This call can be found in the special issue of Political on newsstands this Thursday, June 4. This issue brings together questions from collectives, associations, NGOs and cooperatives in the run-up to the 2027 presidential election.
We, the world of music, can no longer remain in the background…: we are entering a period where silence will make us complicit. Like the worlds of publishing and cinema, it is time to leave our fears and our modesty behind us, and to act collectively. Our musical ecosystems are seeing a triple wave coming head-on. The first is financial… for years, the litany of budget cuts for culture has been intensifying…; some communities and the State are weakening their support for the cultural ecosystem.
The second is political…: after years of conservative drifts, France could shift to the extreme right in 2027, placing the cultural world under direct pressure from the National Rally and its reactionary and repressive imagination. The third is industrial: the world of music, like that of books and cinema, is caught in an ever more voracious structure, dangerously accelerating the phenomena of concentration. In France, large groups own and buy more and more festivals, very large venues, and online ticket offices.
Far from being isolated, these three waves mutually reinforce each other in a great reactionary tide: the Bolloré example shows how industrial concentration, media empire and conservative battle of the imagination can feed each other. This observation forces us to build forms of organization capable of resistance: alliances, solidarity, political tools anchored in our cultural practices.
We have the ambition to raise up a multitude of artists and music workers, aware of the industrial machines to be fought.
Let’s make no mistake… for the fascists, if we do not submit, we will be placed on the side of the undesirables, the adversaries. The far right doesn’t care about culture…; on the contrary, it works to bring it into line, in the service of its reactionary, traditionalist, racist agenda. But let’s not imagine that, in essence, we would be on the right side of history. Art and music are not a blank check of morality. When the brown wave hits, the cultural world, like that of ideas, sometimes collaborates quite wisely like the others.
Fertile land of politicization
It is a very poor understanding of us to think that we have said our last word. The good side of crises is that they give wings to a few…; the windfall effect, some will say, we will rather speak here of survival instinct. We don’t organize because we are afraid. Music does exactly what fascism hates: it mixes, connects, heals and undisciplines. We are convinced that we have here a fertile ground for politicization, for caring for society, and a way of influencing the public debate.
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If it’s time to fight, then we will take part in the ongoing cultural resistance movement. For months, very calmly, we have been working to come together: artists, activists, technicians, places, unions, researchers.
Very quickly, the idea that we could be a political force gained ground. Artists come from all sides – different bodies, different backgrounds, different territories – all driven by a deep social commitment, a phenomenal energy and a powerful desire for alliance between worlds that rarely speak to each other. The collective was born from this awareness: we cannot act politically alone in our corner. We need to come together and organize ourselves. A political force of self-organization and strategy which would start from musicians. Our networks are vast and cover the entire territory. For the moment, the collective is new, it is emerging from the egg.
The stakes are enormous: 2027 is tomorrow, and fascisation is already here. But whatever happens in a few months, we have the ambition to raise a multitude of artists and music workers, bearers of multidimensional struggles, aware of the industrial machines to fight. Aware also – as people who are listened to, covered in the media, whatever the scale – of the particular responsibility that is ours.
On the same subject: Facing the far right, Terrenoire puts culture back in the right place
Resistance is declared when the adversary is identified. This is our call to musicians, artists, technicians, to the people who follow and support them. The music world is ready to fight against reactionary forces.
This text is a first note. Others will follow, from June 18, in a special issue that Political devotes to musical creation: its issues, its industries, its modes of operation, the phenomena of concentration. So many realities that we must identify to understand the mechanisms that capture music today and begin to regain control of its creation, distribution and organization tools. Naming the structures that capture music is already a way to begin to combat them. Here we are in broad daylight. Join us!
To find out more about the June 18 operation and join the mobilization, contact: culturesfutures@gmail.com
