CULTURE, DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY:
ISSUES FOR THE INCD
IMPLICATIONS FOR CONVENTION ON CULTURAL DIVERSITY
PAPER PREPARED FOR THE
INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY
CAPE TOWN CONFERENCE, 11-13 OCTOBER 2002
At meetings in Santorini
in 2000 and Lucerne in 2001, the International Network for Cultural Diversity
endorsed the concept of a new Convention on Cultural Diversity, a global treaty
designed to provide a permanent legal foundation for government measures to
promote cultural diversity. The
Steering Committee has elaborated a draft of possible terms of such a
Convention and delegates will have an opportunity to discuss it in Cape Town.
At the 2001
meeting, Burama Sagnia, Coordinator of the African Itinerant College for Culture
and Development in Senegal, challenged delegates to consider how the proposed
Convention could ensure that the cultural dimensions of international
cooperation are fully understood and acknowledged by the industrialized
nations. He argued that it could, for
example, establish a mechanism through which the cultural impacts of
development projects could be assessed, in much the same way that environmental
impacts are reviewed. He discussed the
pressing need to develop cultural capacity in many countries and made an appeal
for the practical integration of culture in sustainable development frameworks
and processes. He urged the INCD to
consider how the Convention could be a catalyst for improvement.
As a result of the discussion last year in Lucerne, and parallel discussions underway in the ministerial network, the Steering Committee determined that the relationship between cultural diversity and development and the implications of these within the context of the Convention would be the primary theme of the 2002 meeting in Cape Town.
This paper was
prepared by the secretariat to facilitate the discussion on these issues. It will attempt to tease out some
definitions of the most important terms, to highlight some of the
contradictions and to raise provocative questions. Since the South African INCD office played a significant role in
drafting the paper, and since that government has similarly drafted a working
paper for the ministerial meeting, it tends to approach the issues from a South
African context and takes a developing worldview.
Individuals
acquire their sense of identity, their self-esteem and their core values and
worldviews from the community in which they grow up and live.
These aspects of
an individual’s character and knowledge are acquired through the expression of
their community’s culture, including:
language, music, visual arts, artisanal and traditional practices,
theatre, poetry and song. Culture is thus integral to individual and community
stability, their sense of worth and their capacity to make sense of the world.
At another level,
culture and cultural products are located within the realm of hegemonic
warfare, within the battle to provide leadership with respect to ideas, values,
beliefs and worldviews whether it is across the globe, within nation states,
within communities, institutions or organisations.
It is no
coincidence that both colonialism and apartheid decimated the cultural lives of
indigenous communities. Generally,
those cultural forms which could be used for the domestication of the “locals”
or to serve divide and rule strategies, were encouraged, while native
communities’ ways of interpreting and making sense of the world, and which
affirmed their personal and communal identities, were destroyed, suppressed or
ridiculed as inferior. Foreign
languages were imposed as official languages, and churches with their foreign
religions played a significant role in the domestication process.
The arts were never
encouraged among the colonised either through the educational system or through
facilities or resources provided for them; foreign forms like opera, classical
music and ballet were imported for the entertainment of the coloniser and
apartheid elites, and were imposed as the ultimate arbiters of artistic
endeavour and excellence.
By controlling the
institutions of socialisation which are the primary conveyors of “culture” –
the mass media, educational system, etc – the colonial and apartheid powers
sought to extend their hegemony in order to influence and ultimately shape the
values, beliefs, worldviews and aesthetic tastes of the native majority. In
this way they sought to gain broader legitimacy for inherently unjust social,
political and economic structures, biased in favour of an elite minority.
In the “knowledge
economy” culture has emerged as an important (if not primary) site of the
local, national and global struggle for leadership with respect to the ideas,
beliefs, worldviews and values that shape our worlds. The mass media, the arts and related cultural industries are
powerful political phenomena because of their capacity to influence, reinforce
or challenge the hegemony of those who lead our world, countries, communities,
institutions and organisations.
In a
post-colonial, post-apartheid world, culture, cultural products and the mass
media may serve – whether consciously or unconsciously – as important vehicles
for neo-colonialism, both of individual minds and of nations. They are not neutral, but serve particular
interests.
For this reason,
it is necessary to give attention to culture and its role in the global
economy, in global power relations, and within individual nations.
Like “culture”,
there is no one definition of “development”.
Generally, though, “development” is a complex process that seeks to
overcome the adverse social, economic and human conditions left particularly by
colonialism and apartheid in countries or communities affected by these. “Development” aims to equip such countries
or communities with the requisite skills, technology, access to information,
cash and other resources, to enable them to be relatively self-sustaining now
that they are self-governing entities.
Depending on their
particular conditions, and the legacy bequeathed by colonialism or apartheid,
“developing” countries will define development and their development needs or
priorities differently. But while
development is understandable and necessary in post-colonial and post-apartheid
contexts, development does not always serve the same interests.
