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Final report by the chair person of workshop 1: Dominique Danau

1. Objectives of the Workshop

 

The objectives of the workshop 1 were twofold:

The main objective of the Fourth Seminar in Bruges (November 1993) was to contribute to the societal cross-border debate about culture and the cultural dimension of Europe. This Fifth Seminar in Athens had to lead to a discussion on concrete actions to safeguard cultural diversity. However, it must be taken into account that culture is a complex domain. Actions to be taken should be carefully thought through and should be located within a broader conceptual framework.

2. Participants and contributions

The group of participants of this workshop was heterogeneous by nature, which was an interesting challenge for all the actors involved. A full list of participants can be found in the Annex. Their professional domains varied from architecture to linguistics, economics, training and teaching, telecommunications, learning technologies, networking, sociology and European studies in general.

During the first part of the meeting, the participants had the opportunity to present the papers they had prepared. The different papers gave a good overview of the different aspects involved in multi-cultural identities. Here below, I will give a short synthesis of each of the papers.

The first paper, presented by Ruben Lombaert, touched upon the principle of subsidiarity and made the link with culture. He conceived subsidiarity not only as a legal issue but also as a political issue. He stated that "it would be useful to link the cultural actions to the actions carried out in the framework of the ERDF" and that "in the implementation of actions, local specificities had to be considered". Furthermore, he dwelt on the 'image of Europe' today. He stated that the EU needs to create circumstances in which a development of different cultures can take place in harmony, i.e. diversity is needed. This diversity is a ground of a European identity, to be conceived as multi-dimensional, can be stimulated amongst others by the educational systems as one of the socialising units. However, in order to make this happen, an adequate renewal of the current educational systems is necessary. In his presentation, Ruben gave some perspectives on how to do research in the field of culture in Europe. This policy-oriented research could indicate ways in how policy-makers could adjust the institutional construction of the EU to the changing reality in Europe.

Jesse Marsh talked about the relation between h u m a n and t e l e m a t i c n e t w o r k s and culture. These networks are not bound by geographical boundaries but they create and shape spaces for interaction between different groups in society. He emphasised the role of these networks in the creation of cultural opportunity structures. People from all over the world can participate in these networks. By doing this, they participate in different cultures and (re)shape them at the same time.

Melitta Gourtsoyanni, in her presentation, talked about the m e n a c e t o c u l t u r a l i d e n t i t y. She talked about the issue of identification: identification with a region, a nation, but also identification with a movement, a belief system which is not bound by regional or national boundaries (e.g. the peace movement, or identification with a certain kind of music, etc.). Cultural diversity is an enrichment and not a menacing factor, if it is creatively oriented. One of the domains where diversity is strongly defended is l a n g u a g e: the lesser spoken languages feel menaced by more widespread ones. However, if we take the example of English, the choice of speaking English during European conferences is rarely the result of deliberate political forces; it has a certain function important in that specific moment of social evolution. A language that produces cultural goods, like literature, has nothing to fear. She stated that the menace to cultural identities is founded in the commercialisation: attributing to everything an exchange value. This is not new, but the last years, it has become incontestable. It dominates not only in the economic domain, but also in the ideological domain ("the work of art is reduced to the status of 'product' and it is judged as such"). This is linked to the debate of quality versus quantity (see also the contributions of M. Mourik during the Bruges seminar).

Paul Verluyten stated that multi-culturalism is currently not taken seriously in Europe. More investments should be made in order make this multi-culturalism happen. One of the channels could be e d u c a t i o n and t r a i n i n g, as already mentioned by other participants of the workshop. It seems for him that there is an urgent need to introduce training in intercultural communication at various levels in the education and training systems in Europe. He also raised the same question as Melitta: how far do we want to go in our acceptance of diversity?

Rudolf Kern talked about the practice of diversity and pluralism. We all talk about it, still most of us spoke a l a n g u a g e which was not our own during the workshop. This statement provoked some debate amongst the participants. Most of us did not feel it like a threat that we had to talk English. As Melitta stated in her paper, the use of the English language has a certain (pragmatic) function during this workshop. Rudolf stated problems in the field of the inequality of treating languages. The political entities need to preserve rights to the minority regional languages, while on European level, the national language deserve an equal treatment. This right should be preserved as well. He proposed to organise a conference on a European level about the use of languages, especially in European institutions.

Angela Adams emphasised also the strong failure on the part of the 'education establishment' to take multi-culturalism seriously and to act upon it. She addressed the issue of m i g r a n t workers which forces us to deal with issues of cultural identity and diversity at a very fundamental level. The concept of cultural identity is an empty box if we cannot see that all cultures are equally valid. Attempts aiming at developing more awareness for the issue have to be done in the field of e d u c a t i n g and p a r e n t i n g. Furthermore, she stressed the importance of a self-reflection attitude, whereby we are ready to look at our assumptions and to question our attitudes to others. "It is not enough to acknowledge the concept of diversity; if we do not live it, nothing will change."

3. Discussions and outcomes

The main subjects discussed were related to issues of language, threats to culture versus cultural opportunities, education and training (learning issues), telecommunication infrastructures and networks as vehicles, identity and subsidiarity.

During these discussions it was clear that there were two approaches:

The outcomes of our workshop were presented in the forms of questions:

Tools through which these questions can be addressed are research, conferences, enhancements of existing networks, review of the possibilities for flexibility and adaptability of funding programmes to cultural factors.

The participants of the workshop stressed that these issues, raised in the questions should be built into existing EU initiatives rather than developing new initiatives to tackle these questions.

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