Lublin 2016 – Appendix - Kultura Enter

Intercultural Lublin
Our first application mentioned Lublin’s model of intercultural dialogue. Taking into account geography
of the 2016 programme, we would like develop and popularize it with our European partners. The
work on the Second Application led to creation of the Lublin Charter of Intercultural Dialogue that,
over the next few years, will be further elaborated, consulted with European communities, and systematically
implemented in the ECC program. A formal signing of the Charter by all Lublin’s partners
that have agreed to abide by its rules concerning development and nurturing of intercultural dialogue
will take place in the Crown Tribunal in 2016. At that time Lublin will be involved in the Areopagus
of the Art of Dialogue and Intercultural Education project.
Intercultural
Lublin
Lublin Charter of Intercultural Dialogue.
1. Limited Citizenship Rule - intercultural dialogue relies only partly on spectacular festivals and other
large-scale events. Its main current can be found in everyday organic activities within communities,
with a strong grassroots component that crosses national, religious and cultural borders. The
authorities and grant giving organizations should support the main current, not individual events.
2. Permanence Rule - cultural dialogue can be real and efficient only if it takes place over many years;
the activities in this field should be long-term and continuos.
3. Critical Culture Rule - intercultural dialogue cannot be based on cultivation of own memory and
protection of own culture, but it should lead to creation of a critical culture that teaches self-distance,
critical patriotism and empathy towards the Other.
4. Good Memory Rule - intercultural dialogue, although is critical and needs to deal with painful,
and often traumatic past, is also an art of excavating good memory, positive energy, and the need
to approach the Other that are hidden in every person and nation.
5. Dialogue as Craft Rule - intercultural dialogue is not innate, but has to be practiced like any other
craft.
6. Knowledge and Understanding Rule - intercultural dialogue is based on gaining knowledge about
Others and on willingness to understand them; it cannot depend on whether Others do the same.
7. The Reclaimed Past rule - the biggest obstacle to intercultural dialogue is not the past that is mythologized
and full of conflicts, but the future taken away from people and societies; integration of
multicultural community can be successful only if the members of a given community share the
vision of the future.
European Civil Society
The challenges of today connected with multiculturalism and complicated borderlands in Lublin and
the region have been undertaken mostly by active members of the civil society. If we take a close look
at the initiatives that introduce real changes to Polish-Ukrainian relations or overcome the “memory
wounds” between Jews and Poles, we will find out that most of those projects are not carried out by
central authorities or European institutions. The driving force behind them are little municipalities,
different parishes, associations, foundations, and schools. Reverend Stefan Bartuch and Marek Bem,
the first people to overcome historical and cultural divisions, are representatives of such communities.
Similar situation concerns intercultural dialogue that is becoming more and more important in the city.
New competencies are being elaborated every day through work with local communities. They include
such initiatives as Grodzka Gate Centre NN Theater that follows the tradition of alternative culture,
or Homo Faber - a non-governmental organization. In Lublin activities and programs connected
with multiculturalism and borderlands were not implemented by a formed and developed civil socie-
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