For example, for
multinational corporations, development may simply imply the minimal skills and
resources post-colonial communities require in order for them to continue to
provide relatively skilled, but cheap labour to produce the goods that generate
profits elsewhere. It might also imply
the “development” of real and potential markets (with sufficient literacy,
numeracy and earning power) to whom to export or sell their goods, in order to
provide better returns for foreign shareholders.
As another
example, for new elites in post-colonial or post-apartheid countries or
communities, development may have the rhetoric of serving “the people”, but the
forms that such development takes (including the political and economic forms
and strategies), or the priorities undertaken, may simply reflect the
short-term economic and social self-interests of such elites (usually in
collaboration with former colonisers or beneficiaries of apartheid), rather
than the interests of the majority of citizens.
On the other side
of the development equation, governments providing the development aid, either
directly, or through official aid agencies, may simply do so in order to
“purchase” influence with the governments concerned in order to wield greater
political clout on the international political stage or in the region of the
benefiting country, or to be seen to be doing the right thing, or to pave the
way for their multinationals to be given preference for contracts and other
“development” deals emerging from such countries.
Whatever the
motivations for development, and whatever the interests served, development –
like culture – is not neutral. It is
but one site of struggle for ownership, direction and leadership, or to gain
the maximum benefits for particular interest groups or stakeholders.
The legacies that
development seeks to deal with are quite concrete – lack of housing, poor
education, inadequate health care, unemployment, etc. Generally, the development strategies initially employed to
address these had their origins in European/Western economic and social
models.
But after their
first two International Decades for Development, UNESCO initiated a World
Decade for Cultural Development from 1987.
They explained this Decade thus:
Despite the progress achieved, the first two International Development
Decades (in the sixties and seventies) revealed the limitations of a
development concept based primarily on quantitative and material growth.
From 1970 onwards, critical reflection gave rise to the
Intergovernmental Conferences on Cultural Policies…in all parts of the world,
and finally led to the Mexico City Conference of 1982 to put forward with great
conviction the idea that “culture constitutes a fundamental part of the life of
the each individual and of each community…and development…whose ultimate aims
should be focused on humankind…must therefore have a cultural dimension.”
The two principal objectives of the World Decade for Cultural
Development – greater emphasis on the cultural dimension in the development
process and the stimulation of creative skills and cultural life in general –
reflect an awareness of the need to respond to the major challenges which shape
the horizon of the twenty-first century.
Development
impacts directly and indirectly on the way of life of a community. Education, technology, new skills, increased
earning power and access to information – all of these affect the individuals
and the communities who are the beneficiaries of “development”.
As such,
development may be viewed as a cultural process that may be hindered or
facilitated by culture. Development
impacts upon the culture of those intended to be “developed” and in turn their
culture impacts on the development process.
Development brings
with it new ideas, new values, new insights, increased access to information,
contact with other cultures, the promise of a better quality of life, new
aspirations, and invariably, a local or indigenous culture is influenced and
evolves organically within the paradigm of the development ends and strategies.
Initial models and
strategies of development were not as effective as they might have been because
they were at odds with the cultural paradigms of those whose lives were to be
improved. As well, these development
models were themselves constructs and carriers of particular cultural values
and beliefs (and could thus be viewed in some instances simply as neo-colonial
strategies, i.e. more sophisticated attempts at harnessing the cheap labour and
raw materials of developing countries).
Consequently, the progressive view emerged that development must be
sensitive to, and must, as far as possible, be integrated into the cultures of
the intended beneficiaries.
Cultures are at
their most stable when communities are at their most isolated.
Development
implies progress, upward economic mobility, greater physical well-being, a better
quality of life and the like. But is
this necessarily a good thing, given the cultural ruptures that development
initiatives bring? Or is it better to
have a way of life with fewer consumer goods but perhaps more meaning?
Development will
have its maximum effect when it is most sensitive to the cultural conditions in
which it is to have an impact. But the
very nature of development as a rupture (even if an objective improvement) to
the way of life of the community, will cause an evolution of that community’s
culture.
Culture and
development are complex processes that impact on each other in significant ways which in turn have major
repercussions for the communities and individuals concerned. Clearly, both because of the impact that
culture has on development and that development has on culture, the cultural
dimension of development cannot be ignored.
WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE CULTURAL DIMENSION OF DEVELOPMENT?
It appears
that while international aid agencies such as the Swedish International
Development Agency (SIDA), bodies like UNESCO and some governments in the
“developed” world, understand and are committed to “the cultural dimension of
development”, developing countries – ironically – have little regard for it.
