Hear ME Out: Pop election campaign instead of pop culture

“You can go out on the streets every day,” said an acquaintance to me yesterday, who I have rarely seen as often as I have in the last few weeks – because we see each other all the time at demonstrations. For the legalization of abortions, against the cuts in the Berlin budget, against right-wing demonstrations. Was it ever different? Probably not. But these days it feels like the impacts are getting closer and closer.

Surviving as a musician is hard enough

Let’s take the matter of the new Berlin budget, which has a massive impact on social issues, education and culture. And culture doesn’t just mean the big theaters and opera houses, but also pop culture. Surviving as a musician or label maker is hard enough, especially for newcomers and of course especially for those who are already marginalized. Something that Berlin’s Senator for Culture should actually know: Thirty years ago he was the singer of the mercilessly unsuccessful band Blue Manner Haze. And back then it was even possible to make money in music.

Today, funding programs are trying to bring a little more justice into the pop world and also give a chance to those who create sophisticated art outside of the mainstream. For example, for two years I have been part of a jury that distributes money to artists who can then use it to record new albums, pay fellow musicians, make music videos, rent rehearsal rooms or even plan new live show concepts. For many musicians – even those who are already established – nothing has been possible without such support for a long time.

The red pencil of the Berlin Groko Senate shows no mercy

Now a significant part of the funding is no longer available, and other programs, for example on diversity in the cultural sector or offices that provide studios to artists in a city with skyrocketing rents, are to be canceled completely. The funded projects were caught off guard – many only found out from the press that they would have less money or even no money at all from January onwards. The red pencil of the Berlin Groko Senate shows no mercy – and especially not its own city, in which culture, and especially pop culture, not only makes up a significant part of its identity, but also attracts people from all over the world who come here for vacation or move here , want to work and live. Sawing off the branch you’re sitting on? Oh well, the Berlin Senate thinks.

The governing mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegener, makes statements that right-wing CDU members would have been ashamed of even in the 1990s: The cashier at the supermarket checkout shouldn’t finance the opera with her taxes because she doesn’t go there anyway. This makes you wonder what image such a top politician has of cashiers and whether he has ever talked to one (by the way, Katja Kollmann from the “TAZ” did that – and found quite a few cashiers who like to go to the opera, the theater or… also go to the ballet). Quite apart from the fact that the subsidization of admission prices is intended to ensure that even people with low incomes can afford culture – from opera to theater to pop culture such as concerts, raves or even festivals, all of which can also receive funding often do. Who needs logic when you can have resentment?

Lots of problems to tackle

That’s apparently what the federal CDU thinks, too, as it talks all the time about wanting to get the country back on the “right” path after three and a half years of traffic lights. Somehow people forget that there were 16 years of the CDU before that and the last three years were also marked by war in Europe and the pandemic, but it doesn’t matter. There are really a whole lot of problems that should be tackled: housing shortages not just in the cities, but throughout the country, dilapidated infrastructure, broken schools, and so on and so forth. What is the party of the most likely future chancellor promising against this, at least according to a draft election program that was leaked to the press? Logically a gender ban, with the argument of “paternalism”. It sounds like a joke, but it’s completely serious. Even worse: The CDU wants to abolish the Self-Determination Act, which came into force six weeks ago and allows trans, inter and non-binary people to change their gender entry and first name at the registry office. I don’t know how these two glorious proposals are supposed to conjure up more apartments or renovate ailing schools. But I have the bad feeling that it’s not about solving real problems. We’ve just seen it in the USA and in so many other elections around the world: It’s not about facts or real problems, it’s about vibes, vibes, vibes. Pop culture is being eliminated and replaced with pop election campaigning. Do we really deserve this?