Help! England is also going to cry out for culture

The Cry for Culture with which the Dutch cultural world launched its opposition to the scrapping of art subsidies in 2010 was, in retrospect, a publicity disaster. Perhaps not yet as unfortunate as naming the 'March of Civilisation', but many goodwilll has not been bred with it either. Yet people across the North Sea think otherwise. A new campaign was launched there this month entitled: My Theatre Matters. That campaign calls on people "to shout about how important your local theatre is". Literally translated, then, that is a call to shout about culture.

What's going on? The cuts announced by the UK government at the same time as the Bosma/Zijlstra government in the Netherlands initially seemed less draconian than in the Netherlands: even if the percentages were the same, at least there were people seriously considering them. And the tone was more respectful. Now, however, it appears that the consequences are much more serious at the local level. Local governments, which in many cases are doing their utmost to parry the attacks by Rutte cs in the Netherlands, are less inclined to come to the aid of the cultural sector in England. So one local theatre facility after another is closing its doors there. Libraries have already largely disappeared there, and visual arts did not get any government funding anyway.

This cry for help is, it is to be feared, as late in England as it is in the Netherlands. It will hit the spot just as hard when they also start broadcasting spots with screaming actors. In the Netherlands, the general public also proved absent when, in 2010, music schools, libraries and staff at cultural institutions stood shouting in their village squares.

Opponents of cultural subsidies only gained more support here thanks to the resentful actions of the arts sector. In Britain, the debate will harden just as much. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, where everything happens just a few months earlier than overseas anyway, cautious moves in a different direction have been made. Instead of calling on the citizenry to stand behind them or march with them, art institutions are now increasingly asking their audiences what exactly they want, what their visitors like, why their neighbours come or don't come. And then those answers turn out not even to be as populist as many now fear.

Talking to your audience is very good, it turns out. But if you stand around shouting all the time, you make any conversation impossible. Some journalists and art producers know this.

I hope they catch on to that in the UK before they do here.