Whether you say cultural industries or prefer the term creative industries, it all boils down to big business and big money.
Barbadians do not have to look very far to see an example of the power of creativity.
Many of them have listened and watched in awe as home girl Rihanna has gone from obscurity to superstardom in a relatively short time.
There are countless other stories of artistes locally, regionally and globally who have made it big, using their natural talents to earn their living.
Now, after years of promises and delays, Barbados has reached the stage of formally introducing a Cultural Industries Development Act, which promises major benefits for people who use their natural talents and developed abilities wisely.
UNESCO defined cultural industries as that which combined the creation, production, and distribution of goods and services that are cultural in nature and usually protected by intellectual property rights.
Last week the House of Assembly debated the legislation mentioned above, which provides for “the establishment of a regulatory framework to facilitate and encourage the sustainable growth and development of cultural industries, funding for cultural projects, and duty free concessions and income tax benefits in respect of cultural projects” and “related matters”.
Included in provisions was the establishment of a Barbados Cultural Industries Development Authority, whose functions included promoting, assisting and facilitating the efficient development of the cultural industries, designing and implementing suitable marketing strategies for the effective promotion of the cultural industries.
This was in addition to maintaining a registry of the applications of cultural entrepreneurs or cultural practitioners submitted to the Minister [of Culture] and the approvals granted in respect of those applications, determining the eligibility of cultural projects for funding, and processing the applications for concessions and benefits under the act.
Benefits to cultural practitioners also included millions of dollars in support from a new Cultural Industries Development Fund, a permit to import items duty free, tax concessions when constructing new buildings or refurbishing existing property, exemptions from property transfer tax, allowances for artistic work, marketing support, training opportunities.
The new legislation would also allow for concessions in respect of heritage building and conservation.
For example, the act said licensed cultural entrepreneurs and practitioners and government entities which imported supplies for a cultural project in the area of heritage building and conservation would be exempt from payment of all duties and taxes on such imports.
This was on the condition that “these imports are used for the purposes of heritage building and conservation”, and that “the cultural entrepreneur, cultural practitioner or governmental entity complies with the provisions”.
These cultural industries laws have not only been long in coming, but have also been the subject of some controversy.
On the one hand Government and Opposition have sparred verbally over which of the two demonstrated they valued the cultural industries.
The Barbados Labour Party has said repeatedly that the genesis of the legislation dates back more than a decade when it was in office, while the ruling Democratic Labour Party’s stance was that it came and found an inadequate set of laws it had to fortify.
And then there was the other back and forth, this time between the Ministry of Culture and a group of Barbadian artists and artistes, mainly under the umbrella of the hitherto non-existent Concerned Creative Citizens Group.
Led by well-known musician John Roett, this group of more than 1,000 practitioners opposed aspects of the legislation even after several revisions, its subsequent approval by Cabinet and recent parliamentary destiny.
“We would at this point like to make it very clear that there are still many aspects of this bill with much that we are not in agreement with, and that we reject completely the inference that all creatives have been consulted on the contents on this Bill, resulting in an outcome which all parties involved have agreed upon,” Roett said of the new act earlier this year.
Then last week the day before the bill was to be debated in the House, he again took to the CCCG’s Facebook page to state his disappointment.
“It [the act] is filled with loopholes, conflicts of interest and riddled with critical omissions, unless they made drastic changes since our last ‘debate’, and I truly hope that the vaguely promised amendments will be put in place immediately if not sooner, even though I am still at a loss at to why they could not be included to begin with. For seldom does something start wrong and end right.”
In the face of such strong criticism, Minister of Culture Stephen Lashley has defended the new laws all along
“On becoming law, it will give this island another economic platform on which it can depend, since it relies solely on the creativity of its human resource. It will enable the sector to become a viable one, capable of making a significant contribution to the country’s GDP,” he said in February this year.
The sentiments were echoed last Tuesday when Lashley introduced the bill and said, “The beneficiaries of this bill are vast. They include artists, they include the private sector, non-governmental organisations and they include Government. But for me, Mr Speaker, the cultural practitioners and the supporting entities and enterprises hold for me a special place within the context of this proposed legislation.”
At the same time, the Opposition, though supporting the measures, again claimed some ownership.
Barbados is by no means alone in recognising the importance of this sector, and in some ways is a late comer.
Just last month the European Parliament issued a report, which emphasised the importance of Europe’s cultural and creative sectors, and there was a renewed call for European Union member states to help growth in the area.