Culture Minister

Jean Hesp.

Now that the names of the new Flemish government have been announced, the first thing I had to do was find out who will be the new Minister of Culture. That took some searching because none of the ministers seemed to have it until I ended up with new Prime Minister Jan Jambon, who just takes culture in addition to Foreign Affairs and ITC. Well, I’m not good with that.

A prime minister has to travel a lot by himself and now Foreign Affairs comes on top of that so it seems that His Excellency will have to move from place to place in a flash. Then I fear that Culture will remain underexposed and will not enjoy the full attention of our nice potentate.

Maybe he will prove otherwise, who knows, but I still have a heavy head. Sven Gatz was a good culture minister I think, who did what a culture minister should do, which is to promote our culture. In an inclusive way that everyone living or staying here can relate to. Perhaps he will be the last culture minister of Flanders, in the sense of someone who does just that.

So it should be. Culture is always a beleaguered department that will be the first to feel the axe of cuts in times of need, and these seem to have become permanent now, because there is always a reason to derail the budget by buying fighter jets or putting excellencies on airplanes. And then savings have to be made again.

With Mr. Jambon, we get a culture minister who once espoused a racist party. Call me crazy, but I find it scary. Precisely because it is Culture. I’m a bit afraid it’s going to be a cultural wasteland. An equalization. Not that we should expect torchlight processions right away, but it’s a bit creepy.

Nor have we forgotten his disparaging remarks to the Muslim community at the time of the terrible attacks in Brussels and Zaventem on March 22, 2016, when he believed he could see dancing crowds of joy never seen by anyone else. It left me with a grim feeling that I cannot shake off.

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