Cultural Diversity and Social Challenges
Dr. Alja Brglez
Cultural Diversity and Conflict
Today cultural diversity is a ubiquitous term of open debates and democratic politics, so it is hard to take it as a challenge to think/talk about. Challenge, in the meantime, has become a word to use instead of saying problem, crisis, difficulty, trouble – it should symbolize audacity, deed of daring, unconditional vitality: all fearless constituents of bold globalisation and more or less the same features that built up American pioneers. If social challenges are indeed social problems then the lesson that ought to have been learned by now is that not every problem needs to be solved. Not every solution is better than a problem. Hardly any solution is better than a challenge.
Today, the ‘new world order’ is obviously not an answer, let alone a solution, to a series of tentative attempts to define a resort from a period of tremendous global transition that the international community has entered. At the same time, previously isolated peoples are being brought together voluntarily and involuntarily by the increasing integration of markets, the emergence of new regional political alliances, and remarkable advances in telecommunications, biotechnology and transportation that have prompted unprecedented demographic shifts. Terms regularly used in the circulation are: cultural diversity, cultural relativism, cultural integrity, cultural context, cultural rights.
Therefore, before addressing the questions raised in/from the title, it might seem advisable to consider the concept of cultural diversity and hope to be able to pull out a workable definition. Theorist are sometimes irritated and consumers of the theories are seldom not perplexed by some paradoxes:
- the objective modernity of cultural diversity vs. the subjective antiquity of cultures;
- the formal universality of cultural diversity as an extra- and supra-national concept vs. phenomenal concept of culture as fundamentum of nation, its particularities and its most concrete manifestations;
- the political power of cultural diversity vs. the political powers of national cultures. Culture is arguably the most pervasively naturalized (and nostalgic) notion of community. It is predicated on traditional conceptions that depend on four central characteristics: a common geographical territory or locale; a common history and shared values; widespread political participation accomplished through collective activity; and a high degree of moral solidarity. Knowing what Benedict Anderson has pointed out leads us to a consecutive clause: if powerful illusions of continuity that lend credence to a sense of common history and shared values are only a narrative strategy that depends upon the »remembering« of ostensibly »forgotten« histories, then the same strategy should work in building a common frame for cultural diversity – the strategy of an imagined community.
Common humanity
Universal human rights do not impose one cultural standard – as a legal standard adopted through the United Nations, universal human rights represent a consensus of the international community: not the cultural or any other imperialism of any particular region or set of traditions. Universal human rights are a modern invention, they are new to all cultures and unknown to some. They are never meant to represent one culture to the exclusion of others: human rights which relate to cultural diversity and integrity encompass a wide range of protections and include the right to cultural participation, the right to enjoy the arts, conservation, development and diffusion of culture; protection of cultural heritage, freedom for creative activity, protection of persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, freedom of assembly and association, the right to education, freedom of thought, conscience or religion; freedom of opinion and expression, and the principle of non-discrimination. An arduous mix with one clear message: none of the above in itself contributes to cultural diversity as ‘imagined’.
The latter is a mission of cultural rights. It means that every human being has the right to culture, including the right to enjoy and develop cultural life and identity. As every right, of course, cultural right is limited at the point at which it infringes on another human right. What about the point at which it infringes on another cultural right? How to determine that point? It is not merely a question of folklore, it sometimes requires substantive limitations on cultural practices and traditions that are undoubtedly illegitimate and require legitimate limitations (slavery, torture, injurious medical practices etc.).
Business and corporations
In enhancing and fostering both cultural diversity and cultural difference business and trans-national corporations will have rather the same role as they are having in other progressive steps of globalisation – it is, as a matter of fact, the only one they can have: they will accelerate the processes and bring the fractions to the lowest common denominator. They will help loosen diversity, simplify the understanding and illuminate the comprehension. Of course, they will open the cultural markets and market the open cultures.
New forms of cooperation
Only new forms of cooperation will be able to have a decisive role in developing workable solutions – there are a few good practices to turn to, and many more practices that are bad enough to be completely turned around. Globalisation is not a new process anymore, till now we know its weaknesses and have to be prepared to react to them ahead of real time. Cultural innovation is among the most promising mechanisms to do that, cultural diversity is inevitable even for those who might not want it, and cultural context is something we can still shape and imagine by ourselves.
Dr. Alja Brglez
