News

CULTURAL DIVERSITY:ESSENTIAL FOR PEACE OR THE ROOT OF ALL CONFLICT?

I would like to begin by expressing my thanks to Hivos for the singular honour of being asked to speak at this important milestone in the life of the Hivos Culture Fund.

This year - 2010 - is a historic year. It is the year in which the FIFA World Cup was hosted in Africa for the first time. It is the year in which a European team won the World Cup outside of Europe for the first time, the first time that the result was predicted by an octopus. (It was also the first time that the host nation was booted out in the first round, but we won’t dwell too much on that).

2010 is also the year that marks 50 years of independence for 17 African countries, a third of the continent. And of course, it is the year in which we celebrate the 15^th anniversary of the Hivos Culture Fund, which will be 20 in 2015, the deadline for the World to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

The topic that I have chosen for this presentation: Cultural Diversity: essential for peace or the root of all conflict? is one that pre-occupies us in the north and the south as we grapple with two of the primary faultlines in our world today: poverty and culture, two themes that the Hivos Culture Fund seeks to address. What are the links between culture and development, development and cultural diversity? What is development in the context of cultural diversity? How does cultural diversity impact on development? These are not questions for which I have answers; but they are questions that need to be asked, and, for the sake of our countries and indeed, our world, for which we – collectively – need to find answers.

One of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve had this year was on Tuesday the 6^th of July. It was the evening of the first World Cup semi-final in Cape Town. I walked from my office near Parliament and headed towards the Fan Park at the Grand Parade, opposite the City Hall where Nelson Mandela had made his first speech after being freed from prison. The streets were a mass of orange! No, this wasn’t Guantanamo Bay! These were hundreds, thousands of Dutch supporters marching towards Green Point Stadium to watch their team take on Uruguay. And they weren’t only Dutch! There were all shades of South Africans, black, brown, white, grey - all clad in bits of orange to express their support for the Dutch team, not simply because of first the colonial and then the anti-apartheid historical links between Holland and South Africa, but because we were united in our antipathy towards Uruguay, whose blatant handball had literally robbed Africa of its first team ever to play in a World Cup semi-final!

It was an experience that resonated with one that I had in The Hague as an artist-in-residence at De Appel theatre in 2008 when the Netherlands was doing really well in the 2008 European championships. One of my projects at the time was to research the strategies of mainstream Dutch cultural institutions to integrate immigrant communities into their programmes and audiences, and while they appeared to be struggling on this front, the more the Dutch football team won, the more the spontaneous public outpouring of orange among white, black, brown Dutch people who saw themselves collectively reflected in the Dutch football team: white, black, Moroccan, which, perhaps, may not have been the case in some of the mainstream cultural institutions. Although, interestingly, while the supporters shared the orange pride, they still celebrated – generally - in their separate pockets: Moroccans here, black Dutch there, white Dutch over there, with some, but not much, cross-over.

Is this what is meant by unity in diversity? Is this the best that we can hope for? That we can unite around shared symbols such as flags, national sports teams, perhaps even anthems, but that ultimately we prefer to live and socialise with people who look like us, share our histories and traditions, speak our language, which may be the same language as that which others speak, but it is spoken with our accent.

The FIFA World Cup has rules and a structure that allows countries from all over the world to compete and to stand an equal chance of victory. Of course, it is biased in favour of Europe in terms of the number of countries that participate, but every continent has a number of countries guaranteed participation in this global competition, with teams from Africa, Latin America and Asia having at least as much chance of winning the World Cup as teams from the global north.

This is reflected in the African context too where it is not the team with the greatest resources that wins, but the teams with the greatest use of their talent, hard work, passion, pride. South Africa – with the largest economy on the continent – was the lowest ranked country to participate in the World Cup, and in Africa, is ranked below at least 10 countries that have significantly less resources. South Africa didn’t even qualify to play in the African Cup of Nations held earlier this year in Angola, but we have exported a cultural instrument, the vuvuzela, globally, although, apparently, it’s too much for European sensibilities and it has now been banned from stadiums.

But the world economy and global political institutions are not structured like the World Cup, with the veto on world affairs vested in the hands of a few countries at the United Nations and the world economy dominated by market forces that generally favour those who have.

