Platform for Intercultural Europe

The Platform for Intercultural Europe is committed to promote dialogue, in order to facilitate integration of migrants / immigrants while upholding cultural diversity in Europe. The crucial question is if this can be done best by a structured dialogue between a Platform created to represent civil society and the European Commission? One criterion for any evaluation purpose would have to be to what extent this facilitates informing citizens about European policies and programs while promoting open forms of participation and, in particular, inclusion of the migrant?

Civil society is based on the Right of Access to Community. The response to this on the side of the EU has been so far to propagate inclusive practices especially when it comes to combat poverty and unemployment. Yet civic values are hardly realized in structures orientated towards gaining solely access to EU Funds by becoming a specific lobby for a certain cause, and then to occupy this agenda point by resorting to a special insider knowledge and terminology. It becomes a critical point when common people and even those who are active in their respective communities no longer understand the EU terminology and EU speak.

Platform for Intercultural Europe

During the founding stages of this Platform, a crucial question was raised, namely whether or not there can be discussion about culture in general without a specific link to the arts? Unfortunately much of the discourse about culture in Europe has become devoid of any reference as to what is happening in the fields of the arts. Ilona Kish from Culture Action Europe stated a discussion about culture without the arts is inconceivable, but how to bring contents of the arts into the realm of work in Brussels having much more to do with strictly lobby work?

If the Platform aims to use intercultural dialogue as tool to bring Europe closer to being an intercultural society, then the criticism of this concept has to be taken into consideration. Studies done by the Platform underline the fact that many projects funded by the EU do not know really what this criterion stands for or whether it is being fulfilled by what they are aiming for in practice.

At best use of the term 'intercultural dialogue' risks being solely an operation based on neutral terms, lest to upset the political sensitivities prevailing at all times in Brussels and in the territories of the member states. With the arts this has little or nothing to do. That discussion during the founding phase has to be kept in mind to assess into what the Platform has evolved into in the meantime.

Rainbow Paper

Departure point for the Platform for Intercultural Europe is the well known Rainbow Paper. It contains some crucial discussion points and surprisingly first policy recommendations not so much to the European Commission, but to Civic Society and its organisations. The Rainbow Paper reflects attempts by some leading members, including Gottfried Wagner (then still director of the European Foundation for Culture) and Ilona Kisch, Coordinator of Action Culture Europe, to define intercultural dialogue as follows:

“Intercultural Dialogue is essentially the activity of individuals. Yet individuals largely live in and through organisations, predominantly in their places of work. Be they public institutions, enterprises or civil society organisations – their structures, and the rules by which they function, determine how much they help foster and valorise cultural diversity in society. They define their capacity to enable Intercultural Dialogue. Capacity building for Intercultural Dialogue in and between organisations and institution must be supported.”

The Rainbow Paper. Intercultural Dialogue: From Practice to Policy and Back (2008), Ch. II

This paper was an outcome of the European Commission having designated 2008 as the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.

Several organisations obained funds for specific projects which should underline this concept of intercultural dialogue. Outcomes were presented in Brussels at the end of 2008. For instance, the Menuhin Foundation picked up an old idea of testing the receptivity of stories once told in another cultural context. Most interesting was the presentation of a theatre whose actors were deaf and therefore relied on hand signals; applause would have to be shown by holding up both hands and waving them and even if it was thought this could be an universal language, the deaf actors realized very quickly in another cultural context different signs had another significance for the deaf people living there.

Unfortunately the matter of failed cultural policy in view as to what happened in Greece after Alexandros, a fifteen year old boy was shot supposingly by a policeman and which resulted in an eruption of the youth, was not taken up on the spot. Two years later that cultural failure had extended itself to manifest itself as a huge economic crisis affecting prospects of EU integration for the future. The economic crisis was very much on the mind of the participants of the meeting.

2010

The Platform for Intercultural Europe met on the 8th of June 2010 in Brussels and devoted itself in a broad sense to 'Capacity-Building for Intercultural Dialogue'. At the same time, it was designed to reflect upon experiences made by the Platform with regards to 'Practice Exchanges' in three specific locations: Malmö, Vienna and Rom. It was as well an opportunity to measure what progress had been made within one year. Sabine Frank, General Secretary of the Platform, emphasized in her concluding remarks that the discussions and contributions showed that everyone had gained in the meantime a bit more competence.

The Platform had held its last General Assembly precisely one year ago, that is again in June and in Brussels. Those members who needed it were given again travel subsidies by the European Commission to come to Brussels.

2011

This time the Platform met for two days, 24th and 25th of May, in order to give members a chance to present their own projects and to interact with one another. It gave a broader scope to the practice of exchange of experiences as envisioned by the Platform as a way to further intercultural Europe more tolerant towards migrants and therefore reflected in how member states deal progressively with this issue.

2012

When the Platform met, it took again two days. During the first one there was a discussion with a director of a museum. It entailed what could be considered community based museum work. The interesting aspect was that the museum is located in a new town in Holland and therefore local people have not really a history or some cultural heritage to base their identification with the local place on.

On the second day there was an exchange of opinion with the European Commission and a discussion round organized to make proposals for the future.

Organisation of the Platform for Intercultural Europe

Sabine Frank
Secretary-General

Platform for Intercultural Europe (AISBL),
c/o Culture Action Europe, 10, rue de la Science; B-1000 Brussels
T +32-(0)2 534 40 02; F +32-(0)2 534 11 50,

E sabine.frank@intercultural-europe.org
http://www.intercultural-europe.org

Note about documents:

The discussion paper by Francois Matarasso and the call for the campaign to establish an agenda for InterCulture can be found on the following website pages.

Also the first two Practice Exchanges can be found at following links:

http://www.intercultural-europe.org/template.php?page=pa-vienna

http://www.intercultural-europe.org/template.php?page=pa-malmoe

^ Top

« Report of the 3 Cultural Platform meetings in June 2009 | Meeting of Platform in Brussels June 8th 2010 »

Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

Navigation

Platform for Intercultural Europe