SSW on culture and media

The SSW wants Danish and Frisian to appear more often in the media and sees the public broadcaster NDR as especially responsible. The minorities are to get a seat on the NDR broadcasting council. Geoblocking is also to end in areas where minorities live.

The SSW wants more Danish and Frisian on radio and TV. The broadcaster NDR should take care of this. The minorities should have a say on the NDR council. Programs from the neighboring country should be available without a block.

The state is to meet the European language charter and make both languages more present in the media. The platform gives the public broadcaster NDR a special responsibility for radio and television. The minorities are to be represented on the NDR broadcasting council. The federal government is to ensure that audiovisual content can be received in good quality and without geoblocking in minority areas, including across national borders. The SSW rejects geoblocking, meaning the blocking of content by location, as a matter of principle.

The SSW wants to give the organizations and institutions of the Frisian ethnic group more money on a lasting basis. Work on language and culture, so far done mostly by volunteers, is to become more professional. The federal government is to keep contributing to the new Frisian foundation.

The SSW wants more money for Frisian clubs and institutions. Today many people there work without pay. In the future there should be more paid experts. The federal government should keep helping to pay for the Frisian foundation.

The platform wants to improve working conditions at Frisian institutions for the long term through better funding. According to the SSW, support for the language and culture rests mostly on volunteer work today and is to be further professionalized. The federal government is to acknowledge its responsibility for the newly created foundation for the Frisian ethnic group and make an appropriate financial contribution.

The SSW wants to make more use of the state's experience in minority policy. The Flensburg network for minority issues is to become more visible, and minority policy is also to serve tourism. Schools are to teach more about the minorities.

In Schleswig-Holstein several minorities live well alongside the majority. The SSW wants to make this experience better known. Important offices on this topic work in Flensburg. They should be strengthened. Students should learn more about the minorities.

The platform counts the FUEV, the ECMI and Danish minority organizations as part of the Flensburg network. It is to be strengthened mainly through closer cross-border links among research institutions. Minority policy is to feed into the state's tourism profile. Regular school lessons are to cover more about Danes, Frisians, and Sinti and Roma. Germany and Denmark are to jointly stand for the principles of the 1955 Bonn-Copenhagen Declarations in the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the EU.

The SSW sees culture as a task for Europe as a whole and calls for a comprehensive European cultural initiative. EU cultural funding should rise substantially, and the federal government should support cross-border cultural work. The party points to Europe's diversity of regions, minorities and languages.

The SSW wants more cultural policy in Europe. The EU should give much more money for culture. The federal government should support cultural projects across borders. The party says culture connects people and strengthens peace.

The party wants to stand up for artistic freedom and freedom of expression in Europe. Cultural impact assessments should carry more weight, and the UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity should guide cultural policy. Dialogue with civil society should be strengthened and national organizations better linked to the European level. The SSW explicitly counts migrant culture as part of Europe's culture.

The SSW sees culture as a core task of the community and wants to give cultural institutions lasting security and more funding. As many people as possible should have access to culture, especially in rural areas and the German-Danish border region.

The SSW wants to spend more money on culture. Theaters, museums and music schools should be able to plan safely. Everyone should be able to afford culture. Rural areas should have cultural offerings too. Cultural work with Denmark should grow.

Sociocultural centers are to keep receiving funding and get paid full-time staff. The federal program "Kultur macht stark" should be topped up beyond 2022, and the Kulturknotenpunkte (cultural hubs) should safeguard infrastructure in the countryside. Music schools should get reliable financing and their network should grow. The platform also plans a Digital Agenda for Culture and a liquidity fund for new cultural forms such as comics, computer games or poetry slams. Cross-border cultural work in Sønderjylland-Schleswig and the Fehmarnbelt region should carry more weight in state funding.

The SSW wants to bring self-employed artists and cultural workers more fully into unemployment and pension insurance. Minimum wage compliance in publicly funded productions should be closely monitored, and funding bodies should have gender parity.