In a post-Cold war world and with negotiations at the World Trade Organisation leading increasingly to the elimination of protectionist barriers to “free trade”, some countries in the north – notably Canada and France – resisted the extension of unchecked “free trade” to the sector of creative goods and services. They argued, rightly, that films, literature, television programmes, etc were different to cars, toothpaste and clothes in that embedded in creative goods were ideas, worldviews, ideological assumptions, and values so that if these were simply left to market forces, goods and services from dominant economies – especially the USA – would flood national markets, obliterate local creative industries and people all over the world would then internalise the values, the ideas and worldviews embedded in these creative goods. This posed the threat of homogenisation, and it was in this context that the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was born, an international instrument that allows governments to protect their own creative industries, that encourages investment in the creative industries of the south to promote greater cultural diversity globally and that calls upon the north to give preferential treatment to creative goods and services from the south, to ensure more equitable exchange of ideas, values, beliefs, etc.

Research conducted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development revealed the great impact of the creative industries on national and regional economies in the north. At the same time, it showed that Africa’s share of global trade in creative goods and services amounted to less than 1%. With its “Culture as a Vector of Development” symposium last April and its follow up conference in Girona in May this year, the EU has affirmed its view that promoting global cultural diversity, particularly by investing in and supporting the creative industries of African, Caribbean and Pacific territories, the Millennium Development Goals stand a better chance of being realised. Indeed, even as we meet here today, UNESCO is hosting a high-level meeting on culture and development in New York to assert the importance of this theme at the UN Summit currently considering progress on the MDGs.

But cultural diversity is more than promoting ideas, values and worldviews through the creative industries.

The preamble to the UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity, adopted by the EU and countries like France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, affirms that cultural diversity is a defining characteristic of humanity, that it creates a rich and varied world, which increases the range of choices and nurtures human capacities and values, and therefore is a mainspring for sustainable development for communities, peoples and nations, that respect for cultural diversity is indispensable for peace and security at the local, national and international levels, and affirms the importance of cultural diversity for the full realization of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And yet, notwithstanding the fact that the EU itself and countries like France, Sweden, Denmark and indeed the Netherlands have signed the Convention that calls for openness, mutual respect and peaceful co-existence, as noted by Manuela in her speech, the trend in this country and indeed in Europe, seems to be towards narrowing the mind and closing the borders.

Yesterday’s election in Sweden put the anti-immigrant party, the Sweden Democrats into parliament for the first time. France is engaged in mass deportation of the Roma community, offering 300 euros for every adult and 100 euros for every child who voluntarily leave. This echoes the Danish government last year increasing by ten-fold to 100 000 krone, or 13500 euros, for any immigrant to leave the country. One cannot help but reflect on the ironies of slaves being brought to Europe and then auctioned to the highest bidders, and now, a few centuries later in a more “civilised” world, immigrants are being auctioned out of Europe.

During my residency at De Appel, I wrote a play that featured a second generation Moroccan Dutch man returning from a visit to Morocco who passes through a metal detector type instrument at the airport, and it beeps loudly. When searched, it is discovered that he is wearing a suicide vest with three pockets. Passport control opens the pockets, takes out couscous and replaces it with cheese, removes a Quran and replaces it with a Bible and exchanges a Berber newspaper for a Dutch dictionary. The Moroccan man then passes through the detector again, which doesn’t beep this time and he is allowed into the country. Perhaps the metaphor was too unsubtle for Dutch theatrical tastes as it was watered down in the actual production, but the point being made was that the Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent was required to commit cultural suicide in order to be integrated into and be accepted by the contemporary Dutch political order. Increasingly, what is being asked of immigrants or migrant cultural communities, is not peaceful, mutually respectful co-existence affirmed in the Convention, but wholesale assimilation.

In South Africa, “coconut” is a derogatory expression to refer to someone who is black or brown on the outside but white on the inside, in other words, a black person who has internalised the value system, worldviews, language and ideological assumptions of white people. It would appear that in Europe, immigrants are not welcome, but those who are grudgingly allowed to stay, have to undergo a coconut programme, commit cultural suicide and assume the dominant culture. Ironically, what countries in the north resisted at a global level - homogenisation – hence the adoption of the Convention on Cultural Diversity, is now what they are insisting on at a national level, their ratification of the convention notwithstanding, and with huge implications for human rights and the credibility of democracies in the north.

People migrate from rural areas to urban areas in search of jobs, education, health care; better opportunities for them and their families. This is a worldwide phenomenon, so that migration may be viewed as a key strategy in development. At the same time, people flee violence, cultural persecution and restrictive political systems for ones in which they may better enjoy their fundamental freedoms and human rights, only, ironically, to face further cultural persecution in the so-called lands of opportunity.

This is true for Europe but it is no less true in South Africa where nationals from other African countries face discrimination, persecution and violence. For five weeks during the World Cup, we proudly carried the hopes of the African continent, and within a week of it ending, had thousands of immigrants fleeing or seeking refuge amidst the rumours of pending xenophobic violence.

