THE attempt by Communities Minister Gordon Lyons to bring the arts sector to heel is the latest in a dreary litany of attacks by the DUP on artists and creatives.
Since its formation over half a century ago, the party has never seen a piece of art that they didn’t think could be improved by the addition of a union jack. In the grim, grey days of the early 70s, they picketed cinemas demanding the banning of films that today could be shown on TV pre-watershed without a murmur of complaint. With depressing regularity over the following years the placards have come out as they attempted to ban or silence just about every aspect of the arts, from painting to dance, from theatre to music, from literature to sculpture, and on and on and on and on.
The DUP’s antipathy towards and suspicion of the arts community was born out of the fear and paranoia that have always been a defining feature of unionism in a polity which exists only thanks to a gerrymandered majority with a sell-by date. And with that sell-by date rapidly approaching, the fear and paranoia are rapidly increasing to the point where the DUP views the world around them in grimly binary terms of friend or threat.
So it is that Minister Lyons’ latest epistle from the pulpit is that individual artists or artistic groups will endanger their chances of Arts Council funding if they engage in any activity “disrespectful of any tradition”.
The truth of course is that if art stops being disrespectful it stops being art. Artists want to – one might even say they are required to – put a firecracker under the seats of the smug and the comfortable; they do their best work when they not only disrespect but work against the interests of the haters and the powerful.
It’s a simple statement of fact that down through the millennia art has most often come from a place of disadvantage and/or disillusion, which is why the number of artists from a unionist background has been historically low. Against that background it’s easy to see why the DUP has been hostile to art and artists throughout its existence. And against that background it’s easy to see that any attempt to control artistic expression via the disbursement of funds will disproportionately affect artists approaching their work from what we might call an anti-status quo or non-unionist position.
Minister Lyons can scotch that perception right away, if he so chooses.We’ve been reporting in recent months on the granting of very significant sums of Arts Council money to loyalist bands taking part in paramilitary tribute events. Playing at a UVF parade is a prima facie breach of Minister Lyons’ mooted requirement for artists in receipt of funding to be respectful of other traditions. Will he act against kick-the-Pope bands who will use instruments paid for with Arts Council money to play at parades celebrating UDA/UVF Catholic-killers?
We’re simply going to have to wait and see – but we wait with some interest, Minister.
