Policy Recommendations for Civil Society Organisations

Policy recommendations I

Voluntary commitments for civil society organisations

NOTE: The suggestions ¹⁾, once refined through consultation, will be the basis for a series of self-binding,voluntary commitments on behalf of civil society organisations. (A signing-up process is envisaged).Organisations will be asked to look into these issues, to draw up action plans, to implement them, to assess them annually and to report publicly. The Rainbow Platform will record the state of affairs and feed this information into the European Cultural Fora in 2009 and 2010.

STARTING WITH OURSELVES: ‘Civil society’ is not an innocent term. Nongovernmental or not-for-profit groups do not automatically embody ‘civility’. In particular, it does not mean we always do justice to cultural diversity in society. In civil society organisations we also find people who are uncertain about such dialogue, nervous about possible conflict, tempted by the simplicities of “exclusion”. Intercultural dialogue, like charity, must start at home. Every civil society organisation needs to ”sweep the front step” or better still, sweep inside their own house first: the Platform encourages us all to consider how we reflect and act on cultural diversity.

OWNING UP TO OUR CONTRADICTIONS: Best intentions don’t change practice. Parallel world views are maintained by neglecting realities. The reality of many well-intentioned civic organisations is that they are “white”, “elitist”, and repeat structures and working modes, which they might take disagree with morally. But if they don’t do what they preach, that makes them less credible in the eyes of other cultural groups. Organisations drawing their members from immigrant groups or serving them can be similarly exclusive (in the other direction - though perhaps for more legitimate reasons). Sheltering from social pressures or fighting marginalisation as they do, “dialogue” and cooperation might not yet be their aim. But they should also ‘do as they would be done to’. We all need to admit, understand and tackle these contradictions.

PHYSICAL PLACES FOR ARTISTIC ENDEAVOUR MUST BE “INTER-CULTIVATED: We need to create and maintain art spaces that are shared by diverse groups of citizens and artists. In other words, interdisciplinary and intercultural centres should be priorities for public policy. This requires training, the renovation/re-invention of cultural buildings and new communication and reach-out strategies, which reflect the intercultural imperative.

INVITING OTHERS TO SHARE POWER: Civic organisations (and their networks) need to analyse their “power” structures, (both management and their governance). How are their boards composed? Do they reflect the changing composition of the societal environment? Is power sharing with representatives of the “new” communities practice, exception or may be alibi? How are the staffs of civic organisations composed? Do they reflect the changing societal environment? If not, why not? What measures need to be taken to include, train, and empower staff members with a migration or minority background? For organisations set up by and for minorities or immigrant groups, these questions are, of course much trickier, but eventually they also need to address them. Let us all take every opportunity to make our governance and staff structures as diverse as our environments.

CO-WORKING: Civic organisations already work across cultural groups, very often it is their very raison d’être; but more active support needs to be given to collaborative working practices, rather than merely ‘helping’ or ‘supporting’ the other cultural group. There need to be transfers of working skills.

CREATIVE LEARNING: The experience of making a theatre, dance or opera work is a delicate endeavour. Every collective artwork is an experiment in harmonization without homogenization, maximizing specific talents of engaged artists without compromising their individual cultural intelligence. These artistic experiments, taking place throughout the world, offer valuable lessons in negotiating potential cultural conflict. And vice-versa, we should extract devises that are at work in social processes and relate them to other spheres.

PROCESS AND CO-PRODUCTION: Importing and exporting artworks fills a limited function. Audiences see, consume and applaud. Artists travel, perform and leave. The contact surface exists only within the theatre, concert hall or museum and only for a short time. Guest performances often border on exoticism, regardless of the quality or the country of origin. We can avoid this superficial “internationalism” by turning shallow contacts into long-term collaborative relationships. The real aim must be for engaged co-creation, with genuine transfer and learning across cultural boundaries. The aims must be for co-creation rather than mutual consumption.

SERVING A BROADER COMMUNITY: Civic organisations (and their networks) need to analyse their work programmes. Which audiences are they addressing? Who are they serving? Who decides – and how – on the target groups, and on the resources deployed to reach out to publics that are not their traditional constituency? This thinking needs shared across intercultural boundaries, with respect and admiration for differing social attitudes. Let us all address these questions together.

INVESTING IN REFLECTION AND CHANGE: Civic organisations (and their networks) need to learn inside an intercultural framework. Internal reflection processes will take time and special attention and planning. Changes in governance, staff compositions and activities will not happen easily; on the contrary, covert resistance or rejection is also “natural”. There may be “good arguments” for avoiding change (for example the “quality argument” which prevents organisations to change: ‘We cannot find the right people’) but they need to be examined rigorously and intelligently.

TRAINING AND MENTORSHIP: We must learn to share skills. There should be support for “mentoring programs” that allow artists and cultural operators with competences in one area of endeavour to mentor and transfer their knowledge to people working in other sectors. Likewise, educational programs need to be developed that allow emerging artists and cultural operators to come in close working contact with trained professionals in social and educational sectors. The point is to sharpen the learning curve and increase the speed of developing intercultural competence.

REACHING OUT TO OTHER DOMAINS: Civic organisations (and their networks) mostly operate in isolation. Yet cross-sector reflection and cooperation are a useful source for mutual inspiration, learning and for unexpected synergies. The Rainbow Platform helps facilitate this cooperation. Let us all continue further down this road.

TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS: They can lead to consortia that unite divergent ideas, stimulate projects and initiate programs. They can lead to a healthy confrontation of methods and objectives. They create a practical basis for exchange and co-production. They must be supported.

¹⁾ Some civil society organisations are further advanced with the following suggestions than others. Learning transfers need to take place. Greater resources are needed for this.
These general suggestions are already increasingly exemplified in living, day to day arts practice. Under the consultation process, fresh viewpoints from other sectors are particularly invited.

Discussion

gottfried wagner, ECF, 2008/04/24 20:53

Personally I'd like to see this chapter - for me at the core of the debate right now - sharper, clearer, simpler. Its about a few things we have to change ourselves.. not an easy agenda

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Policy Recommendations for Civil Society Organisations