Many artists are self-employed. The SSW wants to protect them better when they have no work. They should also be better insured for retirement. Funded projects must pay the minimum wage. Funding boards should have equal numbers of women and men.

The rules on voluntary contributions to unemployment insurance under SGB III (Social Code Book III) are to be made more specific so they fit self-employed work in the arts. The federal subsidy for the Künstlersozialkasse (artists' social insurance fund) should be adjusted on an ongoing basis. Continuing professional training in culture and media is to be strengthened. According to the platform, gender equity should apply across all areas of cultural work. Peer counseling by cultural workers for cultural workers should be supported and freed from certification hurdles.

The SSW wants borrowing at all libraries in the state to be free of charge, following the Scandinavian model. Libraries are to be developed into community and cultural centers and given more funding.

The SSW wants borrowing books to be free in all libraries. That is how it works in Scandinavia. Libraries should become meeting places for people and clubs. They should get more money.

According to the platform, public libraries secure democratic access to media and information and are places of education and encounter. Project funding for innovative library work should rise, and libraries should work more closely with other educational and cultural institutions. Their rooms should be usable flexibly for volunteers, projects and associations. Municipal theaters and public libraries are to get planning security. E-book lending should become easier so that everyone has access to e-media.

The SSW wants more support for children's and youth theater, independent theaters and museums. The state should take on more responsibility for its UNESCO World Heritage sites and add staff at the state office for monument preservation.

The SSW wants to strengthen theater for children and young people. Local museums should get more money. The state should pay more for its World Heritage sites. The office that protects historic buildings should get more staff.

Theater work in regional and minority languages is to receive targeted funding. For museums, the SSW plans to continue the certification initiative, record cultural heritage digitally and protect it from decay. German-Danish museum cooperation in the border region should get a permanent coordination office. According to the platform, counties and municipalities cannot shoulder educational work and visitor infrastructure at World Heritage sites alone, so the state should reliably co-finance them. The Landesarchivgesetz (State Archives Act) is to be revised with digitalization in mind, and the ombudsman for monument preservation should stay.

The SSW wants to develop the state's memorial site strategy further and expand memorials as central places of remembrance. Memory of the crimes of National Socialism is to be kept alive and conveyed through new forms of educational work.

Memorial sites remind people of the crimes of the Nazi era. The SSW wants to expand these places. Young people and immigrants should learn more about this history. The years after 1945 should also be studied.

Educational work at memorials and historical learning sites is to become more professional and better networked. The service office at the Bürgerstiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Gedenkstätten should grow, and civic initiatives should receive money. Educational work should adapt to young people with no personal link to the Nazi era and to immigrants. Perpetrator sites and places of Nazi self-display are to be included as well. The SSW also wants a closer look at the years after 1945 to reveal continuities in personnel and structures.

The SSW wants to continue and expand efforts to come to terms with colonialism in the state's history. Because Schleswig-Holstein is affected by both German and Danish colonial history, this is to be done together with Denmark.

The SSW wants to look more closely at the colonial history of Schleswig-Holstein. Colonial history means: European countries once ruled over other countries. Schools should teach this topic. Germany and Denmark should work on it together.

The platform calls for anchoring the topic permanently in school curricula and for more cross-border exchange programs in research and education. A funding program is to support transnational, especially German-Danish, work on this history in the border region. Decentralized learning sites, monuments and memorials are also planned. The state parliament is to acknowledge its historical responsibility, and a round table is to involve civil society. The SSW also wants to secure dialogue with BIPoC self-advocacy groups and build partnerships with the societies that museum exhibits originally came from.

The SSW wants to develop and promote guiding principles for building culture that respect the character of towns and villages. The state is to support municipalities financially in doing so.

The SSW wants towns and villages to keep their typical look. The state should give municipalities money for advice from architects. Empty lots in cities should become nicer places. There should be funding for that.

The state is to help municipalities pay for architectural advice. The SSW calls for targeted funding programs to redesign urban vacant lots and open spaces so that public spaces improve quality of life. Regional building features that shape local identity are to be preserved, while new building structures that also consider future generations should remain possible.