The
Forum of the UNAOC now brings together 2,500 participants and has taken place
in several global locations including Madrid, Istanbul, and Rio de Janeiro with
plans to move on to Vienna and Jakarta. In Doha, discussions about ranging from
sport, creative industry, and tourism to education, migration, and youth pondered questions about how cultural
diversity matters to development, how promoting trust and tolerance can advance
development goals, and new strategies for intercultural dialogue, understanding
and cooperation.
Finding the path to cultural ingenuity:
Reflections on implications of intercultural engagement for humanitarian action and development
The 21st century has been
described by some as the “Century of Religion – an opportunity to pursue man’s humanity to man through tolerance,
mutual respect and bridge-building”.
Ten years on from 9/11, the legacy of those
events has changed and sharpened sentiments about cultural differences. Differing fortunes, however, in the West and
Muslim-majority countries have made the discourse about `Muslims and the West’
increasingly unhelpful.
If this discourse had utility, however
questionable, for helping to orientate the leadership of one side towards the
other, the events of the last ten years have revealed layers of complexity that
now need to be peeled back carefully. As events have proven increasingly, the
interests at stake are human dignity, social justice, freedom, fairness and
development – interests that are much more immediate and therefore arguably
much more important than a contest of religions.
For the West (notably the US), it has been
a decade of conflict (Afghanistan, Iraq), anxiety, and fear fuelled by growing
domestic and international economic misfortune.
In the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East, millions continue
to face injustice and hardship but the revolutions in thought and expression
are opening up new possibilities in governance.
The legacy of the 9/11 identity discourse
carries a warning: if we do not find ways to free ourselves from a paradigm
wherein misperceptions of other people push them into ghettos, we ourselves
will become prisoners. As one
commentator summarises this: “People are the subject of their own history, not
the object of the projection of others.” The struggle that comes with austerity
will not only be fought between peoples of differing identities but also
amongst people of similar identity.
Deeper thought and greater understanding -
and better answers – are needed for important questions about how to achieve
the conditions for peace, prosperity and participatory governance. If religion
has been part of the problem, how can it be made a way to solutions? Why the persistence
with defining one side in terms of religion, not the other? What impact does
cultural (religious) myopia – at least, partial sightedness and more seriously,
total lack of vision – deliver for relationships between those with different
beliefs and values? What significance
could greater self-awareness have for relationships within societies espousing
broadly similar beliefs?
These are increasingly important questions
in an age of austerity. Diminishing wealth, struggle for resources, and rising
self-interest are likely to foment polarisation, introversion, alienation and
isolation. And although austerity is a common experience for much of the
poorer, often Muslim-majority parts of the world; it is an unfamiliar
experience for most societies in the `West’.
In the face of the major global challenges
of poverty and climate change, finding practical ways to boost intercultural
engagement in the interests of sustainable development and prosperity is an
increasingly urgent necessity.
Ten years on from 9/11, global context
presents opportunities as well as threats. Shifting power balances and the
imperative for sustainability demand that xenophobia is eliminated, that
understanding and alliances between cultures are achieved, and that extremism
(whether Salafi or US Tea Party Movement) is resisted on all sides.
Five lessons from the discussion about
intercultural dialogue can help to make sure that, as one commentator observes,
“the celebration and exploration of cultural diversity is recognised as being
as important for contemporary society as biodiversity is for the sustainable
natural environment.”
1.
Change minds through education, valuing
cultural practices (including religion) and dialogue about the need to turn
outwards and to learn the importance of mutuality and build capability to find
solutions to the needs of others as legitimate – and as important – as one’s
own.
2.
Create economic opportunity –
recognising that people, regardless of religious affiliation, need skills,
jobs, income, business connections and prosperity.
3.
Protect neighbours and cultural
diversity as a resource for economic productivity and societal value,
responding to the needs, opportunities and capacity that migrants and people in
Diasporas provide.
4.
Look to the future. Embrace the vibrancy and energy of youth to
break identity stereotypes and to be a source of power for non-violent,
progressive self-determination, as the leadership of youth and social activists
in the Middle East and North Africa has shown.
5.
Take time to build the institutions that
sustain trust, tolerance, patience as the vital conditions for security (or
peace, as the equitable availability of resources), development (justice and
economic autonomy), and democracy (described as the power of choice and
voice”).
Institutions must promote these lessons.
The next and crucial challenge is to put these lessons into practice and focus
attention on the needs and capacities of people and communities, especially the
most vulnerable.
New initiatives, innovation, talent and intellectual
capital are needed to build the social capital vital to the survival of diverse
societies. One commentator observes that the discourse about an `alliance of
civilisations’ can no longer survive on `innocent volunteerism’ and good faith
but must find ways to build ingenuity”.
Cultural diversity is a pillar of the new, 21st
century order.
Civil society – in its broadest terms,
secular as well as religious – holds the keys to this ingenuity and must push
institutions for dialogue based on dignity, respect for diversity and
democracy. Principle actions that can
unlock this ‘cultural ingenuity’:
·
Capacity-building – especially
for vulnerable communities – mobilising the capabilities and vision of people
at local and national level as well as bringing together international agency.
·
Communicating –increasing
understanding of what people can do themselves and using the means of
communication that most favours social activism and participation.
·
Connecting - with wider
international community to engage and sustain the impact of what is done on the
ground with communities
·
Collaborating with globally
diverse sources of philanthropy to leverage public and private funding,
innovation, and impact on poverty and climate change.
More organisations are needed that
understand the importance of this cultural ingenuity. And, recognising the challenge to respect the
legitimacy and inter-connection of differing histories and traditions, there is
need for leadership that can balance ambiguity and critical thinking, both
within and between religions.
Networks of organisations like The Humanitarian Forum (www.humanitarianforum.org) are positioned
strategically to pioneer and help fulfil the urgent imperatives for intercultural
engagement upon which respectful humanitarian action and fundamentally
sustainable development - social, economic, environmental and institutional –
depend.
