Amid the cascade of bad news that marked the beginning of this year, one announcement slipped by almost unnoticed. In January, the Regional Secretariat for Tourism quietly communicated its investment plans for 2026, including cultural promotion projects to showcase the Azores as a tourist destination.

The letter sent to cultural organizations bore the signature of the now-dismissed regional director. Yet anyone familiar with how power operates within the administration knows that, in a house governed by an iron lady, nothing leaves the building without passing through the office of Her Excellency—stamped, approved, and quietly authorized, even if later denied when convenient.

At the very moment when the Story Hour at the Angra Library became news—because all funding for museums and libraries across the region had been frozen—another drama was unfolding. In sports, associations and clubs that have done for the archipelago what the government rarely did – were being drained of support. As these mounting crises were debated, tourism simply withdrew from the field, discreetly and without explanation.

After five years of proudly waving the banner of tourism statistics, Secretary Berta Cabral quietly severed the rope that sustained many of the islands’ most significant cultural projects.

It must be said clearly: these programs are not subsidies in the pejorative sense often invoked by critics of the cultural sector. They are investments. Funding a theater festival, a music series, a film cycle, or a summer celebration is not indulging cultural dependency—it is building the very product that visitors come here to experience.

Our culture is among the Azores’ most powerful attractions: the marchas and bailinhos, the philharmonic bands and folk traditions, theater and cinema, visual arts and classical music. Those who attempt to divide or rank these expressions do not understand the archipelago. For any true Azorean, to speak of culture is to speak of everyone—everyone.

The cuts announced by Berta Cabral through Rosa Costa therefore represent more than a bureaucratic adjustment; they are a lethal blow to many projects planned for 2026. From what is already being heard in the streets of disappointment, the damage is substantial, and its consequences will be felt across the cultural landscape of the islands.

At this moment, clarity is required: cultural agents must organize. And they must do so more effectively than before. When the sports sector faced similar threats—reportedly triggered by pressure surrounding the Santa Clara SAD—it responded with confrontation and with a united public movement. The same can and should happen in culture and tourism.

Without cultural heritage and artistic identity, a vital part of the islands will sink into obscurity. This is the moment to protest. Demonstrations in front of the Secretary’s office. Letters, emails, and even smoke signals were addressed to the newly appointed regional director. Let it be said, loudly and unmistakably, that our culture is not a toy to be discarded—and that without it we risk becoming nothing more than obedient servants to an uncontrolled wave of gentrification.

Organize. Show those in power that without you they do not deserve to be reelected. It is time to dismantle the old notion of a “dependent culture” and remind those who govern that people should not fear their governments. Governments must work for their people.

I close with a question to the regional director, Carlos Farinha: Will you reconsider the decision to cancel these cultural supports under Regional Legislative Decree No. 18/2005/A of July 20—a framework that, over the past twenty years, according to official reports, has represented an investment with both direct and indirect economic returns for multiple sectors of the Azorean economy?

Alexandra Manes is from Flores Island but lives on Terceira Island in the Azores. She is a regular contributor to several Azorean newspapers, a political and cultural activist, and has served in the Azorean Parliament.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with a sense of the significant perspectives on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL).