Ministering culture

In the 1980s, the Anglo-sounding name of Jack Lang  not Jacques Langue  became very popular in international media. He served as France’s Minister of Culture for a couple of spells, from 1981 to ’86 then again from ’88 to the early ‘90s. He made headlines with his moves — none of which have stuck to mind. But I’m not presently partial to Google for them.

Jack Lang seemed all-powerful as Culture Minister in a country where his area of expertise is spelled in caps and lower case, or sometimes even in all caps. I’m reminded of him every time election day comes, here in our bastion of existentialist democracy.

While I haven’t cottoned up to the idea of having a Ministry or Department of Culture as some friends have long proposed — since I believe it’ll just become another sapin-sapin of bureaucracy and potential corruption — I do think, or rather I imagine, that we need a “Culture Czar.”

That’s what we like to call putative champions in the government scene, he or she who is projected to soon fight a “war” — against drugs, against smuggling, against rampant this or rampant that.

What about a war against cretinism? It can’t be fought under a proud banner held up by an “Education Czar” — as some of the cretins that walk among us already have academic degrees. Degrees that take 18 to 20 years of formal schooling to acquire, until one supposedly turns learned by passing over, not under, the opposite apotheosis of a limbo rock bar.

Yes, the national incidence of ka-engotan may even have apposite relations to all that paper-chasing. In fact the paper pursuers become ripe candidates for foisting yet another item of legislation that is as incredibly needless as it is awesomely cretinous. 

Take the Comelec’s twin moves that tried to apply bans — on liquor, then on cash transactions with a bank, the outgoing type.

Sixto “Sic-It-To-Us” Brillantes, no relation to Greg the Andromedan prose writer, says that Francis Tolentino, once mayor of Tagaytay and now a not-so-idle dreamer for another, larger realm, actually proposed a two-month liquor ban preceding the elections.

Now, a Culture Czar, impetuously functioning alone and using only his horse sense, indigenous intuition, and knowledge of local customs, could immediately fire a broadside through media at Bossing Francis: “Now that’s a laugh. Now that’s an AC-DC operation if I ever saw one. Threaten booze distributors and sellers with damage to their business and of course they’ll come running to offer a sop. Either that or they go to the SC.”

And to Comelec’s Brillantes (totally unrelated to brilliance): “Now just cuz u reduced Tolentino’s nasty idea by several weeks doesn’t mean urs is capital, ya hear?”

For one, San Mig sales suffer for five days and it’s enough to send the national grossest index of happiness plummeting, perhaps even irretrievably if not properly channeled to rage.

We need a Culture Czar who will point out bad thinking when it occurs, which is very often in our environment, given the traffic and humidity, plus indiscriminate distribution of genes.

Only weak minds — perhaps products of a damaged culture — ever run alongside the propensity to trash the baby with the bathwater. They’re the same brains at work, say, in a homeowners’ board that decrees that all domestic helpers must present a letter from employers when exiting the village gate, because one such “maid” had absconded with a couple of cans of Century or San Marino tuna from the masters’ cupboard.

Calling the Culture Czar!

In the deep night sky, a beam of light appears, its far end hovering over Pasay, and a mien or meme not unlike that of a classic curmudgeon appears. It’s Culture Czar!

CC praises SC (Supreme Court). CC says the “money ban” is just like the liquor ban, having undergone a thought process that simply spells — drum roll now — cretinism! CC does not have to take pains to explain why it only manifests our reputed damaged culture. CC just goes about repairing that damage by scoffing at and pointing out every bit of cretinism that issues out of everyone’s and anyone’s mouth, or half a mind.

CC doesn’t have to say that the idea is terrible — one, because any vote-buying will of course rely on wads of money that’s already afield and does not have to be withdrawn on a daily basis; two, there are so many other ways to buy votes other than cash handouts; three, the whole danged caboodle of a restriction affects so many other people and an entire banking system, which is why everybody and his banking brother is up in arms; and four, that flush lushes like me have to withdraw over a hundred grand a day just to support exciting habits.  

No, CC doesn’t have to say all that. He just has to scoff, express scornful derision, thus expose any proponent of a bad idea for the cretinism behind it. And the whole country will agree with the CC, thus gain an incrementally higher level of consciousness.

Whatever has damaged or continues to damage our culture will thus be sent back on its heels. Simple, yes? But who may fit the bill as Culture Czar?

Oh, we have many candidates. It would have to be someone intelligent, gutsy, feisty even, and best of all, prepared to act with dispatch and derision so coruscating that no one would dare question the scoffing wisdom at work against all scofflaws. That way, too, everyone just applauds the blow taken for the cause of common sense.    

Let’s see, Jessica Zafra would be a fine CC; she can issue devastating one-liners that will bury a perpetrator of cretinism faster and deeper than a wooden stake driven into a vampire’s chest. Peque Gallaga or John Silva or Emily Abrera can also do it, apply dismissiveness with wit. Maybe even Carlos Celdran or Lourd de Veyra or Pepe Smith or Teddy Montelibano. Or Danton Remoto, even if he were to sit in Congress with all those cretins.

But who or what will invest the CC with the mandate and the wherewithal? That’s just it, those aren’t necessary, since all that has to be done is for all of us wearied of brow-raising mandates, opinions, proposals and decisions to proclaim our CC by acclamation.

Correct thinking is an essential part of our culture. So are awareness, consciousness, mindset, attitude. It will thus be within the CC’s purview to comment on all things under the sun that betray farcical opinions, proposals, decisions that negatively impact on all of us — and thus raise the national level of critical thinking notch by notch.

In so many words, the CC can tell Willie Revillame and all televangelists to cut it out, meaning the grossness. The CC can dismiss kneejerk protest to any development, tell jail guards to feed their stories of successful escapes to the Marines, easily convince security guards that their standard query as to purpose of entry is at best silly — the way immigration and customs forms with their naiveté of hope for straight answers to self-incriminating questions can only prod a headshake.

This way, the drinkers among us need not have to throw up our hands and argue vociferously that election violence can only be curtailed by having the right watchdogs do their job of prevention, apprehension and punitive justice instead of forcing everyone to abstinence for any period of prohibition.

This way, our children and grandchildren learn that one or even a few accidents will not have any authorities decree a ban on learning how to ride a bicycle.

This way, telecoms companies and broadband providers will be shamed to tell nothing but the truth about their offerings, capacities and capabilities.

This way, busybodies of this or that religion will see the wisdom of tending to their own gardens. This way, our agriculture will improve along with our horticulture.

The Culture Czar can do it, initiate a fresh resolve to abide by simple yet effective solutions, neither Band-aid nor lazy cum pretentious ones that make much of Powerpoint presentations and interminable committee meetings. 

The CC can just cc everyone. And we will all take the straightforward communication to heart, so that soon enough our culture will blow right through the roof of puerile tradition.