Why The Rich And Powerful Sponsor Literary Festivals, Others

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM]

".......Why do the rich and powerful pay for this to happen? Do they not know that they are sponsoring people who are critical of the very structures and processes that enable their own wealth and power? Why help artists, writers, filmmakers gain new audiences? Why give them prizes?

I have struggled with this question for a few years now: what do the wealthy hope to gain? At first, I thought this was because they wanted to acquire an air of magnanimity, as if to say, we’re open to ideas and, money aside, we’re actually quite alike – ordinary, thinking, debating citizens. Then, I thought, maybe they want to circumscribe conversations, so that a few people say a few things a few times in the year instead of those debates happening on the streets. Now, I have come around to thinking that perhaps it is an act of reluctant and cautious self-preservation.

Society needs its bitter messengers, its poets, soothsayers, historians. Truth and art keep us this side of human"-Annie Zaidi (writing on: www.scroll.in)

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Chidi Anthony Opara is a "Life Time Achievement" Awardee, Registered Freight Forwarder, Professional Fellow Of Institute Of Information Managerment, Africa, Poet and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects