International Network for Cultural Diversity

Newsletter 20 – June 2002

 

Fostering Cultural Diversity and Development:

local, national and global strategies

The Third Annual Conference of the INCD

Cape Town, South Africa October 11-13 2002

 

REGISTRATION MATERIAL IS NOW AVAILABLE

www.incd.net/conference.html

Early bird registration deadline is September 1, 2002

For more information: incd@ccarts.ca

 

Contents:

  1. NEPAD, the G8 and Culture
  2. The INCD in South Africa
  3. Announcements/Events

 

  1. NEPAD, the G8 and Culture

 

The summit of leaders of the world’s 7 largest industrial countries plus Russia is taking place June 26-27 in Kananaskis, Canada and is focused on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (For the full text of NEPAD: http://www.nepad.org/ or http://www.uneca.org/nepad), the latest in a long series of plans to combat poverty and promote sustainable development in Africa. While NEPAD is being pushed by both the Canadian government and some African states as the best hope for Africa in that it ties aid to democratic reform, there are many harsh critics of the plan in the African civil society movement.

 

A recent meeting of African civil society in Accra, Ghana issued a declaration on NEPAD, stating that: “Over the past decades, a false consensus has been generated around the neo-liberal paradigm promoted through the Bretton Woods Institutions and the World Trade Organisation. This stands to crowd out the rich tradition of Africa's own alternative thinking on development. It is in this context that the proclaimed African initiative, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)… [was] discussed.” (The full text is available at http://www.africaaction.org/docs02/accr0204.htm). There is considerable concern about the lack of integration of social and civil society groups in the development of this plan. In fact, South African President Thabo Mbeki conceded that civil society is raising “legitimate questions” about its lack of involvement in an editorial piece in Business Day newspaper. Despite the vaunted emphasis on democratic reform and human rights, many feel that the process of creating NEPAD has been inherently undemocratic.

 

From the INCD’s perspective, a critical issue is where is the cultural sector?

 

Out of the lengthy NEPAD text, there are two paragraphs about its commitments in the domain of culture that emphasize the preservation of indigenous cultures, including “…tradition-based literacy, artistic and scientific works, inventions, scientific discoveries, designs, marks, names and symbols, undisclosed information and all other tradition-based innovations and creations…” It includes a reference to the urgent need to protect traditional and indigenous intellectual property rights under WIPO and under national legislation.

 

However, there is only cursory mention of the substantial work done in the field of culture and development. In a recent paper prepared by the Columbian government on the integration of cultural policy into development, a shift from culture being seen as an impediment to development to culture as the end goal of ALL development was  envisioned. And that culture should be thoroughly integrated into all facets of sustainable development as the impact of economic change on the cultural life of a community is considerable and must be taken into account. These are not radical ideas yet there is little reflection of them in NEPAD.

 

Professor Paul Nkwei of the University of Yaounde (Cameroon), states in an analysis of NEPAD and culture (AICCD, International Conference on the Cultural Approach to Development, Dec 2001) that “ … the document falls into the same fallacy of equating development with economic prosperity”. He goes on to say that “unless African leaders take culture seriously… Africa will continue to make the same mistakes.” He worries that the lessons learnt in the field of culture and development are being set aside.

 

Significantly, there is also no recognition of the need to develop infrastructure to allow cultures to sustain themselves and to flourish in this new African “Renaissance”, leaving the gates open to flooding by foreign markets. While the leaders of the G8 are promoting NEPAD as the only viable plan for Africa, many activists believe that the ties to democratic reform thinly mask the submission of African economies to the free market. Democracy, in the language of globalization, is inextricably linked to free trade.

 

But how can developing cultures compete against the huge inundation of Hollywood products? What measures for promotion of African cultures will be protected under NEPAD? How can the development of African cultural industries be ensured? How can inter-African cultural exchanges be supported and promoted? As the world moves towards the “information society” and e-commerce, how will Africa ensure that its content is online and accessible? (For a compelling look at the digital divide, visit: http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/divide/ )

 

These are key questions as developed, let alone developing, nations struggle with safeguarding their own cultural sovereignty in the face of trade agreements and global homogenization.

 

  1. The INCD in South Africa

 

Garry Neil, INCD Coordinator, recently traveled to South Africa to begin the organization of the annual meeting and to present the working draft Convention on Cultural Diversity to the International Network on Cultural Policy’s Working Group on Cultural Diversity and Globalization. Neil met with key players in the Cape Town arts and cultural milieu, among them the Director of the Robben Island Museum, as well as representatives from the film, visual arts and writing/publishing sectors. He spoke at a  special forum on globalization and culture, hosted by the Performing Arts Network of South Africa to a packed house  and did interviews with national print and broadcast media.

 

While in Johannesburg, Neil met with the local organizers of the cultural component for the upcoming UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10). They were keen to host a session on the links between cultural diversity/bio diversity and will partner the INCD in the development of this colloquium. More information will be released later this summer.

 

The draft Convention on Cultural Diversity (http://www.incd.net/draftconvention.html) was presented to the INCP’s Working Group on Cultural Diversity on May 30.

 

Member countries in attendance were Jamaica, Mexico, Columbia, Cuba, Switzerland, Greece, Finland, France, Norway, Senegal, Canada, Sweden and South Africa.  Their agenda included discussion of the proposed Convention on Cultural Diversity, a paper prepared on the theme of development by the South African government, and a paper  by Switzerland analyzing the relationship the Convention could have with other intergovernmental institutions and analyzing alternative governance models. 

 

The INCD was extremely well received by the members of the INCP.  There were a number of useful comments about the draft Convention and considerable discussion.  Several delegates put forward the position that the INCP and INCD processes should be leading to the adoption of a common draft at the Cape Town meetings.  Neil responded that while we should move in this direction, it might be unrealistic to believe that civil society and governments could agree to an identical approach at this stage in the process.

 

The INCD was able to participate fully in the presentation by a team of South African researchers of the paper on the theme of the developing world’s perspective on cultural diversity.  This paper, together with the presentation from Columbia at the March 2002 Organization of American States Experts Seminar on Cultural Diversity (see INCD newsletter #18), will be the primary ministerial documents on this issue.

 

There was some reflection that the INCD’s draft Convention was more on track than other drafts, since it does attempt to identify positive commitments that Party states would make to ensure the development of their own cultural capacity.

 

 

3.      Announcements/Events

 

Draft Convention on Cultural Diversity

The revised version of the Convention (in English and French) is now available online at www.incd.net/draftconvention.html . Please send feedback to incd@ccarts.ca - the Secretariat will continue to collate comments for review in the months prior to the annual conference.

 

Trading Culture
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Sheffield, United Kingdom July 18-20 2002
www.shu.ac.uk

 

European Culture in a Changing World

Between Nationalism and Globalism
Aberystwyth, Wales, July 22-27 2002

The International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI)

http://www.aber.ac.uk/tfts/issei2002
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Culture, Quality of Life and Globalization
International Association for People-Environment Studies
A Coruńa, Spain July 23-27, 2002
www.udc.es/dep/ps

 

Summer Course on Cultural Economics: The Value of Culture
Amsterdam Maastricht Summer University
Amsterdam – Netherlands August 5-9, 2002
http://www.amsu.edu

 

Towards A New Cultural Universalism
Universidad Michoacana
Morelia, Mexico August 27-31, 2002
ramos.filos.umich.mx/convoca2.htm

 

Cultural Returns: Assessing the Place of Culture in Social Thought

Oxford, UK September 18-20 2002

socsci-pavis@open.ac.uk