Almost £1 million of taxpayer cash is being spent on compiling an archive of African films in a ‘reparatory justice’ project. The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is paying £850,000 for scholars to explore Africa’s ‘audiovisual heritage’.
Shouldn't take long!
A further £250,000 is being provided by Oxford, King’s College and Liverpool universities, which are leading the work.
All the virtuesignallers are there with their hands out...
Scholars also aim to ‘repatriate’ footage currently kept in the ‘Global North’ so that it can be more easily seen by people in Africa. They will take the archives on tour in Africa to ‘sites of encounter with young African creatives’.
I hope when they get to Nigeria they opt to travel by train rather than road.
AHRC, which hands out £70 million a year in grants, is a subsidiary of UK Research Innovation (UKRI) which is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
No, it's funded by the poor bloody longsuffering taxpayer, actually.
William Yarwood at the TaxPayers' Alliance added: ‘At a time when families are being squeezed from every angle, pouring almost £1 million into an academic project involving “decolonisation film archives” is staggeringly out of touch.
Which isn't a shock to anyone, but how to stop this drain of our taxes...?
Let's hope that when Reform get in, there's a "Bonfire of the Vanity Projects" put in place.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that austerity, belt tightening and "we're all in it together" only applies to the taxpayer. Public bodies are still spunking out money on ideologically driven vanity projects.
We need to drive ideology out of government departments and replace it with reality.
Could someone please explain what Africa's "individual heritage" will consist of? Did Africa have such a heritage, before the arrival of Europeans, that didn't include inter tribal warfare and the taking of slaves? Perhaps this heritage will include the advent of transportation, engineering, medicines and health care, building of hospitals and schools, thus giving visitors the idea of doing this in their own countries. Well worth every tax paying penny, I'm sure.
ReplyDeletePenseivat
I don’t follow this ‘take on tour’ business, unless to provide exciting jollies for the team. Much better to digitise everything and put them online for public viewing. I would volunteer to do it for free, just half a million in expenses.
ReplyDeleteSlightly off topic, I would love to see documentaries interviewing ordinary Africans, from ex British colonies, about how their lives have improved since Independence.