Why does this happen? There appears to be two key reasons: migrants are often blamed for taking the jobs of locals and for posing security threats whether as petty criminals or as potential “terrorists”. In this way, poverty and culture are linked. A recessionary climate in the north or the failure of governments in the south to deal with poverty often result in increasing xenophobia, increasing disrespect for cultural differences and a potential escalation in intercultural conflict.

What is development and what is its purpose? Is it the handmaiden of neo-colonialism, designed to give a little and to take a lot of raw materials and from larger markets? Is it an ethical programme primarily to improve the lot of the poor? Is it a strategy to reduce immigration to the north by providing opportunities at home? Is it a political strategy to exercise geo-political influence? Whatever the answer, and it may be all of the above, development is not neutral, for it is based on ideological assumptions, on values, on ideas that someone or some community or region needs to be “developed”.

We often speak of the cultural dimension of development, with this generally referring to the culture or the values, traditions, belief systems, social forms of organisation and behaviour, worldviews, etc of the supposed beneficiaries of development and the extent to which these may facilitate or prevent development goals. What is often missing is the cultural dimension of development that goes the other way, the ideological assumptions, the worldviews, the beliefs and the values of those who seek to do the “developing”. Can one speak today of Europe being “developed” when it has all the material comforts and sound human development indicators but increasingly discriminates against people of colour, people from other cultural backgrounds, people who seek better opportunities for themselves and their families?

Arterial Network is an African civil society network of artists, cultural activists, creative enterprises, NGOs and other stakeholders engaged in the African creative sector in its own right, and in contributing to democracy, human rights and development on the continent. Hivos was one of the prime movers behind Arterial Network, and remains one of its key partners together with other Dutch partners like the Doen Foundation. In 3 years, Arterial Network has grown to have members in more than 30 African countries, with national chapters being rolled out to represent the interests of the creative sector, and to ensure the implementation of key international policy instruments.

For us, development is not only about material and economic growth, with the have-nots waiting for benefits to trickle down from the table of the haves. For in our experience – in South Africa and other African countries where there has been significant economic growth over the last decade-and-a-half – elites have benefited but poverty across the continent has remained at 50% where it has been at least since the early 1980s.

We have therefore defined development as “the ongoing generation and application of resources (financial, human, infrastructural, etc) to create and sustain the optimal conditions (social, political, economic, cultural, etc) in which human beings enjoy the full range of rights and freedoms espoused in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

It is possible to have high levels of human development such as in Libya where one may live to an average age of 74, but where democracy, freedom of expression and human rights are largely absent. On the other hand, South Africa has a constitution guaranteeing human rights and freedoms, and has had 4 free and fair democratic elections, but the gap between rich and poor is now the highest in the world; we have never had such high unemployment and life expectancy has declined from 62 under apartheid to just over 50 under the ANC government.

Africa has its historical relationships with France, the Netherlands, Britain, Germany and Europe generally because of the colonial past. The Goethe Institute, British Council and French Institute have played significant roles in keeping alive the arts in many African countries, in facilitating north-south collaboration and exchange and in providing access to northern markets for creative goods and services from the south. But the world is changing. Artists from the south find it more difficult to get visas to work in the north. Governments are cutting back significantly on the arts and development funding that have sustained cultural activity in the south. And poverty remains the overriding experience of most African people today, with 51% of the continent’s population living on $1,25 per day.

And, as the world changes and Africa’s primary trading partners now shift from Europe and the USA to China, so political and cultural influence will shift east. Already, Confucius Centres promoting Chinese language and culture exist in 16 African countries, including the largest economies of South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria. Brazil and India too are emerging as significant players on the continent. We are warned off against the lack of human rights and absence of democracy in China but the values, worldviews and ideological assumptions of the north are losing credibility when democracy can deliver governments that now discriminate against people of the south, that trample on their human rights and freedoms, when international policy instruments which governments of the south are pressurised into signing to support the economic wars between rich countries are simply ignored and blatantly contradicted, and when international multilateral institutions such as those in the Hague prosecute – rightly – African abusers of human rights, but allow free those who initiate an illegal war, who violate the democratic principles of the United Nations and who account for the violent deaths of thousands of people, and the misery of many more. The north holds accountable the merchants of blood diamonds, but not the merchants of blood oil.

It is not cultural diversity that is the problem, but the unequal distribution of resources, of justice and of power. The inevitable struggles related to these, find expression in and through culture.

It is thus imperative that we who believe in human rights, in democracy, in peaceful coexistence and sustainable development, redouble our efforts in building global partnerships to achieve our dreams, rather leave them to the potential nightmares rooted in fear, ignorance and cultural arrogance.

Poverty and culture: the two primary faultlines in our world today make the Hivos Culture Fund even more relevant than ever.