We are many

Our society is a pluralistic assembly in which many different interests come together. Coexistence in a democracy must be renegotiated on a daily basis: It is about everyone, about each individual as a being of many possibilities.

We see art and culture and their institutions as open spaces - spaces that make diversity and ambiguity tangible.

In Austria, art has already been defamed as degenerate. Art and culture were misused for inhuman propaganda purposes. People were devalued, robbed of their livelihoods, persecuted, expelled and murdered. As art and cultural actors in Austria, we are aware of the responsibility resulting from history.

In the Republic of Austria, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has constitutional status. Anyone who seeks to override the European Convention on Human Rights and the rule of law is calling into question the cornerstones of our democratic community.

The MANY stand for diversity and freedom of the arts. Anyone who polemicizes against this, endangers the diversity of structures and organizations in the arts and culture sector, interferes with artistic programmes, seeks to exert pressure on content by threatening to cut subsidies or through cancellations, disrupts events, incites hatred against art and cultural actors or works to renationalize culture is contradicting this social vision and the fundamental democratic right to artistic freedom.

We, the undersigned art and cultural institutions, art and cultural actors

• promote and seek dialogue, but do not provide a platform for biologistic-racist, ethnic-nationalist propaganda and resist all attempts to instrumentalize art and culture;
conduct critical debates to expose strategies that undermine fundamental democratic values;stand up against policies of devaluation and exclusion;
• resist the brutalization and dehumanization of language;
• stand in solidarity with people who are pushed further and further to the margins of society by far-right or right-wing populist policies;
commit ourselves to solidarity with art and cultural institutions, art and cultural actors who are put under pressure by hate speech and defamation;

Solidarity instead of privileges.
It's about everyone.
Art and culture remain free.

More on this: https://www.dievielen.at/