Kritische Blicke auf die Coronakrise und ihre Folgen
Kritische Blicke auf die Coronakrise und ihre Folgen

Culture and solidarity

Culture and solidarity are food for soul and body:

A plea for a dignified basic income – or why there must be no losers in this global pandemic

by Konstantin Wecker

From the beginning, Konstantin Wecker passionately fought for global solidarity in the fight against Covid-19. To this day he remains firmly convinced that there can be no losers in this global pandemic.
That is why Konstantin Wecker has written and recorded a current plea for a decent basic income and an immediate rent freeze:

The recording can be found under the following link at minute 00:00 to 05:40. The plea in text form follows below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0tKSBxuu8E&feature=emb_logo

 

December 5, 2020

Culture and solidarity are food for soul and body:
A plea for a dignified basic income – or why there must be no losers in this global pandemic

The German government and many politicians consider a further tightening of the measures to be conceivable and necessary.
So far, so bad. The reports come thick and fast, politicians worry, virologists explain themselves.
Let me make it clear once again: I consider the Covid 19 pandemic to be a global danger, I think mask wearing and hygiene concepts make sense, I do not demonstrate with Nazis and Reich citizens and I despise the mendacious rhetoric of national demagogues.
But it strikes me that all those who now want to – and perhaps must – curtail our freedom speak to us from a safe and secure vantage point, which must now seem almost absurdly remote to millions of people.
Billions are invested in large corporations and selected economic sectors, not in people. Many have to travel to work in crowded subways and trains, where hygiene concepts are far more inadequate than in many museums or concert halls.
Anyone who has to worry today about whether he will have something to eat tomorrow, how he will be able to pay his next rent, his insurance, his livelihood, will have little confidence in this policy. And that’s why you might at some point give the anti-corona measures the finger.
The politicians have a secure income, a secure pension, a secure home.
They can have that. But also all other humans!!!
Instead of investing in the big corporations, our politicians should support all those who now have to fear for their existence and give them the feeling that we will only succeed together. There is no way around a decent basic income.
For all self-employed artists, organizers, cultural workers, technicians and restaurateurs – simply for everyone who has to take these measures in order not to endanger their own and others’ health.
This is the only way to achieve what is really necessary and only helpful in these times: that each and everyone limits his or her freedom on his or her own responsibility.
The free and independent art and cultural scene has long been struggling for bare survival. And why? Because the call of many politicians for solidarity was unfortunately not meant seriously and, above all, does not apply to everyone. It is unacceptable that many are condemned to be the losers of this pandemic, while others can continue to make money at the expense of the losers. An example: While some can no longer earn anything, others may continue to demand full rents and cut wages. So while some have to make sacrifices and lose more and more, others can continue to make profits and become even richer. This is deeply unjust and divides people further into winners and losers.
When will real estate investment companies and owners finally demand “social solidarity”?
Why do the owners still not have to give up their already outrageously expensive rents until the end of the pandemic?
We need a rent freeze or a moratorium. These would be sensible measures against the social effects of a unique pandemic: How many cultural projects, venues, restaurants, clubs and artists would be able to survive this crisis if they did not have to throw their last reserves down the throats of owners for already far too high rents?
But most politicians simply cannot get it into their heads what relevance culture and art have for people and societies.
Culture is food for the soul, poetry is resistance! Man needs art because it is a part of his self, because it makes his innermost being sound, because it awakens the human in us and makes us recognize it: We are not to be separated. We are one and together.
Art, even if it is still bulky, does not crawl up the ass of the zeitgeist, does not carry the common image of the world, is not patentable like a drug.
Poetry heals without Bayer earning any money from it. It makes us rich without anyone being able to make money from it.
We can only master this global pandemic without losers and with solidarity and justice together if everyone is treated equally – even the poorest and social outsiders, the sideways turned and crazy, the fools and poets, the helpless and spurned – everyone, simply everyone, must be given the opportunity to survive and not be kicked out of their homes.
Take the money from the billionaires and the previously tax-exempt corporations, they haven’t earned it honestly anyway.
Stop the arms production and secure every single citizen with a basic income.
Then I will certainly not agree with everything the governments and many politicians say. But then at least I can take them seriously with their demands.
We must not allow a situation to arise that promotes a right-wing overthrow.
I am and will remain an avowed utopian and I have never been ashamed of it.
We must and will continue to fight for a fairer, peaceful, domination-free society and a good life for all people.

Yours
Konstantin Wecker