This is
reflected by the following:
a) development priorities are often listed as
the most obvious i.e. housing, health care, job creation, education, etc, but
with little understanding or integration of the cultural dimension into
strategies addressing these. Despite
the Decades for Cultural Development, there is little anthropological input or
cultural assessments of the impact of development in the formulation of
development strategies.
b) cultural issues generally, and the arts in
particular, are regarded as luxuries, “touchy feely” phenomena that have little
to do with human or social development or with meeting the primary needs of
human beings
c)
few
developing countries have cultural policies in place
d) many of those that have cultural policies
do not provide the resources (skilled personnel and funds) necessary to
implement such policies
e) with culture having little status in
developing countries, arts practitioners and cultural activists constantly have
to argue for their sector in terms of the national discourse of the time e.g.
national reconciliation, contribution to the economy, job creation, education
about health care themes, etc.
f)
where
creative or cultural industries are being developed – even with their clear job
creation and income-generating potential – they are often at the initiative of
the NGO sector or international agencies, rather than local authorities.
Why does there
seem to be less understanding in the developing world about the cultural
dimension of development? Is it because
politicians have a short shelf life, and so would generally go for the more
obvious short-term, visible gains that would satisfy their constituencies? Is it simply that they are not sensitised to
the importance of the cultural dimension of culture? Or is it that new elites have bought into the “cultural package”
bequeathed to them by their former colonisers, and have little interest in
preserving or addressing traditional or indigenous cultural approaches that
might embarrass them?
Whatever the reasons, is it the case
that “the cultural question” is not an issue for developing countries?
While human beings
may change their values, ideas, worldviews, dress codes, eating habits, and the
like, and not lose their intrinsic worth or access to universally accepted
human rights, cultures do disappear, are eroded, evolve or are subsumed – not
because they have lost their value or worth, but because of benign, organic
developments within the culture, or because of conquest or other forms of
coercive pressures on that culture.
Cultural
homogenisation leads to a particular set of ideas, values and worldviews coming
to prevail, and legitimising a world order, a global economy where an elite
consumes most of the world’s non-renewable resources and the majority of people
live in abject conditions.
It is precisely
because of the inequities of the global world order that cultural diversity is
imperative i.e. that other ideas and values inform trade and political
relations, to ensure that the rich and the powerful cannot act with impunity
like the modern equivalent of colonisers of the world.
Cultural diversity
is under threat because:
a) development, even in its best forms,
impacts on local and indigenous cultures, leading, at worst, to their
extinction
b) bilateral and multilateral trade agreements
are trying to establish “free trade” for cultural goods and services, so that
“market forces” can dictate the dominance of foreign material (music, films,
television programmes, books, etc) in local markets, thereby undermining the
local expressions of culture
c)
mass media
such as television and information technology now have a global reach that
advances values, ideas and worldviews arising out of, and perpetuating a
particular “way of life” or culture, that those who live in different cultures
may aspire towards for lack of alternatives, or because this way of life is
projected as “the ultimate”, leading to rejection of their own culture
d) developing countries simply do not have the
resources or the political will to counter the influence of culture and the
cultural products of the developed world.
Cultural diversity
– on the surface – is a desirable end.
But – like culture and development – cultural diversity is fraught with
contradictions and serves different, and often, conflicting interests,
depending on the conditions.
For developed
countries that might face the threat of Hollywood movies and television
programmes undermining their local film industries, or whose music industry
might be threatened by imports from elsewhere, the language and strategies of
“cultural diversity” are understandable and might be effective to counter such
threats.
But the perspective may be substantially different in developing countries. For example, “cultural diversity” was used in the context of colonialism and apartheid to divide-and-rule. Thus, to emphasise “cultural diversity” now – rather than, say, national reconciliation – might be seen to be promoting “neo-apartheid”. In South Africa today, one of the major groups advancing “cultural diversity” is the white, Afrikaner group who were the primary implementers and beneficiaries of apartheid. In a non-racial society, some of them feel threatened and demand that their cultural rights be respected and defended. Against the background of the international emphasis for “cultural diversity”, this group would have a valid case, but in the context of South African history, fears of neo-apartheid regimes are raised. Some post-colonial or post-apartheid leaders might want to promote cultural diffusion, to de-emphasise cultural differences, to advance new “national” cultural forms and symbols, rather than cultural diversity.
In some developing
countries, leaders come, and hold on to power because of their ethnic
background and because of the dominance of their ethnic group within the
broader population. Particular ethnic
groups may be rewarded and advanced in the civil service and society generally,
while others are marginalized. In its
extreme forms, genocide may be committed by one ethnic group against another in
order to obtain, and maintain power.
In developed
countries with sophisticated, democratic political systems, respect for the
rule of law and the like, where there is relative demographic homogeneity or
the historical dominance of one particular culture, cultural diversity in the
“way of life” sense takes the form of “multiculturalism” as some societies
develop strategies to integrate increasing numbers of immigrants from other
countries. In some developing countries
where access to power, social mobility and even life itself may be linked to
one’s cultural background, cultural diversity provides sharper challenges.
Cultural diversity
is premised on pluralism, tolerance, a sense of democracy, freedom of
expression. Yet many developing
countries – or their leadership – display major deficiencies in these areas.
For example,
freedom of expression can be regarded as a threat; alternative views to those
of the dominant party are regarded as “counter-revolutionary”, and forms of
democracy are implemented that prejudice some groups and individuals.
Thus, we come to following questions:
25 September
2002