Czech deputy culture minister calls heritage staff a “mafia”

Czech Deputy Culture Minister Adam Hoda Kocian, who called heritage conservation workers a “mafia”, has kept his post, and Culture Minister Oto Klempíř has explained his words away as a joke. That is how the author of a commentary describes the affair, examining both the ministry’s reaction and the general state of Czech cultural policy.

The trigger was a ceremony for awards known as the “Oscars of heritage conservation”. On Tuesday evening, in a live broadcast, the prizes were presented by, among others, the architect Ladislav Labus. Host Daniel Stach asked him why he had once stood up for the people in this field when their necessity was being debated. “I usually defend the weaker and those who are slandered,” Labus replied, almost quietly but distinctly, and the hall responded with applause.

Where the “mafia” came from

The reason for the audience’s reaction was recent remarks by Kocian, who is described as the ministry’s political deputy. At a party meeting, he agreed with a word suggested to him by Petr Macinka: “It’s a mafia.” He then added that “there aren’t that many horses for every heritage conservation worker to find a horse’s head in their bed at home”, and later remarked that “their turn will come once the matter of Czech Television is settled”. Last year Kocian was the Motorists’ lead candidate in the Liberec Region but did not win a seat in parliament.

When this became known, it was not only heritage specialists who were outraged. The commentary’s author believes that comparing them to the mafia is absurd and insulting, and that the deputy minister should have resigned over it. Nothing of the kind happened: instead came the familiar explanation that it was a joke, that is, an “exaggeration”.

Responding to journalists’ questions, Kocian said: “I don’t consider anyone a mafia. The minister made a harmless joke, and I, as a well-read speaker, answered him. Humor is the essence of the Motorists.” In his reply to a parliamentary interpellation, Klempíř called it “pub-style” humor that may not suit everyone: “The Motorists are like that by their DNA”, and, in his words, the aim was not to offend any heritage conservation worker.

During the interpellations the minister also said that on Tuesday there would be a “wonderful event” at which awards are presented together with heritage conservation workers, and that he would “deal with this matter” there. If he meant a public apology, then, as viewers saw, it did not happen: Czech Television’s cameras did not catch Klempíř at the ceremony. As it turned out, an apology did come from the ministry after all, but in a non-public form, addressed to Naděžda Horičková, director of the National Heritage Institute. In the author’s view, that is far too little. At the ceremony the topic was played out only symbolically: some participants pinned on badges reading “I am a heritage conservation worker”, the director among them.

A clash of tastes

The commentary’s author believes the whole story shows that the culture a minister can influence is going through difficult times. Klempíř, in the author’s assessment, began his political career straight in government and possesses “verbal self-confidence, bold ideas and dubious abilities”, such as writing a media law or appointing the head of the National Gallery. The hallmark of his tenure has been conflicts and misunderstandings, including cultural ones.

The tastes of the Motorists’ politicians and of many people in the cultural sphere, the author argues, diverge dramatically. He sees the root of the problem in the “Motorist DNA” that Klempíř often invokes, which he describes as rudeness passed off as directness and wit. Klempíř says Macinka is one of the funniest people around and that his vocabulary “amuses him enormously”.

The minister can repeat as often as he likes what he said in the Chamber of Deputies: “Our monuments are not just old walls. They are our sea, chapters of our shared history, proof that we were here.” But if he does not understand how to respond with dignity to his deputy comparing heritage conservation workers to the mafia, all these fanfares lose their meaning. The number of cultural figures Klempíř has not alienated is shrinking. The author admits that culture has room for jokes and harmless barbs, and hopes that when the Motorists one day leave the ministries, these words can be rehabilitated in public speech.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz