

August 30, 2000

Ten years ago, in my capacity then as Chairman of the National Carnival Bands Association (NCBA), I presented to Culture Minister, Jennifer Johnson, written proposals requesting tax rebates of up to 150 per cent of costs incurred by businesses sponsoring cultural events.

During the intervening decade, several other groups forwarded similar and perhaps much more passionate petitions to successive governments.

Presumably, they also held many meetings with relevant authorities and their proposals were received with equal enthusiasm. They too, must have been promised swift action.

It was therefore a personal delight to hear Finance Minister, Brian Kuei Tung announce during Monday's budget speech, the present administration's decision to grant this long sought-after concession which, he seemed certain, would assist in the promulgation of indigenous arts and culture.

But let me not leave you with the impression that I am still vibrating from a sustained "whoopee". You see, as the NCBA paper examined in 1990, there are a few awkward possibilities that can spring from the tax-rebate provision.

Firstly, it is to be hoped that Mr Kuei Tung has already devised safeguards against blatant abuse of the rebate facility by unscrupulous businessmen.

For instance, what's to stop the boss from sponsoring a succession of family members through their showbiz fantasies, then getting a tax-break from the state as a bonus?

Then should we not have at least some basic protocol about sponsorship not being applied at the sacrifice of artistic or national identity?

And finally, there is the sponsor himself. Samuel Johnson's Book of Insults defines a patron as: "One who countenances and protects, commonly a wretch, who supports with insolence and is paid in full by flattery."

Allow me to submit, Mr Kuei Tung that, in this particular context, an embarrassingly large slice of the country's corporate sector is embraced by Johnson's broad and uncomplimentary interpretation.

Now, a word about our kind sponsors. Few Boards of financially comfortable state enterprises and private corporations have conscious and clearly written policies mandating support for indigenous culture. And contrary to a widely-held view, executives do not automatically enjoy some measure of refinement upon elevation, such as would imbue them with the authority to broker art. It is yet another sound set of reasons for exercising due diligence and making policy demands in the dispensing of this tax rebate provision.

Generally speaking, business regards artistes as contemptible, neither useful nor honourable and consequently a waste of time and money. The only way such a person gets help to showcase his work is if, in the exchange, he can reduce himself to a medium for the sponsor's display of massive banners, hoardings, full-page ads in the programme and other vulgar indicators as to precisely who is paying the piper.

There is also a view incompatible with a proper appreciation of art, that development of culture should be funded or encouraged as a tourism initiative. If that is still the thinking, I fear the next noble thrust in that quarter will achieve nothing significantly different from futile past adventures.

Art and culture should never be developed as tourist attractions. When we redirect our focus toward mastery of the packaging and presentation of cultural products for the home audience, people will come from around the globe to see us do it. Ask any Native American Indian.

Ask the British too, if they invented the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace as a tourist attraction. Fact is, had they done so, people would quite likely have avoided it. What renders it attractive, is that this ritual is an integral part of the British way of life. It is their history and a sincere demonstration of reverence to their Queen—not something they devised to make money off curious visitors. Fact is, they do it so bloody well, that the very routine evolved into a lucrative tourism product.

Then, should we not also make a clear distinction between what should carry the donor's name and where the state has to assume full responsibility without gratuitous reference. Had the English left that aspect of their development to chance, we could have been seeing the British Airways Beefeaters patrolling the Tower of London, with symbolic marshaling batons replacing the traditional lance.

But go bravely, Mr Kuei Tung. At least you have opened up the debate on corporate involvement in art and culture.

And even more interestingly, your government has started to talk about Carnival as though it has some value in excess of a mere jam'n'wine release-valve for a people who might otherwise contemplate social unrest. Go bravely, Mr Kuei Tung, you're right on the money.

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