Just yesterday morning the 35 oldest, best known and strongest unions and associations of artists and workers in the field of culture, representing essentially the entire «body» and spirit of culture, published the letter sent the same day to the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. It was a letter written formally as befits the occasion and yet, despite its formality, unable to hide the despair, desperation and anger of those who can no longer survive (and this is not a «blackmailing» stereotype, but a dramatic reality).
Its main axis was the protest against the lack of any planning, even long-term, for the relaunch of artistic events under sanitary conditions. The co-signatories even cited recent ELSTAT data according to which, between January 2020 and 2021 «our industry appears to be the most heavily affected», having recorded «a decrease in turnover of 88,2%,». And they concluded with the agonizing question, «How do you plan to survive for cultural workers, in the coming months?»
The letter, of course, was not addressed to and was not communicated to her, who was currently in Qatar, Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni. Nor to the, generally in obscurity, Deputy Minister of Contemporary Culture, Nikola Yatromanolakis. Artistic associations, organizations, personalities, groups, ensembles, troupes, groups, the vast majority of them now openly admit that expect nothing from Mrs Mendoni. It has repeatedly shown its characteristic stubbornness and iron fist in its decision to be indifferent to the problems of contemporary culture, and sometimes even to insult artists.
After the transfer of the portfolio to the rather «sluggish» Mr. Yatromanolakis, the Minister of Culture, at best, refers the relevant issues to him and at worst is blatantly indifferent and conspicuously silent. So, if there are no modern institutions of Culture for her, there is no such thing for them either, to the extent that after months of their tongues screaming for her resignation in every possible way, now they are not doing that either.
So the minister who «managed» to unite 35 unions and people who under other circumstances would not have been able to get along so easily. Who has «managed» to strengthen the image, the participation in registration and the effectiveness of the Greek Actors' Association, for the first time in many years. Which «managed» to be from unpopular to indifferent to the vast majority of the area. Who «managed», after a year and a half at the helm of the Ministry of Culture to collect only 56 signatures in its favor from «personalities of culture», not even all of which came from the field of culture. The minister, finally, who comes from the same party as Melina Mercouri, that brilliant minister who introduced a number of innovations in favour of the then modern culture and claimed the Marbles and whose name is not mentioned anywhere on the Acropolis monument-but is only mentioned below in the giant photographs of the Metro and in the bust at the intersection of Amalias Avenue and the pedestrian street of Dionysiou Areopagitou.
This minister, well, Mrs Mendoni, claimed to pass her name to immortality as guaranteed by the placement of marble inscriptions under the sponsorship contract concluded by the Ministry of Culture and Sports with the Onassis Foundation ’at the beginning and end of the Slope Lift and at the entrance to the Propylaea« which will announce that »the Slope Lift and the Acropolis Lighting were carried out with the exclusive sponsorship of the Onassis Foundation under Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni«. Correct.
Thus, in the monument-symbol of democracy, equality and egalitarianism, in the monument where egoism and individualism yield to the concept of the active citizen, future generations may not recognize the name of Iktinus and Kallikrates. Ignore Melina. But remember Lina Mendoni.
Because as the late Harry Clint once said in one of his sketches, (the ’Basil at the Herodion«) »we have built these shops«. Literally.
By Natalie Hadjientoniou
