Newsletter 24 – November 2002
Contents:
The INCD’s third annual conference in Cape Town, South Africa was a challenging and thought-provoking meeting, bringing together the largest and most diverse group of INCD delegates thus far. One hundred and eighty-six participants from 37 countries debated, discussed and planned during three days at the historic Centre for the Book.
The Secretariat is currently preparing the complete report of the conference – it will be released at the end of this year. The Cape Town Declaration, which was presented to the ministers of culture organized in the International Network on Cultural Policy, is available on the INCD web site. For photos of the Cape Town conference, go to: www.incd.net/conference.html and click on ‘related documents’.
The conference kicked-off with a wonderful opening reception at the National Gallery of South Africa where delegates were treated to a culinary and musical sampling of Cape Town. A Marimba percussion group, a steel band, the Cape Minstrels and the Cape Town Opera Ensemble were among the groups who performed during the evening, highlighting some of the amazing diversity of South Africa.
On the second evening of the conference, delegates were invited to the premiere of “District 6: The Musical” which told the story of the forced eviction of a black district of Cape Town in the 1960’s. This led many people to visit the District 6 Museum, a moving remembrance of one of the shameful acts of the apartheid government.
Delegates availed themselves of tours organized by the INCD to visit Robben Island, the townships of Cape Town and Table Mountain following the conference.
Many thanks to Mike van Graan, the local organizing team and the many artists who contributed to the conference for providing delegates with a memorable experience in South Africa.
The International Network on Cultural Policy (INCP) held its 5th annual meeting, regrouping the ministers of culture (or ministers designate) from 21 countries in Cape Town, South Africa Oct 14-16, 2002, immediately following the INCD’s meeting. Their discussions centered on three main themes: Cultural Diversity in Developing Countries: the Challenges of Globalization; Cultural Diversity and Globalization: Review of an International Instrument on Cultural Diversity; and a grouping of Other Cultural Priorities, including Cultural Heritage and Media Issues.
The Cape Town Statement (http://206.191.7.19/meetings/2002/statement_e.shtml) reviews the major findings of their meeting and sets out the tasks for the coming year.
The Working Group on Cultural Diversity and Globalization, which is responsible for the development of the International Instrument on Cultural Diversity, tabled its draft text along with the report of the Special Policy Research Team on governance issues. The ministers agreed that “UNESCO is the appropriate international institution to house and implement an International Instrument on Cultural Diversity…” and will pursue a meeting with the Director General of UNESCO to further this. All documents, including the text of the draft International Instrument on Cultural Diversity, are available at http://206.191.7.19/meetings/2002/index_e.shtml .
In the meantime, the Working Group was instructed to accelerate the work on the draft. It is expected that the final version will be ready for deliberation at their next meeting, in Paris, February 2003.
The International Organization of La Francophonie held its 9th Summit of Heads of State in Beirut, Lebanon Oct 18-20, 2002. Discussions were organized around the theme of cultural dialogue, with a strong emphasis on building a more peaceful and equitable world.
The Beirut Declaration (http://www.francophonie.org/oif.cfm) strongly endorses the instrument on cultural diversity. It states that cultural goods and services must not be treated merely as commercial products and that governments must be free to make their own cultural policies. It gives the Secretary General of La Francophonie the mandate to establish a working group on cultural diversity which will collaborate with the UNESCO, the INCP and other groups to develop an international instrument.
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Australia/US FTA
Australia and the US announced that they will be commencing free trade negotiations. Many in the Australian cultural sector are expressing significant concerns about the possible impact of an Australian-American agreement after having witnessed the struggles of Canada and Mexico with regards to North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). For example, the Mexican film industry suffered a dramatic decline in production following the decision not to exempt culture from NAFTA, signed in 1994. They went from a high of over a hundred Mexican films made in 1988 to less than 20 produced in 1998. The Mexican screen quota also declined from 30% in 1993 to 10% in 1997 (data taken from Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images).
INCD Steering Committee member and Executive Director of the Music Council of Australia, Richard Letts reports:
Australia has energetically sought negotiations with the USA for a bilateral trade treaty. If press reports are a clear indicator, Australia's main hope is for greater access to the US markets for its agriculture. Again according to press reports, the US is likely to press for the removal of local content quotas for television and music radio broadcasters, removal of the few remaining restrictions on foreign investment (which could mean major price hikes in pharmaceuticals among other things), removal of quarantine restrictions on some US agricultural products (Australia as an island is free of many diseases prevalent on other continents), and other trade-offs. Australia could lose its film industry, which cannot survive without subsidy.
Australia has a GDP of around US$400 billion. Press reports say that the government believes the benefit of the trade treaty to Australia will eventually be $2 billion. So for an increase in GDP of half a per cent, Australia potentially loses local film making, a viable music industry for Australian musicians, relatively cheap medicine, and suffers the damage and the cost of introduced plant and animal diseases.
The government so far has taken a fairly good position on maintaining its cultural sovereignty in the context of WTO and GATS. It has made the right public statements in Australia and internationally.
But it takes the worrying position that it cannot enter a bilateral negotiation with the USA with statements at the outset that certain matters are not available for negotiation. Meanwhile, there's a nod and a wink: we need not worry that it will put culture on the table.
The arts community does not find this altogether convincing and is in fact deeply worried. We see no deep commitment to the arts by this government in the context of domestic politics. On November 29 we will meet to set up a coalition to apply pressure on the government as needed.
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FTAA
The Ministers of Trade currently negotiating the Free Trade Area of the Americas announced the release of the latest draft text November 1, during their meeting in Quito, Ecuador. It can be found at http://www.ftaa-alca.org/alca_e.asp . There is also an open invitation to civil society organizations to submit their comments on the negotiations on the FTAA web site. It cites their “commitment to the principle of transparency” which the ministers were forced to agree to because of protests against the lack of transparency during the Summit of the Americas in April of 2001.
The INCD will be preparing an analysis of how the latest draft impacts on culture for a future edition of the newsletter.
INCD Steering Committee and Secretariat: Good byes and
new faces
During the Cape Town meeting, the INCD elected a new Steering Committee made up of some familiar faces and some fresh blood. A heartfelt thanks to departing members Japan Mthembu, Luciana Castellina, Alexander Cacavas, Nitis Jacon, Yolanda Schweri and Tiburce Bidounga.
The Steering Committee for 2002-2003 is the following:
Leonardo Brant, President, Insitutito Pensarte, Brazil
Peter Curman, President, Swedish Joint Committee of Literary and Artistic Professionals KLYS, Sweden
James Early, Director, Cultural Heritage Policy, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution, USA
Leah Enkiwe, Researcher, Tebtebba Foundation – Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education, Philippines
Mireille
Gagné, Director, Canadian Music Centre (Québec), Canada
Atul Kumar, Artistic Director, The Company Theatre, India
Richard Letts, Executive Director, Music Council of Australia, Australia
Katerina Marinaki, President, Federation of Scriptwriters in Europe / Screenwriters Guild of Greece, Greece
Nina Obuljen, Researcher, Culturelink Network, Croatia
Burama Sagnia, Coordinator, African Itinerant College for Culture and Development, Senegal
Rafael Segovia, General Coordinator, Civic Council for the Arts and Culture of Morelos / Artual Artists Management, Mexico
Yvon Thiec, General delegate, Eurocinema, Belgium/France
Mike van Graan, General Secretary, Performing Arts Network of South Africa, South Africa
Megan Williams, National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts, Canada
* Please note that the European representatives are interim members until the European INCD election is held.
The INCD sadly says goodbye to Rebecka Koritz, whose contract with the INCD ended in October 2002. Rebecka was working with INCD member organization KLYS in Stockholm on the expansion and consolidation of the Network in Europe. She is now pursuing her flamenco studies in Spain.
Mike van Graan, the INCD Conference Coordinator in South Africa, will be changing hats as he was elected to the Steering Committee for 2002-2003.
And we are happy to welcome our newest staff member, K.R. Archana who will be working for the coming year in India.
Following the INCD’s conference in Cape Town, South African delegates and representatives from the major cultural sectors met on November 16 to found the South African Network of Arts and Culture (SANAC). This umbrella organization will act as the national voice for cultural issues in South Africa, as well as monitoring the cultural diversity and globalization files. SANAC will serve as the base for INCD activities in South Africa – for more information, contact art27m@iafrica.com . Congratulations!
The Danish Centre for Culture and Development is hosting a conference on cultural diversity and globalization on November 29 in Copenhagen. Three main themes will be discussed: Traditional Rights and Intellectual Property Rights, Public Support Systems and Cultural Diversity – Politics, Legislation and the WTO.
Speakers include Garry Neil, INCD Coordinator; Professor Paul Kuruk, Executive Director of the Institute for African Development, Ghana; and Roger Wallis, Chairman, Swedish Society of Popular Music Composers.
For more info:
http://diversity.dccd.dk/dccd/cultdiv.nsf/doc/start?OpenDocument&lang=uk
On Saturday November 30, the INCD will be holding a working session for all INCD members and interested non-members and will elaborate on the work done at the INCD’s third annual conference in Cape Town, Oct 11-13 2002. Delegates at that meeting debated the Convention on Cultural Diversity as well as the role of culture in development policies. Delegates also looked at concrete strategies to promote cultural diversity regionally which is where we will pick up in Copenhagen.
The session will be facilitated by INCD Coordinator, Garry Neil and INCD Steering Committee member, Nina Obuljen, Researcher with Culturelink Network, Croatia.
For more info:
http://www.incd.net/docs/INCD.DCCD.htm or email incd@ccarts.ca .
The European Forum on the Arts and Heritage will be holding its annual General Assembly in Ljubljana, Slovenia, November 28th - December 1st, 2002. Ulrica Källén, General Secretary, Swedish Joint Committee of Literary and Artistic Professionals (KLYS) will be speaking on behalf of the INCD. For more info: http://www.efah.org/R08/EFAH/EN/Ig00log.nsf/VFrameset/EFAH?OpenDocument .
The INCD will be holding a seminar on culture and globalization during the upcoming Asian Social Forum, January 2-7 2003 in Hyderabad, India. More information will be available soon.
Other news from INCD members:
In Korea, the Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images staged a silent protest during the Pusan International Film Festival, demanding that the government withdraw their GATS requests in the cultural sector. Photos of this protest can be found at http://www.screenquota.org/menupage/news_page.asp .
News, views and events in the European audio-visual sector are all available on a new web site http://www.cineuropa.org/ . It’s being developed by former INCD Steering Committee member Luciana Castellina and Valerio Caruso of the Valencia Forum.
ISPA 55TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
International Performing Arts Foundation
Dec 7-10 2002
New York - USA
http://www.ispa.org/ny2002/index.html
Second International Meeting of Cultural Professional Organizations
2-4 February 2003
Paris, France